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Similar to what Google has been doing with ads in search results, they also now restricted the clickable area in AdSense (the kind of Google ads webmasters can include on their pages).

Instead of allowing a click to be triggered in a broad rectangle around the text – which used to include whitespace in that area – you must now click specifically on the underlined title or the colorized URL below the snippet.

I’ve marked the old and new clickable areas below – note these are just approximations to get the point across, it’s not pixel-perfect:

With this change, Google wants to decrease accidental clicks. This has the short-term potential of lowering your AdSense revenues, but I think it’s a good move. Not only because it’s more ethical, but also because in the long run advertisers will be more likely to pay for services that work, and accidental clicks are a kind of system bug. I’m curious how much my AdSense income will drop, I guess all those of us using AdSense will see in a day or two.

Graphic/ Flash ads in the meantime I suppose aren’t affected by this, but I asked Google just in case, and will update if I get a reply.

[Thanks Ionut and Daniel!]

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