Google Asks Users to Disable Ad Blocking for Its Sites

It looks like Google started to show warnings if you use AdBlock or AdBlock Plus, the most popular ad blockers (they have more than 50 million users). A reader from Brazil noticed this message: "Oh no, it seems like you are blocking Google's ads. These ads pay for Google products that people use every day. It's easy to deactivate ad blocking just for Google. And it won't change your ad blocking settings or other settings".

The message links to a filter that includes a long list of exceptions like "@@||www.google.com^$document" and "@@||maps.google.com^$document".

Here's a screenshot of the Google whitelist filter (it actually includes more domains):

This is pretty weird, considering that the ads were not blocked, as you can see in the screenshot. Google ads are not blocked by default in AdBlock Plus, since they're considered "acceptable ads". Some sites have speculated that Google paid AdBlock Plus to whitelist its ads, but that's not very clear.

Google Discovery also reported about this back in May, so it looks like the experiment is limited to Google Brazil, at least for now.

{ Thanks, Marcos Alexandre. }

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Star Gmail Ads

Remember Gmail's ads that look like regular mail and are also displayed in the promotions tab? Google disabled many of the features that were available for regular messages, so you couldn't mark them as unread, flag them as spam, label them or add them to Google Tasks. The fake messages were only available in the web interface, so you couldn't find them if you used other email clients.

Now you can convert the fake messages to regular messages: just star the ads and they are saved to your inbox as messages received from mail-noreply@google.com. "New! Starring Ads. Starred ads will be saved to your Promotions inbox," informs Gmail. While the messages are added to the Promotions tab, you'll also see them in the Primary tab because all the starred inbox messages are added to the Primary tab by default. You can unstar the messages, delete them, archive them (just don't send a reply).

This screenshot allows you to see both the ad and the message created from the ad after starring it. The ad is removed after a few seconds, so you don't get duplicates.

Here's the ad:

... and the message created by Google:

All the sponsored promotions that are available for your account can be found at: https://mail.google.com/mail/#pinbox.

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Google Tests Image Ads for Top Search Results

Back in 2010, Google launched a feature that allowed local businesses to add yellow markers to the map and promote their websites. Tags were actually ads that were placed inside local search results. It was a weird way to mix organic search results with ads and this feature was discontinued in 2011.

Now Google tests a similar feature for web search results. Instead of adding links and markers, advertisers can add huge banners above their search listings, but only for navigational searches. "The banners allow brands to take over the ad space on branded search queries and essentially present a branded search results experience," reports Search Engine Land. "The team at Synrgy has learned from a source at Google that the brand image experiment is live with about 30 advertisers, including Crate & Barrel and Virgin America. The test is showing for less than 5 percent of search queries," mentions Barry Schwartz. Basically, instead of displaying ads for competitors, Google shows a huge banner for the top search result.

"We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries. Advertisers have long been able to add informative visual elements to their search ads, with features like Media Ads, Product Listing Ads and Image Extensions," explained Google.

Well, that's not exactly true. The images are added to the search results, not to the search ads. Even though the top search result and the corresponding sitelinks are grouped with the image ad and the entire section is labeled "sponsored", this is actually the top search result.

The truth is that Google has continually added features from the organic search results to the search ads and Google has also started to mix search results with ads. For example, Google Shopping results are now ads, since companies need to pay to be included in the list of results. Booking links from flights search and hotel search are sponsored links.

For some searches, Google shows so many ads that you have to scroll to find some actual search results. Here's a screenshot of a Google search page for [tablet]: I highlighted the only organic result you can see without scrolling down. The Chrome window was resized to 1063x890, so there's enough vertical space. Most laptops sold today have lower resolutions: most likely, 1366x768.

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Gmail's Sponsored Promotions

Gmail's personalized ads are nothing new. Back in 2011, Google announced that Gmail would no longer show just ads related to the message you're currently reading, but also ads related to topics you're interested in. "For example, if you've recently read a lot of messages about cameras, maybe you'd like to see an offer from your local camera shop."

I've recently noticed some Gmail sidebar ads slightly different than the experimental format from 2011. You could hide the ad by clicking the "x" icon and even check other ads by clicking the "more promotions" link. The "sponsored promotions" page actually has a permalink: https://mail.google.com/mail/#pinbox (first spotted a few months ago). If you don't see any promotion, opt in here.

The ads look like regular emails, although features like "reply" or "mark as spam" aren't available. "It's a new type of ad you can save to your inbox or forward on. If you dismiss this ad, you won't see it again." Ads have permalinks like: https://mail.google.com/mail/#ad/76002.

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