How Should An AdSense “Click” Be Defined?

Over at the Search Engine Roundtable I discovered an interesting post discussing recent changes in Google's definition of a 'click' with regards to its AdSense publisher network.

"Last night I received an email from Google notifying me that they are changing the required action of a user, for a click to occur on an AdSense ad," explains Barry Schwartz. "Google said previously, if you clicked anywhere on an ad, including the background of the ad, that would constitute a click. Now, a user must click on the ad title or URL for it to constitute a click."

This recent announcement follows similar changes at AdWords which seems to have proved successful. My question though is how will publishers feel about this news, and how much could it affect the revenue of AdSense users?

To be honest, I didn't even have previous knowledge that clicking on the background in an ad constituted a click, but apparently that is the case. According to Google, the change has been made to "reduce accidental clicks and increase value for advertisers," but why was this not the case from the beginning? Was Google experimenting to see how many people inadvertently clicked on the background, or was it used to help boost profits (possibly for publishers and/or Google itself)?

Those, of course, are just some of my theories, but it really doesn't make sense for Google to make the backgrounds of ads inactive now as compared to when AdSense launched.

Schwartz explains how Google previously implemented the same change in April for AdWords ads that display around search results on Google's website. "Yes, this did have a significant impact on advertiser's spend and earnings," says Schwartz. "But it obviously is working, because both advertisers seem to have been happy from the change and Google is now implementing this on AdSense ads."

With AdSense though, there are potential drawbacks that could have publishers rushing to update their code. For instance, not all ad formats display the URL, such as the banner (468×60) and half-banner (234×60) sizes. Could this further affect profits for participating publishers, and if so, would Google be willing the redesign the ads to include URLs? Or, would publishers be left to the task of choosing a different size ad format.

Also, the April AdWords update was accompanied by a change in the background color among ads, and many advertisers seem to be unsure of whether declines in click-through rate (CTR) is due to the color change or the lack of background clicks?

So far, Google has only acknowledged that revenues may be affected and has provided the following explanation:

"Although we recognize these changes may result in a RPM decrease for some publishers in the short term, we expect these improvements will lead to increased advertiser spend in the long term. By investing in the long-run health of the relationship between AdSense publishers, AdWords advertisers and your sites' visitors, we're ensuring your continued success as an AdSense partner."

I can't help but agree with Schwartz when he proclaims that "less clicks translates into less money," but I also believe that the backgrounds of ads should be inactive and should have been from the start. By switching to this method now, however, Google has done nothing but cause controversy where it could have been avoided.

What do you think… should the background be inactive or should "accidental clicks" be counted too?

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