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I’ve started to treat Google AdSense ads like banner ads, I ignore them. In fact because they are text based it’s even easier to ignore them than some banners with their flashy animation, colours and pictures of beautiful women…ahem. So is this a trend that many people are experiencing? Is the average Internet user screening out AdSense as “advertising noise”, filtered automatically by the brain no matter how relevant?

AdSense placed on content sites is different from AdWords placed in search results on Google. When I conduct a search on Google I have a question and I’m looking for an answer. The AdWords results may just have the answer for me and if the advertiser is willing to spend money they are likely to be taking things seriously so I at least give them a glance. In a content site when I see those text links they are distractions diverting me away from the content I am there to read. Hence I treat them like banners, vying for my attention to sell me something.

But am I considered an average Internet user? Perhaps not and because of this I can’t use my own interaction with AdSense as an indication of how others are treating the media. I remember reading a while ago during the online advertising decline in the post-dot.com bust that banners, in particular the 468*60 standard horizontal banners were being ignored. They were like TV ads for the Internet. A nuisance but something that had to be accepted in order to make the medium financially viable. The online advertising industry needed to evolve and shortly after Google AdSense and AdWords created a revolution and made Google an extremely profitable company.

Jim Kukral has labelled Google AdSense a huge failure. He tested the ads on his site which has an audience of AdSense experts and affiliate marketeers. These individuals are extremely savvy with online business and marketing, and are probably acting much like me, screening out the ads and consequently producing awful click through rates.

There is a good lesson there. It’s about choosing the right target market if you intend to use AdSense to make money. Don’t try and sell meat to butchers.

Yaro Starak