With the recent YPN collapse (last 4 days, and continuing), many are moving lots of pages back to Adsense. But there is a problem. For some of us, a main reason we put other pages on YPN, was that we have used up all our 200 content channels. Google, can you not envision just how limiting this is? You limit me to 200 channels. I limit you to 200 pages. Self-fulfilling prophecy, right? I cannot function without 100% individual page stats. One cannot optimize without seeing specific page data, for each page. You just can't. I detest being an ostrich, and burying my head in the sand. The IDEAL situation - one channel for each page - no limit. I know you can't do this on 10,000 page sites, but going from 200 to 300 shouldn't be such a stretch - for all us non-computer-generated page makers. You can help the good guys, and still limit the spammers. Just give us 100 more channels, please. If you do, I will give you 100 more pages, just like that. Since the introduction of 200 channels 2 (3?) years ago, we have all grown. We need commensurate channel growth from Google. And I promise not to complain again, at least for another year. (Many folks want 100 more slots in the blocking filter - what with wack-a-mole, MFAs, and the new click-flippers, I envision filling up my filter in the near future, as well. It is part of the game - you just have to do it, or you get unbelievable cr@p.) .
cormac - Great idea - I did it. Lumping together many pages in a single channel is an extremely poor alternative. 1. You pollute all the previous data for that channel, which you can never "unpollute" 2. You have no idea which pages are performing well, and which pages are performing poorly. Just a general idea for what you have put in there. 3. When there is a sudden big change, which MUST be investigated, you must endlessly scr3w around with channel juggling, to find out what is going on. Many folks won't bother - too time intensive - less $ for both G and you. 4. Maybe you should always save some "test channels", the number of which corresponds to the highest number of pages that you have jammed into a single-catch-all channel. Only then can you juggle each channel, to get page-specific results.
400th post - ya , baby! Rock and roll! Here we go - There is salvation in diligence. Hang in there. Today's mantra? Thank you, J, and for sure, G as well, especially today. Do NOT believe everything you are told! Analyze everything from YOUR point of view, and not someone else's. The whole net is a hussle - it's fun, but sometimes a hassle. Everybody has an angle to make a buck - me, too. Best of luck to everyone. old-guy (63)
There is another solution to lack of channels - just dump the low impression pages, and free up more channels. Go to reports - select month-to-date or last-month - click on the "view all channels for content" at the bottom - click on the Impressions link at the top of the impressions column, to order impressions by number - scroll to the bottom. Do you see some pages with just one or two or three impressions? Dump 'em. PRESTO! New channels available. Actually, I kind of relied on channels as "counters". This is not what they are intended for. Once I got past that, I found my NEW channels! Ads on those channels must be removed though, or you will go nuts trying to figure out why the numbers don't add up (when you get extra mysterious income, not reported through channels). A small price to pay, to get channels you really need. Google doesn't like poor performance anyway - you are killing two birds with one stone. Or, you could create a "bit-bucket" channel, where you toss in a bunch of low-impression pages, so you can at least account for the mystery clicks. Not for me, though.
I haven't approached the 200 level as of yet, but I can see that happening. In that case I'll simply combine content channels and guesstimate traffic levels. Fun, fun, fun!