9 replies to this topic

[leadegroot]

I'm a little bemused by the Adsense program.
I had a site which is basically a community service for a small group, on which I have put Google ads. (Its almost the only revenue for that site; I didn't expect to make any money from it, but I thought it might be somewhere near self supporting).
Initially the click throughs did quite well, but now there aren't any, and when I go through the site barely one page in 100 has actual ads, most of them have the charity things.
I know there's nothing I can do about it, so basically I guess I am just looking for somewhere to whine, but... honestly! What is the point of using Adsense if there are no ads?

I'm aware that I could specify an alternate ad, but the point of Adsense is set and forget on-topic ads.

(The majority of the pages with ads are recipes, as a repository for the group. Initially they had lots of ads, and quite appropriate to the recipe too - now they are mostly stupid charity things. Advertisers have suddenly stopped listing food??? Seems unlikely )

The flipside of developing this is somewhere for me to experiment with techniques - how do I improve ranking, drive income, etc. This sort of result makes me wonder if its worth putting Adsense elsewhere, or recommending it clients.

[Haystack]

A few things could be effecting your AdSense account:

1. Technical glitch at Google
2. No advertisers placing ads on content relevant to your site
3. It's been hypothesized that Google has been limiting ads on sites they don't consider high conversion opportunities for advertisers.

It sounds like 1 & 3 might be worth checking out.

[BobetteKyle]

While I haven't had a problem with no/limited ads being served, I have noticed other interesting fluctuations...won't get into details because G AdSense seems to like my sites and I don't want to push the envelope on terms of service.

Suffice it to say, I think there could be a #3A amended to Ed's list: It's possible that G may also adjust other AdSense factors depending on the individual site.

If you haven't done so already, maybe you could try moving the ads and/or trying different formats to see if you can get a better response. Could also try adding the monetized search feature to your site...it is OK to have a search box and AdSense ads on the same page.

[leadegroot]

1. Technical glitch with what has to be one of their flagship products? Well, there's a scary prospect!
I cant think how to look into it, other than mailling google and asking them?
I'd only expect a form letter back, to be honest.

2. No ads for food (and the other stuff there). It seems unlikely
The rare page that does get an ad is getting all the usual suspects of ebay and major vendors - exactly the distribution I expect.

3. Google in their infinite wisdom doesnt think those ads will convert.
Yes, I suppose that does seem likely.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to correct this?

If the solutiuon were obvious to me, I wouldn't be asking about this.

<later, as I had a child-based interruption in replying >
Bobbete, are you suggesting moving things around on the site or on the page?
Hadnt thought about using the google-search. Something to think about, thanks B

[BobetteKyle]

Bobette, are you suggesting moving things around on the site or on the page?

Both.

When I first signed on with AdSense I experimented a little with changing the position on the page (top, sides, bottom), formats (tower, the different rectangles, etc), and colors (title, borders, background, text, etc) on the page. Those things do make a difference in conversion. My guess would be the "optimal" layout is different for every site and maybe different for different pages on a site.

I also put AdSense on almost every page on the site (not on sales pages or any other page that has only one call to action). Some pages convert and pay better than others.

[leadegroot]

That makes sense.
As I said, this site is an informational resource for a community, rather than a sales portal.
I've basically done it as a freebie, with the side benefit of having a large site that I can experiement on when I need to.
Its full of recipes and patterns and so on - a repository of things the community has posted.
The google adsense entries currently occur only on deeper pages, so only people reaching the meat of the site have ads shoved in their face, and they occur at the bottom of the page. And sometimes that is a loooong way down
I think I will try to find time for the redesign I had planned for the site (its way pretty, but it loads far too slowly) and move the google ads to the right hand sidebar.
<thinks> Although as Google doesnt read the css, and it will still be at the bottom of the markup, I don't see how that will change it. Hmm..
Ah, well - c'est la vie.
Thanks, guys!

[BobetteKyle]

I got a nifty pocket-size, spiral bound reference piece today from Google called "Tweak Your Way To Profitability: Tips for Boosting Your Income With Adsense" that has eight ideas for improving AdSense performance. It's also online at http://google.com/8tips .

[leadegroot]

Ah, thank you, ma'am

[BobetteKyle]

You are welcome.

[Papadoc]

Consider whether the page is optimized in a way that G will be able to definitively know what the page is about. If you've not done so, modify page titles, H tags, be sure you have both H1 and H2 tags in place and check your keyword densities and making sure that keywords are in those tags. As a trial to test for what keywords have subscribers, check yours in Google and Overture.

While launching a new site, I found that about 1/4 of my pages had the ad images you are talking about. Probably that low a percentage because I was already aware of the issue. However, in reworking the pages, I managed to completely eliminate them.

Worst case scenario is that you have just added to your site optimization and you score higher in the SERPS. If that doesn't work and there just isn't a market for you, consider swapping them out for one of the brokered CPM sites. It's not huge dollars but they do pay a lot more than the nothing that your public service ads give you.