If you are a Google Adsense user, you may receive a notification which warns you that Google Chrome will support the Better Ads Standards globally starting today, 9th July 2019. What does this warning mean and how will it impact your ads revenue?
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| Adsense Notification about Better Ads Standards |
It is important to maintain balance between ads and users experience. Ads revenue is important in order to support websites, including this website, which provide valuable free contents, knowledges, journalism and social connections. However, if those ads start to become intrusive, users will start to install adblocker which can be devastating for websites owners' income.
The Coalition for Better Ads, which consists of tech giants including Google, then develop the Better Ads Standards which aim to provide improvement for users experience with ads in websites all across the internet, thus eliminate the usage of ads blocker. Google Chrome will start to filter out ads which violate the standards.
Goolge Chrome has already implemented this standard since 2018 in in Europe and North America. Based on this limited run, many websites owners are able to comply with the standard and only 1% websites which get their ads filtered out. This success leads to today's global implementation. The Better Ads Standards will eliminate these types of ads:
For Dekstop Web Experience
- Pop-up Ads
- Auto-playing Video Ads with Sounds
- Presitial Ads with Countdown
- Large Stick Ads
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| Source: Coalition for Better Ads |
For Mobile Web Experience
- Pop-up Ads
- Presitial Ads
- Ad Density Higher than 30%
- Flashing Animated Ads
- Auto-playing Video Ads with Sounds
- Positial Ads with Countdown
- Full-screen Scroller Ads
- Large Sticky Ads
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| Source: Coalition for Better Ads |
You can find the detailed explanation of the these points at Better Ads website.
The Effect of Better Ads Standards on Website Owners
I think that website owners will have to pay close attention to Better Ads Standards Implementation in Google Chrome because it is the most widely used browser in the world. I think that decrease in revenue will be expected since we may have to reduce the amount of ads shown in our website. However, in the long run we may also see increase in revenue again because less users would not use adblockers.
Google and website owners may interpret the standards differently, and this can also cause myriads of problem because as far as I know, currently there is no tools in which website owners can appeal Google's decision. The lack of helpful notification in Adsense is also alarming, I believe that many website owners are still not aware of this change.
Google has not explained how this standard will affect its own platform too. Furthermore, How this standard will be enforced in Youtube is still not widely known. I also think that this implementation may upset many big publishers, like news website in Indonesia which is plastered by ads.
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As of right now, we can check whether our websites violate this standard or not via google webmaster search console https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ad-experience-unverified?hl=en
It is important to check this tool periodicallty so that you can fix any violation quickly. The explanation on how to use this tool is shown in the following video.
The Effect of Better Ads Standards on Website Visitors
Better Ads Standards will be seen as postive change for internet users. We all hate those annoying big sticky ads which take up half of phone screen. It will also make page loading time shorter and less data will be used. The research by Better Ads Coalition does show that users tolerate ads, in some cases find that properly displayed ads can be useful.
However, a big question still remains whether users will actually turn off their adblockers when this standard is implemented.
Sources:
https://www.betterads.org/standards/
https://blog.chromium.org/2019/01/building-better-world-wide-web.html
https://www.business.com/articles/google-ad-blocker-standards/
https://support.google.com/webtools/community/?hl=en&gpf=%23!forum%2Fad-experience-report
Tired of getting your Google Adsense application rejected? Check my experience on how to fix Inventory: Under Construction problem.