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I had just got onto Twitter and noticed that 1 second prior Squid Engineer Gil had made this announcement:
“New Squidoo ad experiment coming soon. To opt out, select “Opt out of text link ads” in Lens Settings section of Workshop.”
Oh dear.
They of course have the right to experiment, but I speak for many when I say that text link ads takes away from potential Adsense ad clickage. And don’t pay nearly as much. And I don’t know this for a fact, as it’s been so long since I’ve ever clicked on an Adsense ad so it’s just hearsay, but Adsense ads launch in a new browser window (or tab) but Text Link ads (if it’s going to be Kontera) are usually set up to open the target site in the same window by default. That means once your visitor has clicked, they’re gone!
And the contextual part of it is totally crap. They’ll grab a word that is relevant to the advertiser, but the advertiser is (from my experience) completely out of context with the content of the page.
Update: It’s not Kontera, but Infolinks. I haven’t had experience with them. But what will be the reaction of Lensmasters when they start to see these unapproved links in their content? Adsense ads are one thing, but right in amongst your own words it’s like you’re personally endorsing the link.
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7 Comments
Oh dear…
If squidoo sprinkles links throughout our content then they will be breaking many of their own promises.
That would TOTALLY SUCK!!!
Hey Lewis!
Did they mention something along those lines in a blog post or in a forum thread?
Yup…I’m pretty new and the sudden links are in green with an underline…I think I gave Squidoo permission recently to add stuff. But if I click the link I can’t go back! Although, I can hover the mouse and see what it is without clicking. Still, the ads are sometimes going directly to my competition. I know there’s more than enough to go around, but really! Actually, the links come and go. Somebody’s having fun.
They’re kinda random. Actually you can “go back” and take them out, but need to keep a very close eye on things, to be sure.
From what I can see, Infolinks suck as bad as Kontera.
I’ve opened up one of my lenses (http://www.squidoo.com/100yearsago) and I see two links in the INTRODUCTION MODULE. Way to go trying to steal my traffic!
The text “in black and white” and “nothing to do”. Both going to thefreedictionary.com
Ironic they picked the term “nothing to do” because the ads has absolutely NOTHING TO DO with the context of the lens.
I know I can opt out of this, but I’ve got 900 lenses. Do I really want to waste 8 or more hours mindlessly opening, editing, clicking and saving each lens?
No.
Here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to go and publish another hub. Because here’s the deal, while my Squidoo earnings have been sliding down a slippery slope, my hubs have seen me increase my Adsense earnings by about 400%. I have less hubs, I in fact have less traffic to my hubs, but my HubPages earnings are now outstripping my Squidoo earnings.
I’ve just recently used some of those HubPage generated Adsense funds to buy myself a new Dell 9 inch Mini. So when I’m not in the home office with my Dell notebook (it’s plugged into a second monitor, so every time I unplug it my 40+ folders and documents sitting on the right hand side all move to the notebook monitor, so annoying) but also because it’s plugged into a switch, two external hard drives and a printer. So now I can sit in my recliner next to my wife as she watches Men In Trees and a few other favourite shows, not being a hermit in the office. Also I can take it out and about with me, and over the coming months I’ll be out and about more than I’d prefer, but now I’ve got the Dell Mini ready to go. This will of course result in even more hubs.
I understand that Squidoo Inc needs to be profitable, and maintain a steady cashflow to keep operating. But it would be unfortunate if they take for granted or stop caring about their greatest asset, the content producers. The lensmasters who produce and publish the life blood of Squidoo.
Another Update: Ads will be filtered according to the SquidDon’t list, Global Opt Out, Ads will open in an new window or have a back button, more on topic (anything will be an improvement over what I’ve seen so far) and hopefully restricting the infolinks from the introduction module.
If all that gets done, it could be a winner. In the meantime I have no idea how InfoLinks have survived as a viable company.
The text link ads are horrible! These things are nothing but annoying to the reader…interrupt my reading, slow to load the preview and not even related to the content once the preview displays.
I can’t believe they get any clicks other than by accident.
I’m still not feeling too good about these. At first I was horrified and I did the global opt-out on all my lenses, but then after I heard about the improvements to it I figured, ok, I’ll give InfoLinks a chance. At least now I know they aren’t going to show my visitors anything too horrible… but I’m not seeing a lot of relevancy either. And they’re still showing up in the introduction, at least for me.