...to see if it affects my CTR. My current theory is that the link provides two negative side effects: 1) It lets a single advertiser dominate your site too much, resulting in ad blindness when visitors keep seeing the same ad over and over again on every single page (or on most pages). I don't want every new addition I put to the site to have the same ad, regardless of the page's content. I'd rather have continuously new ads for the new content. I believe having the same ad continiously appear is cutting into my CTR. 2) The "advertise on this site" text is starting to look kind of cheap on the site. Maybe removing it will help the ad further "blend" into the page. If anyone's interested, I'll post results for the next month or so. Of course I know that just removing the link won't mean the advertiser who has already bought space on the site will stop showing his ads. But hopefully once his ad finishes its run, no one else will follow suit. Added: After googling for a bit, I ran across a great solution for this. Simply put: FILTER THE ADS! That's right, just filter the url of the ad that's buying massive space on your site. Voila!
I am finding that I am getting a better return from CPM ads by leaving it up. I think that advertisers are outbidding each other.
That's actually not a bad idea. I've considered doing it too. I added a nice 180x250 block though and all it displays are CPM ads which really help my earnings. No one ever clicks them, but the impressions really help since I get xx,xxx impressions per day. I thought about disabling that feature. But what I'm wondering, if I disable that, will people not be able to target my site in general at all anymore or will they only not be able to sign-up directly from my site....
The problem is that I have a subsite on my main site that uses the same ad codes, but all it's getting is ads for the dominante advertiser, which is NOT very targeted to the audience for this subsite. That's another major problem.
I stumbled across this old (somewhat) thread at WW that talked about this very same thing: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/10051-3-10.htm
Your site is still available for CPM site targeting even if you disable Advertiser sign-up, as far as I can see. Is there a way to select a particular block to display PPC or CPM ads only?
That's why I've emailed them asking for them to block all site targeting campaigns to my site. I've read from various places that they will comply and take you off the "list" of sites available for site targeting if you ask them.
jackburton2006, Please do keep us informed. As far as I am concerned, my earnings have gone up, but that may well be due to other factors. Hard to tell.
Very, very early reports seem to be pointing toward normal CTR but strangely higher earnings. It's only afternoon, and usually this time I make about 1/4ths of what I will eventually make at the end of the day, but already I've made half of my daily average. Usually the earnings roll in toward evening, as more people get on the net, so it's looking very good. But as I said, this is so early that it's not even worth mentioning. So far, Google hasn't removed the "Advertise on this site" link yet, but by filtering the site-targeting ad, I've gotten a lot more relevant ads in its stead. Looks good so far... I should also mention that I've added an "Advertise With Us" link on my site so people who do want to target my entire domain can do so, but pay me the full amount, and not have Google gobble it all up before I even get a piece.
While your points are valid, I am assuming that you would get a higher percentage of the targetted ad fee rather then the regular click fees which might make up for the other disadvantage.
Perhaps, but here's what I know so far: Page eCPM is up by over $.20-cents, and while CTR remains the same, I expect it to jump by the end of the day. As well, I expect my clicks to overtake my best day. Another note: Google has responded to my email, telling me the same thing you're saying, that site targeting is designed to make publishers more money. But they also said that if I really want to, I can opt out, which I have told them do. By the way, the "ADvrtise on this Site" link is now gone from my site, at about the same time I received Goog's email. And you know what? The ads look soooooooo much better.