Hi all.
I noticed this happened a few days ago.

I think it is extremely rare, but it indicates that from time to time some users are seeing this.

http://www.web-design-pros.ca/share/GoogleAdsenseUseful.gif (http://www.web-design-pros.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=235)

Google must be using this to get user reaction to a landing page.

Maybe if your site gets a lot of "No" votes your AdWords advertising cost will go up.

Just something to watch for.

That is a huge screen capture... would love to see the whole page.... now have to start querying to see if I can get it.

It's difficult to see the logic in this, since it seems they are asking for a vote before the user has even clicked the link. And, once the user has clicked the link they are very unlikely to come back and vote. I just don't see how this helps. What I *do* think makes a lot of sense is the way they measure user experince on pages containing the tracking code, since at that point the user has had a complete experience with the advertiser.

according to some research done in my field.
users submitted an average of 5.4 travel-related searches over the study period, and clicked on an average of 7.8 links within search results.

They are expecting that people will be back to the search results page, unless other sectors differ vastly from travel...

A couple of quick comments:

First, this is a limited test that has been going on for some time now - and which is seen by a small percentage of users.

It's difficult to see the logic in this, since it seems they are asking for a vote before the user has even clicked the link. And, once the user has clicked the link they are very unlikely to come back and vote. The 'Was this site useful?' text and buttons only appear after one has come back to Google from the advertisers site. And whether or not they are likely to be seen/clicked once the user has come back is one of the things being tested. ;)

AWR

A couple of quick comments:

First, this is a limited test that has been going on for some time now - and which is seen by a small percentage of users.

The 'Was this site useful?' text and buttons only appear after one has come back to Google from the advertisers site. And whether or not they are likely to be seen/clicked once the user has come back is one of the things being tested. ;)

AWR

Does it get counted as another click?

Does it get counted as another click? Nope.

AWR

So say we measure the degree of usefulness of a link:

1 - not useful at all
...
10 - extremely useful

I find it hard to believe that people who would rank the usefulness of a link somewhere between 7 - 10 would return to the search page. If the link was very useful then there wouldn't be any use in returning, generally speaking.

So I would assume the people who would return to the search page would rank the link somewhere between 1-6, those who would rank it somewhere between 4-6 might click on "Yes" under "Was this link useful?", those who would rank the link 1-3 might click on "No".

Take into account also people's interpretation of "useful" in a yes or no question. Some may define useful only if the link accomplished what they were attempting to accomplish, others may deem it useful if it helped reach twoards that accomplishment, still others may find it useful because they found the site to be interesting about other topics that have nothing to do with the search term.

Take also into account the sophistication of the users ability to search which may or may not be apparant through the search term.

I'm not saying the idea is all together a bad one, I just think that there are so many varibles involved that the data isn't worth its weight in bytes unless it is coupled with tracking a users behavior over an extended period of time.

Here's a hypothetical:
User searches for "How to stop the voices in your head"
User clicks on an Ad
The voices in the users head start screaming at him
User goes back to the search page
User clicks "No" this link wasn't useful

Here's another:
User searches for fibonacci sequence
User clicks on a Ad
Site is selling a book about the fib seq
user goes back to the search engine
clicks "no" not useful as the site didn't tell him anything about the fib seq
user searches around some more, this time hitting the organics
user learns more and more about the fib seq
user learns enough to have a good understanding of it and at a site that the user thinks is autoritative on the topic he finds a recommendation and link to the book from the Ad he origianlly went to
user buys the book
user logs off

So although the Ad wasn't useful at the beginning of the search, it was at the end of the search. You may be able to take this into account by tracking the users behavior, but then again, if the book is available from multiple sources, perhaps not.

I would rather see some sort of questionaire that users sign up to be part of.
"Help us make your search results better - sign up now!" After a person signs up, which is just a checking the Yes box of some statement, a user clicks on an Ad, they go to the site, when the user leaves the site a questionaire comes up, a temp redirect, pop-up, email, whatever.

How useful did you find this site in relation to your search?
1-5

Would you like to continue to participate in this questionaire during your next search on Google?

Yes No

Perhaps email would be the best avenue, as by the time the user answers the email he/she is more likely to have completed the search and can weigh how useful that particular link was more accurately.

Anyways, just some thoughts from someone avoiding doing work :)

NiV23

I want to argue the point with you on some of that but the voices in my head are screaming to loud to concentrate.

Make sure to click:

"No, this post was not useful"

NiV23