> What's Google's interest in pointless clicks? Short term they could get some extra charge for those
Because there are humans in the loop, and "Google" isn't a monolithic all-seeing entity. Sales guys, devs, etc. are rewarded on a quarterly (or yearly) basis, and short-term gains are prioritized over long-term effects ( I mean, how _do_ you measure the fact that, say, after getting 9 months of pointless clicks, the advertiser decided to cut their Adwords budget by 30%?)
So, someone runs an experiment (replace the obvious radio button with a hidden drop-down box, say), the clicks on the advertiser's ads go up, so the experiment increases revenue week-over-week by, say, 3%; and voila, everyone involved gets a pat on the back and a nice phat bonus come the next eval cycle, and maybe a promotion too.
> "I mean, how _do_ you measure the fact that, say, after getting 9 months of pointless clicks, the advertiser decided to cut their Adwords budget by 30%?"
Oh man, this is _the_ problem with metrics. We must find a way to measure and demonstrate aversion (instead of conversion).
Because there are humans in the loop, and "Google" isn't a monolithic all-seeing entity. Sales guys, devs, etc. are rewarded on a quarterly (or yearly) basis, and short-term gains are prioritized over long-term effects ( I mean, how _do_ you measure the fact that, say, after getting 9 months of pointless clicks, the advertiser decided to cut their Adwords budget by 30%?)
So, someone runs an experiment (replace the obvious radio button with a hidden drop-down box, say), the clicks on the advertiser's ads go up, so the experiment increases revenue week-over-week by, say, 3%; and voila, everyone involved gets a pat on the back and a nice phat bonus come the next eval cycle, and maybe a promotion too.