Quadrupled my CTR thanks to DP members.

Don't know if this is the appropriate venue, but my site has been live for a few months now, and I've received communications form AS regarding concerns I've had from jumps in activity; I got their blessing but fear this may be a new one. Would someone take a look at:

"http://www.a1-outdoors.com/"

"http://www.a1-outdoors.com/outblog/"

and render some thoughts?

 

Looks fine to me

 

Knightmare! hope you get it sorted, be sure to link it in this thread when it is back up.

 

Its a bit of topic but its nice to see you are still coming around Critters.

 

How about text units" They don't have borders"?
Is this within TOS? Look under Stephen King's pic.
http://www.king-stephen.com

 

I wouldn't worry about that at all.

 

Ditto ... based on all I have read, you caused quite a sea of change in the Adsense world - where have you been off to Critters?

 

For what it's worth...

I also quadrupled by CTR thanks to DP members.

The key for me was the image trick. It really does work wonders.

Over time, I've found this helps:
1. The images along with the AdSense area, if relevant.
2. Color images seem to work better than black and white.
3. People have reacted negatively to animation. Don't go over the top...
4. Varying from time to time does seem to help.
5. I have switched to seven small images on the bottom-of-the-page banner and that seems to work.
6. Skyscrapers where appropriate.

I did clear the images with Google to make sure my implementation was OK.

PS> "But your tactic of placing 4 images will collapse when one ad, or 3 are served, because it has the opposite effect than the one you were looking for, which is to push the idea that the ads are an integral part of the design adn the site." True, if the intent is to mislead. But if you're just trying to draw attention, then it works OK.

 

Images by the side of the ads is a good way to negate the number of ads being displayed issue (only good for certain ad formats)

 

i agree in many of your points, specially on color images work better but i also use animated graphics when i put a banner at the bottom of the page. most people just see the top of the pages, so i tried with animation to see also whats at the bottom

 

It must 'depend'. I had Google check my site and forums and there are a number of places I have ads which don't have borders. The lady told me the way mine are set up are OK.

 

This is something I see on my site all the time. Sometimes it's just 1 big ad.

 

Going to give this picture method a try. I have decent adsense revenue due to the high impressions, but CTR is not good at all.

I have this set up on a few pages now, looking forward to the results

 

This site explorer.altopix.com is using this technique brilliantly. It definitely fooled me.

I recently adapted this strategy on my own site and I used some javascript to rotate the images. I haven't noticed a real difference yet though. I have them at the bottom of my page though which is not an ideal location.

 

Ok, it has been a long time since something has made me nervous regarding adsense.

I have assumed that this technique is within the T.O.S., correct? I am emailing google anyway to make sure because my CTR is causing me some concern at the moment.

 

Many of you guys probably already know this, but here is the response I got from google. It is "generally ok" but.... (and I wasnt doing the part required)

From Google

for now, I just put a border on the entire table, I will probably add a border to my banner code instead later. I just wanted to get legal as quickly as possible.

 

Critter et al

Thanks! What an obvious idea: Putting pix above ad units.

Duh, why didn't I think of it? Google warned me a year ago for putting "Advertising Supported Website" above my units, and it wasn't even working very well anyway!

The pix above the ads are great, and I am being conservative and putting a light blue border (Google border color BBCCFF) around the ads, just to be clean. I've almost doubled my CTR on my first day!

If you're interested, we do the virtual tours Explore the Taj Mahal, Explore St Paul's Cathedral & Explore Kew Gardens. Just type "Taj Mahal" into Google; we're #1 for those two words (lots of work over 5 years!)

Anyway, Critter et al, a big Thank You!

 

SportsOutlaw your CTR went up that much that it had you worried?
I might have to give this picture thing a go as well.

 

I have been putting it off for a long time as well... kinda hard to impliment now that google is just grabbing from thin air the number of ads they display in a given ad block.

If there was any consistancy to the number of ads, I'd give it a whirl. (although I'm sure any increase in CTR would be met by a decrease in EPC)

 

Keyword = "fooled"

I had a message from Google saying that you should NOT do what explorer.altopix.com is doing, that you should put a border around the Google ads or between the pix and the Google ads.