Google Ads in RSS Feeds
Ugh, there are 2 feeds I read at the moment that use the new Google Ads. I’m seriously considering unsubscribing from them, as the ads make the posts difficult to read.
In principle I’m not actually against the idea of some ads in feeds. Afterall, if we’re going to avoid visiting someones site by using feeds, we’re also not viewing any advertising that is helping fund that site. In many cases I’m willing to put up with a bit (that’s a bit, not necessarily loads) of advertising for an otherwise free product.
But these ads are appearing in EVERY single feed post. So I just looked at Barry’s feed from Search Engine Roundtable which had about 9 posts in it, and every entry has an ad on, which is very prominent with the way Bloglines displays feeds.
There’s a headline, then a short heading to say with category the post is in, then 2 lines of text, followed very closely by a high visibility ad block which is the same height as the post excerpt.
I think in a feed with full posts, or at least longer excerpts, it may look a bit better, but with so little content in the actual feed, the ads are taking over and making it very difficult to scan.
Personally, I’d rather see RSS ads appear every so many posts, so you see one every 5 or 10 entries. Ideally it would be good (and I’ve not looked into it, so it may already be a possibility) if the site owner could adjust the frequency. So for someone like Barry, who posts often, but with very short excerpts in his feed, perhaps one ad every 7 posts or something. While someone who posts maybe once a day at most, might actually want an ad on every entry.
I think we have to be realistic in the view that ads will leak in to RSS Feeds, those who thought otherwise and moaned when Google offered the functionality I think are living in a bit of a dream world, and several of them I’m guessing will one day use the ads themselves anyway. What needs to be worked out is how to use it as effective advertising, rather that something that makes people want to stop reading.