I have a site that was receiving around 5000-7000 pageviews per day, as a result of ranking in the top 10 with 2 popular keyphrases in Google. The site had 3 adsense blocks. This week as a test, I replaced 2 of the blocks with non-contextual ads from another network (1 adsense block remained). Almost immediately, I started receiving less pageviews every day - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - today 500! And I realized the reason - Google had dropped the site out of the top 10 results for the important keyphrases. I have heard of 'co-incidental' drops in search results when people switch from adsense to YPN - and while it seems unethical for them to do that (of course it's just a co-incidence ), at least I can see their motivation. But in this case I still had a prominent adsense block on every page, and hadn't switched to another contextual network. Of course it could just be a co-incidence, but it occurred on the exact same day that I started testing the other ads... Now I've switched back to 3 adsense blocks per page, hoping to appease the Google gods. Anyway, the other ads weren't even converting - 70,000 impressions (4 per page) and not a single cent revenue Anyone else had the problem of less ad blocks = lower serp rank?
Why would Google get mad about a site that apparently (according to you) doesn't even convert? That's like owning an Avon products company and getting mad at that one salesman who never makes a sale, when the salesman decides to work part-time instead of full-time. P.S. Stay off the pipe, man.
I only said the new banners that I tried didn't convert. I never said the site isn't converting with Adsense - the clickthru rate was good, visitors liked the ads they saw, and Adwords advertisers received 5000 clicks through my site this month. Nothing to complain about. And why did you have to bring up my pipe? You're the one assuming things that I never said, perhaps you should keep an eye on your own pipe