Poll: Do you click on online advertising?

3 points·jacquesm··5 comments

I never click ads, and I am not aware of those in my direct environment ever clicking them. And yet, going by google adsense reports and other advertisers it seems that some people actually do click ads. Do you click ads ?

View on HN

I click ads on Google for 2 reasons:

1) If I feel the thing is a scam, I'm costing them money 2) to comparison shop...I figure if someone buys ads for a keyword, then they are somewhat relevant...so it gives me 4-5 companies to start my search with(obviously I also check out organic search results)

I think I've clicked on 3 ads in my whole life (apart from the accidental clicks). Every time I did that was because the ad was better than the organic search results below.

I would click ads in theory if I happened to notice them and was interested. But so many sites become horribly slow and unuseable because of ads that I have used multiple methods of blocking them for years. And even when ads do show up my instinct is to ignore them as irrelevent noise, so clicking is quite rare in practice.

I chose "never". I am interested in content, not billboards. However, I am fooled like everyone else by ads that are presented as online forum posts, such as the "Check out my startup" links on HN. Maybe that is because these are a bit better targeted than the random junk that appears in the dedicated ad boxes.

I click on "premium" ads sometimes. Like The Deck and the ads on SO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com