Quadrupled my CTR thanks to DP members.

MichaelD,

The decrease in page impressions should not happen as a consequence of implementing this technique.

With so many factors affecting adsense, it is possible that something else has happened may be or may be not

 

Thanks, turns out I got confused (long story).

Anyway, the technique in discussed in this thread might be useful for some, it's not working for me, was a complete waste of time. I also don't see people coming back to this thread and telling us what a real difference it made in the long run, when it comes to earnings.

They don't come back, because many haven't seen earnings going up that much. I think it's a lot of hum-bug that works for some sites, but not for the majority, espcially in the long run. All that talk about CTR... I mean who cares, what's only important is earnings and I see the value for my clicks going down using this technique, exactly like Google warns.

 

I really don't see how this technique could in any way affect your earnings per click, unless someone @ G was manually monitoring every page in your site(s), and had it in for you--not likely.



AmCy

 

its not work anymore like few months ago. Although the CTR is still high, but CPC is very low. This is due to the smart pricing because google feel ads with image above have less conversion rate

 

How on earth could Google ever know (automatically) there are images above the ads?

 

Thanks critter, I implemented your idea with a little twist. I use 3 button ads 125x125, along with 3 125x125 pictures........Gold
My ads CTR went through the roof
You can see it on my branson show website www.bransoncritic.org/

This thread, is one of the best I have ever come across, and I have been on these forums for years. Tell me what you think?

and thanks again,

Doug

 

Is this so in the case of the initial design (complete blending, no separation)? I've not tested that first design, because the AdSense team recommended something a little different (differentiation, as explained below in the second paragraph, and by others before) to those publishers testing image techniques. Of course -an additional point surely not necessary to mention- testing carefully selected on-topic (but not product specific) images with publishing permission, not unprofessional tricks such as arrows, etc. (As we all know, some techniques to overcome ad blindness are correct, like on-topic images or the AdSense heat map; some tricks -arrows, texts about the ads, etc.- are not).

Google's advice on this technique seems good: differentiation between images and ads with some kind of visible border, like a separation line or a different background color, with the ads clearly in their own rectangle (ad unit).

Testing this for a long time to see the smart pricing effect from conversions, it seems to keep a similar CPC, maybe lightly smaller, while still usually giving higher CTR and eCPM than traditional no-images designs.

Probably, Google's recommendation on differentiation prevents users' confusion and therefore preserves good conversions, and at the same time carefully selected on-topic images (better with short image description and credits in the alt and title text) can enhance the site and the user experience, and create an interest point near the ads in order to diminish ad blindness, while the design is making clear to users that the images are images, and the ads are ads.

 

Nice job, works well.

Personally I would fix the width of the page (put the page in a table with a fixed width) as I don't like sites that spread out as you make the window bigger, also if you make it too narrow the ads jump down a little, and too wide they just get mega spaced out. Well that's what I think

 

Hi, I just thought I'd post and mention that I've just finishined a brief summary of tis thread so far.

I've read the whole lot now

Anyway, the posts can be found here...
http://www.oweb.co.uk/2005/10/19/increasing-your-adsense-ctr-1/
and then continued on here (It's just too big for one post)...
http://www.oweb.co.uk/2005/10/19/increasing-your-adsense-ctr-2/

Anyway, hope it helps someone.

Oh, and I've I missed anything, or made a mistake or posted bad advice, please let me know and I'll fix it right away.

 

Putting pictures next to ads is against the AdSense ToC. I wrote to Adsense support asking about this practice and posted the reply on my site: Pictures Next to AdSense. They do recommend that you use a border on the pictures, but the said that was only a suggestion. so, an image over the test link without border is a clear violation of google adsense policy.

http://celica.eduardomaio.net/ - is an example of bad google adsense placing. it tricks the user into clikcing the ads but then again http://www.geocities.com/making_real_money_online has a very bad layout but follow the google adsense policy. so, which is which?

 

Yes, Google has been recommending this, a visible border, to publishers to avoid confusing users; anyway it seems clear that smart pricing punishes low conversions from any user confusion.

They have said OK to designs for a visible border such as one of the AdSense defaults, or a line such as an html table border, or a different background color for the ads and the image set with the ad unit being a rectangle of different color (see for example the default palettes Blue Bird and others), and better with at least a blank line for additional separation. In brief, the main point is to have some differentiation between ads and images to prevent user confusion.

And as everybody says, everyone should check his/her particular design with the AdSense team to verify that there is enough differentiation.

I think it's a helpful summary, with relevant quotes from Critters, etc. Good work, SEbasic.

There is also an interesting comment by Domain Blog (our AmCy) about Yahoo giving -like Google- the OK to the image technique (to diminish ad blindness and increase ad reading). Indeed, it was to be expected, and in fact Yahoo Overture is, and has been, using images close to ads -often on topic, sometimes general- on the CNN homepage (US edition), as mentioned on this thread in August.

 

I think I'm beginning to see some signs of Smart Pricing as a result of using the images. At first, I had huge returns from some pages I used this technique, now the eCPM is very low.

 

what I can say that this is the answer from the adsense support team...

http://lampusuluh.blogspot.com/2005/10/place-images-above-google-ads.html

p/s: use it on your own risk..!

 

Nothing new, G have always taken this method on a case-by-case basis and have been saying that we should use a visible border for ages now.

BTW, I like to ask if its OK to publish personal emails, I emailed G when I wanted to post a reply email regarding images+ads and they said that ( and this is not a quote ) I should NOT quote emails G send me. I would think this is again to prevent people getting confused when one publisher is told one thing and another is told something conflicting because of the whole case-by-case nature of G's support, which I think, given the number of emails they must get, is pretty fast and with well thought out answers.

I will again ( what is it like the 20th time now? ) say that all publishers adding images to their ads should do so on a hidden "test" page and email this to G asking for them to take a look and give the thumbs up/down before they update their site. AND that best efforts should be made by the publisher to make sure their implementation of this technique does not "trick" the visitor in any way by using GENERIC IMAGES and VISIBLE BORDERS/GAPS.

Yes, I had the same change to my CPM, the net earnings were still UP, and if you read the whole thread there is a whole bunch of posts by me where I took off the images for just over 1 month to see if the CPM bounced back, which cost me many $$$$ but showed that it does indeed return, even tho it did take over a month to do so.


On a personal note, I would like to apologize to the AdSense team for costing them what must now be 100's of man hours in email replies and meetings as a result of me starting this thread, and I can only hope that the increased revenue as a result of the 1000's of publishers using this method covers this cost. Google read this forum right?

 

About the images, I think Critters' posts are correct: To diminish ad blindness and avoid confusing users with unrelated or too specific pictures, the images should be carefully selected to be on-topic and, at the same time, generic (that is, not product-specific). A balanced middle point is necessary.

On-topic images (not about an unrelated topic):

And, at the same time, generic images (not product-specific):

 

I'm late to the party, but nice post. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks Juan G for the summary and links

 

Thanks to you for your innovative work, Critters (and AmCy, Alang...).

I think the summary of this thread (two pages) by SEbasic is excellent.

 

Well, I've gone and edited most of my pages to have a border around the ads. For a while I had images above the ads with no border. I'm lucky to have returned to this thread to read the updates on what Google finds acceptable.

I still have to go through this one article site to edit a ton of articles that don't have the border though. I got my work cut out for me.

 

great thread great value.
now its time to compile an ebook of this thread and should be available under
"Tools" or "Tips" .