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Adsense Idea

by Keithbrad
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey guys, so I know the most common answer will probably be "just try it" but I was wondering if any of you had similar experiences with "less ads = more money"

So I run a blog that is starting to see some significant traffic, I run two leaderboard ads on it one at the top and one at the bottom. After a week of being up I've noticed that the bottom ad is getting about 40 times more clicks than the top one but the the CPC for the top ad is around 3 times more than the ad at the bottom.

Anyways, I made some calculations and figured if I took the top ad off and got the same CPC on the bottom ads as the top I would be roughly trippling my earnings. Is this how Adsense works though? Anyone else done similar tests? Also I know one of the number one rules of Adsense is to make sure you have an ad above the "fold". Am I crazy to not even have one ad at the top of my blog?

Thanks in advance!
#adsense #idea
  • Profile picture of the author Sillysoft
    All I could tell you is try split testing and go from there. I tried with less ads and have had mix results. Then Google team comes along and sends a message stating I would make more money adding a 3rd ad to my pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author evilsaigon
    I got to agree with the bottom ad conversions. My bottom ad unit earns around 6 times the earnings of my top ad unit, which is even above the fold. People seem to be more inclined to click after reading your content because they are looking for more information.

    And there are rumors that less ads may raise your cpc. It might due to stiffer competition since there will be more advertisers vying for less space on your site. I don't know if it is really true, but I think it sounds plausible to earn more with less ad, and thus worth testing.
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    • Profile picture of the author Keithbrad
      Originally Posted by evilsaigon View Post

      I got to agree with the bottom ad conversions. My bottom ad unit earns around 6 times the earnings of my top ad unit, which is even above the fold. People seem to be more inclined to click after reading your content because they are looking for more information.

      And there are rumors that less ads may raise your cpc. It might due to stiffer competition since there will be more advertisers vying for less space on your site. I don't know if it is really true, but I think it sounds plausible to earn more with less ad, and thus worth testing.
      Yes, I've heard that there is more competition with advertisers the more ads you have on your site. Hopefully meaning if I only have the one ad on the bottom there will be no competition hence maximum CPC earnings.

      I think I'm just going to have to test it out, I will wait till the end of today and take the top ad off tomorrow. I'll post my results!

      Any other experiences/stories with this kind of testing would be appreciated.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        You have to test.

        The more ads you have, the better odds for a click, and, more
        targeted ads appearing at least somewhere on your site.

        Did you know google recommends an ad unit at the bottom of
        content? Why? Because anyone who actually gets to the bottom,
        is now saying, "Hmmm. Where should I go now?" Google says,
        "Give 'em a choice!"

        Top, middle, bottom, is a good way to start, then tweak.

        The number of ads does not affect the CPC of an individual ad.
        Obviously, it could decrease overall CPC, but that's a useless stat.
        Do you want one click for $5, or 100 clicks for 50 cents?

        Having more ads actually increases the bid pool.

        Total revenue is the only stat that matters. Not CPC.

        Paul
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        If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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        • Profile picture of the author Keithbrad
          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

          You have to test.

          The more ads you have, the better odds for a click, and, more
          targeted ads appearing at least somewhere on your site.

          Did you know google recommends an ad unit at the bottom of
          content? Why? Because anyone who actually gets to the bottom,
          is now saying, "Hmmm. Where should I go now?" Google says,
          "Give 'em a choice!"

          Top, middle, bottom, is a good way to start, then tweak.

          The number of ads does not affect the CPC of an individual ad.
          Obviously, it could decrease overall CPC, but that's a useless stat.
          Do you want one click for $5, or 100 clicks for 50 cents?

          Having more ads actually increases the bid pool.

          Total revenue is the only stat that matters. Not CPC.

          Paul
          I was surprised when I saw my results at first but now that makes perfect sense why my bottom ads are outperforming the rest, I've still yet to even put a third ad in the mix (probably most likely a skyscraper or 300x250 on the sidebar).

          Sometimes though (maybe only in the early stages) I feel like I can't even get a good enough sample size to test with, for example one of my blogs I was trying out 3 different ads on the sidebar. By the time I had my third ad on there my traffic sources had changed a bunch and I felt like I had to re test my initial ad. This may be just due to not having enough traffic though to fully test. Is testing always an ongoing process for you guys?

          Anyways not really sure where I was going with that but just some more thoughts I've dealt with when it comes to ad testing thus far.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    My sites are the complete opposite.

    I usually run two text only Ads per page, the top/center Ad smokes the middle page Ad in both CPC & CTR.

    You already know this, but all you can do is test your own site.
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  • Profile picture of the author GFI
    I put 2 text ads on the side bar 1 each on the top and bottom. But my earning still very low I am pretty worried about this that why my earning is not raising.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rehmat
    Nice discussion is going here. I changed the template of my blog last month and now my CTR has dropped badly. 100 Relevant ads are displayed on my blog, still CTR is low. Average CTR for my blog is around 0.5% now a days. Bottom placement really increases the CTR. But I've never noticed CPC varation for any specific position. Yes ad types make a difference.
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  • Profile picture of the author CTRTheme
    Banned
    Anyway there are techniques to put ads at the footer or end of the article. Is just that people mistook the adsense ads as related articles link and click it. People like to read, and read more so they clicked. Another techniques of making high CTR on the end of the article is to put ellipse on the last word of the article "..." this makes people think that there are more interesting stories to read which in turns make them click on the adsense ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    The best CTR I've had with AdSense came from embedding text ads within the body of an article. Looks like just another paragraph a lot of time.
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    Ron Rule
    http://ronrule.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Publisher1953
    There are indications that "too many ads" may affect your SEO -- especially if the ads dominate above the fold. So, yes, putting the ads at the bottom (or perhaps embedded within) good content is often more effective than powering them blatantly across the page top.

    As others have said, this is a "test, test, test" situation, because different sites have different readership and results.
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