Sponsored Links were really hard to read.

August 20, 2004 11:47 AM

I did a google search on askMe and got great results, but I noticed that the Sponsored Links were really hard to read. (For example) Light grey and yellow on a pale green/blue. I don't know what the click throughs are on the Google searchs, or how important / significant this revenue is. Nor do I care. The Google Ads are readable and unobtrusive and fit well everywhere else in the MeFi domain. This one spot seems like a small oversight. Worth fixing? Not my call.
posted by putzface_dickman to Bugs at 11:47 AM (9 comments total)

Isn't this a google problem, not a mathowie one?
posted by dash_slot- at 11:55 AM on August 20, 2004

I don't think so. It looks like he set the color scheme on the results page. One of the perks of the AdSense program. If it was just a regular white google page I wouldn't have posted it. I don't think google would do that custom skinning for everyone, so I figure it's Matt.
posted by putzface_dickman at 11:59 AM on August 20, 2004

I'll admit (beyond being fairly deferential in my post) that this may be a "can't be fixed 'cause Google allows some control but not total control" sitchawayshun.
posted by putzface_dickman at 12:04 PM on August 20, 2004

it's google's problem, not mine. Nobody makes money on google searches on google.com besides google themselves. Those are google ads, not adsense partner ones. I can only customize the color of the search page, it's up to them to do their ads themselves.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2004

I thought those would be included in AdSense. They probably should be. With all of the strings passed to set color, I figured one was like an AdSense affiliate identifier.
posted by putzface_dickman at 12:51 PM on August 20, 2004

So AskMe does or doesn't use Google search via AdSense? I use it for my site and IIRC I have some level of visual control over the results page. And my search box code snippet looked quite different from the AskMe page. Also, with search via AdSense you DO get paid for ad clicks, right?
posted by turbodog at 2:23 PM on August 20, 2004

Nope, custom colored Google searches limited to you site's server are not part of the Adsense program at all. I am not aware of a "search via adsense" program.

It's just a google search page that is adding site:metafilter.com to search results and passing custom colors. It's all on google's site.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:39 PM on August 20, 2004

Here's the link: Google AdSense for search. I don't think that it's been available for very long.
posted by turbodog at 8:49 PM on August 20, 2004

Mathowie's right. This isn't AdSense for Search, which was introduced a couple months ago. I mean, if he wanted to sign up for that, he could easily do it through his AdSense account (nudge, nudge). But this search looks like it's Google "Free Search". It is odd that the colors look that way, though.

If I remember, I'll look into finding out if we can do something about it on Monday (I work at Google). Otherwise, it's not horribly obtrusive, just kinda weird, in my opinion.
posted by fishbulb at 12:12 AM on August 21, 2004