Adsense Experts - Help Me Please

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Hi All,

I've been running my website (Free Fitness Tips | Free, Impartial Fitness Advice) since October 2007 and have had Google Adsense ads on the website from day 1. Whilst I am by no means an Adsense expert I have quite a lot of experience with it and have experimented with different layouts, ad types, ad sizes etc. Generally when I change any of the Adsense adverts on my website I have a reasonable idea of what to expect. However, over the last couple of days I made a change and the results completely baffled me so I was wondering if any Adsense experts could help me out.

Over the last year my Adsense CTR has been between 1.5% and 2% and it has never dropped below 1% on a daily basis. Prior to my latest change I was running 3 content units (1 at the top of each article, 1 in the middle of each article and 1 at the bottom of each article) and 1 link unit (at the top of each article above the top content unit). After analysing my Adsense results for the year so far I decided to remove the top link unit as it was only getting about 10% of the sites clicks and its average CPC was about half that of the other 3 content units. My theory was that people would click on the top content unit instead and with the much greater average CPC this would provide more revenue. I made the change on Saturday (19/03/2011) and since then my daily CTRs have dropped to around 0.5%. Considering how the unit was performing prior to removing it, this drop in CTR seems far too large.

So I was wondering if any Adsense experts have an idea why my CTR has dropped so dramatically? Am I missing something glaringly obvious? It just doesn't feel right to me that 1 small change has had such a massive, negative impact. I've removed Adsense units before and never experienced anything on this scale but I have made no other changes to the website so the only logical conclusion for this drop in CTR is me removing this link unit.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom
#adsense #experts
  • Profile picture of the author simonbuzz
    Banned
    First I think you are showing too many ads...and that could be a problem to your visitor...try showing smaller number of ads....as far as i think...showing a ad in the middle of a post make a low CTR.....try showing the ads under that post and below the title...hope that helps...
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  • Profile picture of the author jack jastin
    In my opinion, Place the Adverts just parallel to your content side by side that may help you in raising up your CTR.
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  • Profile picture of the author theebookcavern
    Thanks guys. However, I'm not really concerned with the current ad placement. I'm more concerned with what has made the current CTR drop so dramatically. These adverts have been in those positions for a good couple of months now and I have managed to get a CTR of between 1.5% to 2%. After removing 1 link unit this CTR has dropped to 0.5% and I just want to know if there could be any other reasons for this drop in CTR besides the removal of the link unit. As I mentioned above the link unit was the worst performing unit so I would not expect removing it to have had such an adverse effect. Is there anything glaringly obvious that I am missing that could have caused CTR to drop dramatically over the last few dayss?

    Thanks,

    Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author jacked
    It has only been 3 days, try waiting a week and see how it goes, you may just be having some bad days. Has the traffic been the same?
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  • Profile picture of the author theebookcavern
    Thanks Jacked. Probably right. The change does seem odd but running with it for a full week will give me a better picture. Traffic has been virtually the same so I don't think that is a factor.
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    • Profile picture of the author seointern
      I'm seeing the same thing with my CTR & doing more research I'm finding similar results for a lot of other sites. With that said I haven't found the answer? Has anyone got any insight on the recent CTR drop within Adsense? All the sites haven't changed anything & just overnight (Friday March 18th - at least for me) everything dropped & has stayed down since?
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      • Profile picture of the author theebookcavern
        Hey Guys,

        Just thought I would provide you with a quick update on this. Since my last post my Adsense earnings and CTR have actually got worse despite my traffic getting better. Like 'seointern' I have been doing a little digging and a lot of people seem to be experiencing similar reductions in their Adsense CTR. The best explanation for this that I have managed to find is here; CTR has dropped Google AdSense forum at WebmasterWorld

        Some of the contributors to this thread suggest that since the Google Panda update different types of visitors are now coming to their sites and these new visitor types click on Google Adsense adverts a lot less. Seems a little strange to me but is the most logical explanation I have found for such a dramatic reduction in CTR.

        Does anyone else have any thoughts?
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  • Profile picture of the author syahbiz
    my ctr is bad anyone help
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    • Profile picture of the author JMac
      One issue is, your site is informational and purely for FYI. Sites like this generally have a low CTR. I would go to your site because I was curious about the content and then after reading, there is no real reason to click on an ad. Try changing your content a bit to address a problem that people are looking for a quick fix. I have found that if I place content that offers to teach them how to fix a problem, most people would rather click one of my ad's than follow thru and fix it themselves. My virus page below has a 20% CTR and yet, everything a person needs to get free virus help is on my site. There are downloads for the best free antivirus programs, independent surveys showing they work and even videos on how to install and update them. Yet people still click those silly ad's because they want it fixed RIGHT NOW rather than read a bit and do it themselves.
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      • Originally Posted by JMac View Post

        One issue is, your site is informational and purely for FYI. Sites like this generally have a low CTR. I would go to your site because I was curious about the content and then after reading, there is no real reason to click on an ad. Try changing your content a bit to address a problem that people are looking for a quick fix. I have found that if I place content that offers to teach them how to fix a problem, most people would rather click one of my ad's than follow thru and fix it themselves. My virus page below has a 20% CTR and yet, everything a person needs to get free virus help is on my site. There are downloads for the best free antivirus programs, independent surveys showing they work and even videos on how to install and update them. Yet people still click those silly ad's because they want it fixed RIGHT NOW rather than read a bit and do it themselves.
        JMac is giving you good advice here I think. Why?

        If you develop a strong blog on a specific product or service, your CTR really climbs. We have two blogs that only have 2 ad units on each post, and the layout has the main ad unit above the fold before the visitors even scroll down to the content. The CTR on these product-based blogs both average 10-12% - that is very high.

        Some people claim that having a CTR that high will get you banned, but in our experience that is false. If your blog has good content, and is not overloaded with ad units, Google KNOWS why your CTR is so high. They know that your visitors are eager to solve their problem and are more that willing to click ads.

        These blogs are in the financial services arena.
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        • Profile picture of the author RalphealJackson2
          You should try the adsens 100k blueprint course, which I personally found to be very valuable
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  • Profile picture of the author theebookcavern
    Hey JMac,

    Yeah I understand that my site is very informational and that having the word "free" in the title does not help convince people to make a purchase or click an advert. However, my site has always been like that so this would only explain my general CTR - not why CTR has fallen so dramatically over the last few weeks.

    I've also got another update that I would advise anyone experiencing similar drops in CTR to try - update your Adsense code. It could be pure coincidence (as my previous code looked fine) but I decided to generate new code for all my Adsense adverts (just in case Google had made some code changes that I wasn't aware of). Since implementing the new code my CTR has got much better. Like I said above, this could be pure coincidence but it's worth a try.
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  • Profile picture of the author theebookcavern
    Thanks for the feedback guys. I understand JMac is giving me good advice and I could improve my CTR and earnings by changing my style of writing. However, this is not something I want to do. My number 1 goal with this site is to write about fitness in my own style and share this information with others. Whilst generating revenue from this website is a very important secondary goal I do not want to change my style of writing to do this.

    This is why I was asking for any suggestions why my CTR has dropped. Improving my current average CTR is a separate issue.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dellco
      Theebookcavern,

      I own several blogs that I've been blogging on for a long time; they are like yours. My CTR is also 1-2% but sometimes they drop below 1%. It has been this way for a long time. I would not put too much stock into the dropped CTR. I've a 4 year old blog where the CTR was more than 2%, 3 years ago, then dropped to below 1% for some months, and then gone back up to 1-2% in the past few months.

      I'm sure health niches are like that, where people are quite cynical and wary, they probably seen too many **** berry claims by now .

      It's admirable you refuse to change your writing style; same here. How much traffic do you average per month? You will find the more traffic you get, usually the CTR drops.

      Very high traffic blogs don't have high CTR but make up for it through their traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author BXPS
    My Adsense income of parked domain has dropped completly to 0. it used to be in the range 1-3$.

    Thinking of creating the domains into Micro Niche sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author shuvo
    for increasing CTR you may like to change your ad color as like the content of your site and keep the site design simple.Dont make frequent change in ad positions and concentrate more on writing quality articles and building traffic.Another thing just forget to mention keep less ads.
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