That totally depends on what kind of site you are running and how well you blend your ads. I think I have done a very good blending job so that the ads don't disturb the feel of my forum. You can check my ad placement here as example: http://www.patientenfragen.net/showthread.php?t=1810 But despite this personal decision, this is not the point of this argument
Ok, I am up for this experiment. I am doing this experiment with my patient website: http://www.patientenfragen.net Current ad stats: index: 1 leaderboard forumdisplay: 2 leaderboards (top and bottom), 2 link units (top and bottom) showthread: - 2 leaderboards (one at the top, one bottom) - 1 standard banner (middle for registered users) - 1 large rectangle (for guests, rotating referrals with ads 1:3 ) - 2 link units (top and bottom) Current earnings: from 02.07 to 16.07.07: 84$ without link units: 70$ The experiment: I will now remove: index: nothing forumdisplay: 1 leaderboard (bottom) showthread: 1 leaderboard (bottom) Because link units don't effect cpc I will let them stay. I will run my site with less Ads from 18.07. to 01.08. and then I will post the results. We will see
@the thread starter, Your site belongs to a niche, that has the potential of high paying (a.k.a High CPC) ads. But at the same time, you will also get a lot of MFA ads too. These ones pay peanuts. I would suggest, that you block out all the MFAs as part of the strategy to earn higher. Practice on different placements of your ads on your website. EDIT: To generate a list of MFAs for your site, check out http://www.adsenseblacklist.com/ @DaStarBug I'd love to see your statistics for the next test. Although I half expect the result to be lower earnings.
I am the thread starter I filter out specific ads that I don't want on my site (like lose 15kg of weight in 2 weeks) but I wont use blacklist filter for MFA ads. This is for the same reason why I show more ads. If an MFA ad shows there is no ad for you paying more for this placement. You can only argue about ad quality but not that you earn more money by blocking MFA ads I expect this too, but we will see StarBuG ps: If anyone is interested in having the same ad placements as I have, I published my Ad implementations on vBulletin.org. You can get to them via my profile there: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/member.php?u=3512 I have experimented with ad placements for over a year now and find my current placements to be most effective for a vBulletin powered forum.
DaStarBug, it'll be interesting to see your results. I know what you're saying about the flaw in my argument, and you might be right. I think the question is, what does someone do when they get to the end of a page of content if there are no ads? Do they go back to the top of the page and look for another interesting menu item or article (and perhaps notice one of the higher paying ads) or do they use the back arrow / leave the site because nothing else holds their attention. The answer will vary, I imagine. It reminds me that I should have some menu items or other 'call to action' at the end of pages as well as at the beginning. Keep us posted how it goes. I tried a similar thing a few months ago, convinced myself I was making more money by having less ads, but then increased income further again when I put them (a second block, I never have a 3rd adblock) back. I haven't tested it again since. Cheers
it worked for me, and i have extensive channel data to back it up. raising epc(not cpc!) isn't about just cutting the number of ads on a page, it's also about removing ads entirely from pages that don't perform. "I have done an experiment this whole week to test the theory that having less adsense ads on your site gets you more money and I have found it to be true." a week of data is meaningless
I'd say that the less ads you have, the more likely you'll have more traffic. I personally don't go to a website if there's more than a few adverts or so, because if I see three blocks of AdSense I immediately think the site is MFA and discount all it's content as being too keyword rich and not really accurate.
That is why I chose two weeks Check my site and tell me if you get the feeling of visiting an MFA site I don't agree with your statement cause I have a very nice traffic increase over the last few month, even with several ads on my site. It is all about blending. http://www.patientenfragen.net
Oh whoa, you've obviously spent a lot of time designing that and it's really good. Obviously, I don't understand what it's saying, but your site looks great. The ads are really well positioned.
umm, no, that's not how it works. we have been through this many times out here... mfas steal clicks by using clever keywords and good ad copy, but they don't provide good conversion data... their presence on your site proves one of two things: 1) your traffic isn't worth squat 2) your sector isn't worth squat when you raise your epc beyond what mfa'ers are willing to pay for clicks, they will be gone from your site. wrt your forum, dastarbug, the ads appear to be completely off-target for the content? all i'm seeing are computer ads... adsense on forums is not a good idea, and it doesn't represent how adsense functions on websites.
Thank you for this compliment. It took me a lot of time and experimenting to get to this level. You can get most of my extensions for the vBulletin Forum via my Profile here: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/member.php?u=3512 I published them there for free You have no idea about my site and stats For a relatively new forum 80$ is a nice earning for 2 weeks, don't you think? I am running a german forum and the MFA problem isn't that big for German keywords as it is for English ones. Who said I get MFA ads? I haven't seen one on my site yet. Do you? And how many threads have you checked? Please spare me your criticism cause you don't really know what you are talking about. In very rare occasions there are ads for computers or lawyers showing up, but 95% is absolutly on target. These ads mostly have something to do with adsense needing its time to spider new content. PLEASE don't start an argument now, this thread has NOTHING to do with MFA ads what so ever. Start your own thread if you want to talk further about it. Thank you. StarBuG ps: Absolutely no offense intended
I have written an article on the subject. My answer is YES but there are some conditions. The details are here : http://adsense4money.com/AdSense/double-earnings-fewer-ads.php
YOU were the one who started arguing about mfa ads with silly statements like that... it's clear that you don't know anything about mfas. i would agree that english sites will have more mfa ads, tho, which makes us the experts, not you without knowing the age of your site, your traffic level, and the general value of german web traffic in your sector, $80 doesn't mean much. getting back on topic, google up a big sector like "european travel"... google throws up what, a dozen advertisers per page, for many pages? they seem to like your idea of lots of advertisers per page. but that's search, you run a forum, i have websites with real content, so it's just like iewei said... ymmv.
Where did you get these numbers? Did you made an experiment or did you made them up? You are calculating with 1000clicks on the last banner alone with 9000 visitors and 25k pageviews, I find that a little unrealistic. But we will see, if the money I earn is nearly the same as I did the last 2 weeks I will continue the experiment and remove even more banners. StarBuG
The ads I have in the bottom half do just as well as the ads I have on the top half. I'm hesitant to remove any of them because of that.
You can't get to any decision in this matter as different people will come up with different thoughts. The best way is to make your own experiments.