evealed: Those were the last words of star xy!" - "When singer xyz takes off her top on stage, the unthinkable happens!" - "Find out here how you can become a millionaire in just one week!" What do these texts have in common? They attract attention and are likely to be clicked on more often than average by users, even if their questionable nature is obvious from the start. Whether the content hidden on the linked page does what the ad promises is another matter. This phenomenon is also known as "clickbaiting" - you arouse the reader's curiosity but at the same time do not satisfy it, so that they click on the link to find out more. This generates a click and at the same time misleads the reader.
Google has now also recognized this problem. As a result, the rcs data portugal company is tightening the guidelines for its advertising service "Google Ads" from July. Such texts are now prohibited in the text of advertisements. But that's not all: photos of real accidents or disasters and police mugshots are no longer allowed to be used in advertisements - at least not to advertise products and services. Advertisements that use before and after pictures to promote "significant changes to the human body" are also prohibited. This adjustment to the guidelines will probably only affect a few advertisers, but those whose advertisements have so far been particularly noticeable and are probably perceived as annoying by many users.
Conclusion
It is absolutely right that Google is against clickbaiting. Nevertheless, the phenomenon will not disappear overnight, because Google is only one of many advertising providers. Large internet portals in particular often resort to other advertising providers. Nevertheless, this decision sends a strong signal and other providers are likely to follow suit sooner or later