I’ve been comparing clicks on my pages with Google ads to what is reported by MyBlogLog. MyBlogLog is a free utility that keeps track of links to and from your pages. It is interesting because it reports on where you readers are going when they leave your page. MyBlogLog typically reports about ten times as many links to ads as Google reports.

I have discovered some of the probable reasons why.

1) Google clicks don’t count if the surfer doesn’t remain on the target site for some minimum time, thought to be 20 seconds. A surfer must stay long enough at a target site to do a little reading. I don’t know how they determine this unless the site has Google analytics, but it is what I read.

2) MyBlogLog is not actually recording clicks, but is recording the mouse location when the page closes. In the case where a Google banner is right under the menu, they record a Google click when none occurred. This is especially true of StumbleUpon tool bars and someone on the nets was able to trace a large number of non-clicks to StumbleUpon. Since my sites get lots of StumbleUpon-ers, I assume that this is happening.

3) The more ominous reason is that Google has decided that clicks to you pages are likely to be fraudulent or not result in a sale or positive action at the target sites. This would require Google Analytics to be installed at the target site, which usually is. If you have real slacker surfers or evil or drunk surfers then their clicks are worthless and Google makes some kind of judgment about clicks from your site.

I panicked last night and I started replacing Google ads at HarpTab.com with Chitika ads. Chitika ads are moving banners that look very much like ads, but are said to pay well. I was very disappointed. After 10,000 banner displays, I made 30 cents. This is not good news. I was making a very low amount from the Google ads, but at least I made something and there were days that I made $10 or more from HarpTab.com. Lately I’ve been making about a buck a day. I think that I’ll let the Chitika ads run a few more days as a test. I’ll let them “cleanse the pallet” at harptab and maybe when I come back, the Google ads will do better.

By the way, there is an excellent article on Banner Blindness at Jakob Nielsen’s AlertBox. The current article is about how a link that looks too fancy will trigger an ad reaction and surfers will avoid it. Links should look like normal links. Surfers will actively avoid anything that looks like an ad.