Google Ads

[slaughteredlamb]

I used to run Google Ads down the right hand column of
my website and would quite regulary get single clicks  on ads that where worth $1+

I've now changed my site so that ads appear within the content (the
content is exactly the same) but now I'm really only getting clicks on ads that generate $0.01 revenue. I guess it's just coincidence that this has happened and maybe
it's just the same ad that people find attractive enough to click on but it is a bit frustrating. Is there anything I can do to ensure that only higher paid ads are
displayed? Is there a way of finding out in advance what an ad pays etc etc?

I never used to earn a fortune through Google Ads but it was certainly a lot more than it
is at present.

[sarahA]

You could filter out what you believe are lower paid adverts. You can add up to 200 URLs to sites that pay very little. This post on using the filter is a good read - http://www.johnchow.com/using-the-competitive-ad-filter-to-increase-adsense-earnings/ and I've used the Ads Blacklist (http://www.adsblacklist.com/) as mentioned to block out cheap sites. Whilst Google has tried to crack down on arbitrage sites since 1st June, there are still plenty that slipped through the net.

Another way to look at things as well is how many adverts do you have displayed? Let's say you have a 4 ad block. The most worthy ad is at the top of the list and the cheapest is at the bottom, that's how it's displayed on your site. So imagine if you increase the number of ads on your site, you're essentially just adding even more cheaper ads to it. This is where you need to do some testing by reducing the number of adverts and seeing whether your CPC increases. On some sites I run just one single ad, mainly after blog posts. This way it doesn't overpower the site but it also displays the top paying advert that will be shown on that page.

If you're reluctant to reduce your ads, then why not reduce them a little and replace with a link unit. We've added a link unit to our top performing site and income has increased by 50% over the past week. Again, link units don't work for every site, you just need to trial it for a week or two and compare. Channel everything and determine what's the best position, best type of ad etc.

[caledoniaman]

Sarah, just a question about your point above where you say you add an ad after a blog post. Is there not a limit to the number of ads you have on the page and if so, how does this work if you have say 10 blog posts on your homepage. Does this break Google's terms?

[sarahA]

You can't really break the Ts and Cs of the max of 3 ads simply because once 3 have displayed, Google won't display any more But to keep the code 'clean' and be on the safe side, I tend to put a quick loop into my WordPress index.php template that only displays the code for the first 3 then it stops ie.

Code:

$i = 0;
while ($i < 3) :
// display your google code
$i++;
endwhile;

Then just place that whereever you want the ads to display.