Blatantly deceiving banner ad

[expired user #7372]'s profile image [expired user #7372] posted 10 years ago in General Permalink
I realize that ads are getting a bit trickier and to get people to click on them. And I realize this helps you get some ad clicks. But the BrowserSafeGuard ad you have is just over the top misleading, and the worst we've ever seen. Download button in the same color, background gradient the same, the adChoices icon and item text barely visible to the right. The page itself barely letting the user know it's a different product...

Come on. This is just too much, and is blatantly deceiving. Almost no way to tell it's an ad and not part of your page. Worse, people are wasting their time and potentially downloading harmful software.

I hope you remove this ad as soon as possible. It might make you a few bucks, but that's extremely selfish.
kalvaro's profile image kalvaro posted 10 years ago Permalink
I'm pretty sure that the HeidiSQL webmaster does not select and display adds individually. You normally sell the space and insert some code and the advertising company algorithms choose the ads. Furthermore, ads are often customized according to user's browsing history.

What I mean is that I haven't seen the BrowserSafeGuard ad and it's possible that Anse hasn't seen it either. Perhaps if you post a screenshot it can get reported to Google Adsense.
ansgar's profile image ansgar posted 10 years ago Permalink
I have the Google Publisher Toolbar, which I'm using to report such misleading ads to Google, and to disable these. These shitty ads with a huge "Download" button make HeidiSQL users think that this is the download link for HeidiSQL. Google should put some money in a better detection of such misleading, spammer ads. I'm just googling for a permanent solution here.
ansgar's profile image ansgar posted 10 years ago Permalink
I have just followed an advice from http://techie-buzz.com/webmaster-tips/google-adsense-tip-disable-image-ads.html . The articles tells about good results when accepting only text ads, suppressing image ads. That way I think those nasty download buttons should be gone.

Please login to leave a reply, or register at first.