Hi there, It is absolutely tiresome to filter out MFA's from the competitive ad filter. The more I block them, the more they come out. Seems like there is nothing that could help me removing these 0.01 cent ads which are spread around almost all of my pages. My keywords are optimized, I have placed the ad code in key areas, yet I find .info websites jumping out at my face everywhere with the description of "find best 4 sites on this topic here". If truth be told, it frustrates me more than anything else. How can google allow such ads in their network which have nothing but two ad units at the top, four lines of bla bla bla (copied from wikipedia) and another ad code in the bottom? It's not google that gets hurt at the end of the day; It's us, the publishers, whose visitors are gradually getting tired of such worthless pages hence becoming adsense-blind, particularly at discussions boards. Any advice or known good practices shall be highly appreciated.
According to some Adsense Gurus the most effective method is to reduce the ads being served. I was having the max number of Adsense blocks at my websites but no longer the case. Two blocks apparently drive away cheap clicks based on the assumption the most expensive ones would be served first. Since then I had yet to see any clicks below USD.25. I guess I'm on the right track since traffic and earnings have increased by 20 and 50% per month respectively. Thanks to AdsenseGold and those eBooks (see below).
I have no more than two ad units on the page (one leaderboard and the other text one) so that is not an option to remove either one of them from the pages. Thanks anyways
I am using http://www.adsblacklist.com/ to get the lists of the MFA sites. Works well for me. Now I am getting .2 to .5 clicks.
Thank you baumann93. The interesting thing there that caught my attention is: "There are over 6061 links stored in our database since March 19th 2006." Thats anything but ecstatic.
You are most welcome, Endurer. Well, I am not surpised. Why not take advantage of the system if the system allows it? Actually, those MFA sites are OK for Adsense. There is no click fraud; the clicks are legitimate. I do not think Google will be doing anything about it as long as it makes money off it.
that adsblacklist is a complete waste of time for most sites, the fact that it has 6061 links vs. your filter limit of 200 links should tell you something. endurer, you are getting mfa's because they are winning the bidding war over quality advertisers... so your only alternative is to try to price 'em out, by raising the value of the page. as was mentioned, getting rid of ad blocks is a solid approach, even to the point of removing all ads from pages that don't have a decent ctr.
This is a very good point. It is sad that I never looked at adsense pricing from this perspective I guess it might be that not only MFAs are winning the bidding war over the quality advertisers, also, the quality advertisers might chose not to advertise on his site... Definetely, icreasing the quality of the page should do the trick.
I also use the filter generated from adsblacklist. Hasnt affected the revenues much, but I am happy not to see those ads on my site!
I've found that having only one or maybe two (max) ads brings in the most AdSense money. The trick is just placing them properly. Also, if you are worried about making money from those other ad-placements, you can always use banners and text-links from Comission Junction and Azoogle. Since Google puts the highest paying ads first, you aren't making much more than a penny a click on your 3rd ad box anyow.
raising the value of the page means that you get rid of ad blocks that don't perform, so that the advertisers have to bid higher to get in your top ad blocks, or they won't get on your page at all. since we don't know which ads are getting clicked on, the main thing we can do is to increase the ctr for the page... which includes dropping ad blocks, as a last resort. i say last resort, because google ranks the ads by which one is likely to make the most money, not by which one pays the most... so the ad that could pay the most might not always be in the top ad block spot, because google thinks that it's less likely that people will click on it. so google moves the highest-paying ad down to another ad block, but you won't get paid for it, because you deleted the ad block that it would have been in. some sectors won't have enuf advertisers to cover all three ad blocks, so removing ad blocks is a no-brainer there... but when you have plenty of advertisers, you have to look at the ctr that your traffic generates on each page design that you use. where i have had to struggle with this is in photo galleries... the exact same gallery design works better on one site than the other, even tho both sites have the same general subject matter... the page design is different around the photo gallery, but the ads and pics are in the same positions, relative to each other. the bottom line is that i've had to cut back on the ad blocks on the gallery that doesn't perform as well, because it was apparently driving my overall earnings down for the entire website. so set up channels for every ad block, at least that way you can see which position is getting the clicks.
Great post danimal, we all should follow your example http://www.adsblacklist.com/ is also working for me, too.