I run a dating site in Ontario Canada, and have recently started utilizing Adsense's Competitive Ad Filter to block all dating site ads that show up on my site (ie. blocking the "competition"). I'm thinking this is a good idea (my reasoning is short term revenue pain for long term gain in the sense that i'm not re-directing traffic to other dating sites)... but not 100% sure. Thoughts??
if you run a datingsite. then you should block other dating site in order for your visitors to stay in your website. you dont want them to go to other dating website..
Assuming you have the better site - better system, better interface, bigger userbase - it's not a problem to show ads for competing sites because your visitors will just come back to you again after being disappointed by what they find after clicking the links in the ads. Maybe you should block just the really good sites that you feel threatened by. Funny you're relying on AdSense at all though, I thought dating sites usually have better monetization models.
I always try to block adverts to my competitors. Even the top companies in a particular sector don't want to publicise the competition. In this case you want all single folk to keep coming back to your site, rather than find another similar dating site. I'm sure that there are plenty of other good adverts that will appear, but as mentioned by monosodium, I would have thought that subscriptions or other revenue streams would be of greater benefit.
If you're confident with your site, it doesn't matter not to block your competitor but if your site is still new, then blocking your competitor might be a good action
Yes, my dating site is free. It's still fairly new and I'm trying to constantly increase/build up my member base first and foremost.... which is why I don't yet have a better "monetization model". I have 1300+ members on it so far. Feel free to check it out if ya want - the site is Plural.ca
....because they are considered competition and such ads would have a greater potential of diverting my members to another dating site. Right now my main concern is growth (constantly increasing my member-base)