I was just wondering if you are able to filter ads from google adsense itself. I am using the 300x250 med rectangle on my sites and I cant stand when Google serves its own adsense ads as they take up the whole block, waste space, and just look bad in general. Has anyone added www.google.com/adsense URL to their filter list? Does it work?
well, a hard question but I think it's allowed, you are the owner of your site and you have the right to block whatever you want ... but the right thing to do is to contact Google support, they wont ban you for asking so do it ...
I think you can also block other Google ads like picasa.google.com, but I've not tried yet, although I've seen that ads on my tracking results.
I think, they won't pay their own ads for clicks or may be 0.01 cents, so that before I blocked the url www.google.com in my competitive filter, but the new referral policy changes I allowed the URL now..
If you get international traffic also you could block others Gs: google.co.uk, google.de, google.in, google.es, etc.
the more you filter competitors - the less competition for your ad slots / ad units you have and the lower the remaining bids need to be to get on your web site hence you get less eCPM = less $ for using ad filters Google like all others have to bid to get on your site as much as all others - if their bid is higher than any other bid - they get the slot - else the free market gets the slot now that G has it - if someone else wants the same space - he has to bid at least 1 cent more than G keep in mind that YOU are the only person on this planet to see all different pages again and again on your web site all normal visitors may see but once a few pages and hence the real generic visitors may see G ads only once on your site if u love and / or need income - then leave all ads and allow the free market to bid the prices UP as much as a health market can go for truly optimized results so far on my site I have never seen a really large G adsense ad on modern ad formats as recomeded by G http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=231312 those a.m. formats as requested/recomeded by G bring real bidders and raise your $ FAR above average and beyond what G bids for move to the G recomeded formats and placements incl ATF and most likely you never see a G ad again on your site without any filter
I don't agree with you. After blocking several MFA sites, my income has increased aprox. 25%. Also my visitors don't get so dissapointed going to sites with no real content.
may be your different experience is the result of a totally different ad format/ad placement policy on your site ? I had ad filters to get rid of all MFA sites many months - and enjoyed clean ads and low $ now I have changed all ad formats to the more competitive and thus far more expensive formats as recommended by G - and my experience now is http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=231312 much different - months after all filters removed site-advertisers are back and with the new formats up many full ad-unit ( rectangles or wide skyscraper ) advertisers and high bidding advertisers are out-bidding most MFA sites NOW - these past weeks and 3 months my revenue is about 3x higher than it was during my competitive filter period mid last year 3x higher means way into a 3-digit/month $amount with strong advertisers on my site I see on most pages no more MFA at all btw if you are talking a bout the site in your signature - i see only an empty gray page with a title and with nearly zero traffic ( alexa) real changes in ad policies only appear on sites of substantial traffic - i.e. something far above 1000 unique visitors / day since i havent seen a single adsense ad - its impossible to say why your site bahaves different from what it has on my site - a guess would be that you are still using NON-successful ad-formats - i.e. any OTHER formats than the 3 ( three) most successful formats G always publishes and updates as changes occur. these 3 formats are either video competitive (both rectangles as currently published ) or image/text ad-formats (currently the 3rd format publsihed=wide skyscraper) - hence the formats for high-bidding advertisers who limit their campaign on top placement targetable ad units mainly or entirely "above the fold" if you have no targetable ad units ATF - then you may have excluded or better forgotten to invite high bidding financially strong advertisers
No, I'm talking about other site (12,000 unique visitors/day and Alexa 50K). There I'm widely using 300x250 ad format, and sometimes I see new MFA sites (no more with sitenames like bestXXsites.com, now are better camouflaged sitenames). An yes, I've created new channels with "ATF 300x250" string. Still checking, but for now I'm not seeing any substantial differences.
Yes, almost all ads on that site are above the fold. Some has been targetable for advertisers and some not. As I previously said, I'm still checking, but for now I'm not seeing any substantial difference on making ads "targetable" for advertiser. Until now I'm getting a slightly higher CTR (with aprox. same income for every click) for those ads "targetable".
btw while G loves to get more 300x250ATF I have noticed that on almost all pages I get substantial more CTR with the 336x280ATF and different advertisers than with the medium rectangle up to20-30 % more ctr and higher eCPM ... only in a few sections/channels it makes no apparent difference to have medium or large rectangle - in such case i go medium to meet G's request for this format. if i see movie-ads - i see mostly large rectangel movies my most successful combination so far - implemented on most pages is 1. one true ATF 2. one top left 160x600 ABOVE navigation bar or just level H1-main title of page 3. one rectangle - the OTHER size - just below H1 main title OTHER rectangle means if I place the large rectangle ATF - then the medium below or vv I am removing ( mostly done already ) ALL OTHER formats except the 3 published successful formats and keep only the a.m. placements - earlier i had middle placements middle-center or middle left or bottom center .. several months ago i have lifted ALL competitors filter ( i had some 15 by then ) now its open competition. after dropping all filters, it took about 2 months for all advertisers to be back and the eCPM go back up to or above average as to colors - i have stopped the belnd in methods and gone RED for link text blue for URL and another color for text - usually violet this too helped to increase ctr on all pages where implemented