Ihere have been no shortage of discussions as to what the REAL basis is and, as far as I know, nothing has been presented as concrete evidence to establish it one way or another.

Chapman

In your case, I wouldn't assume that smart pricing is involved. You say that these pages have different keywords, so it's possible that those keywords happen to earn you about the same.

A higher CTR alone should not be taken as an indication that you should earn more.

But you can test it. Since you're not earning much on the low CTR part of the site, take the ads off of it for at least two seeks. If the average EPC for the new section jumps up, then you can conclude that you are onto something.

Others will no doubt disagree.

b) The AdSense database schema that is visible is clearly built around per-account tables.

c) The AdSense database schema that is visible is incapable of doing anything on a per-URL basis.

d) 99.9% of the folks in this forum have 0 grasp of the variance in their own data, so they're highly unlikely to be successful at inferring what SmartPricing is doing by looking at their stats.

I'll assume SmartPricing is a per-account phenomenon until some more compelling evidence comes to light.

I also have a page dedicated to the subject of these ads and the closer the click is to that page, the more it seems to earn.

So that's at least part of it. But in general I haven't seen my earnings move up or down in lockstep across my site (channels help with seeing that of course).

I don't use a click tracker to see which ads are actually being clicked so most, maybe all, of this is speculation.

Google rarely comments on internals, and yet they have commented that SmartPricing is per-account.

Where and when?

I just revisited your posts in the June 4th version of this discussion... and it would appear that there may not have been a statement from Google regarding the basis on which Smart Pricing is implemented.

For those interested:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Chapman

Where and when?

[adwords.google.com...]

We take into account many factors such as what keywords or concepts triggered the ad, as well as the type of site on which the ad was served. For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.

Yes I do see the "many factors" part, however, that is very vague. What is less vague is the example that mentions the difference between 2 pages... no mention of sites, domains nor accounts. So assuming for an instant that the keywords are the same the only other specific reference they make is to the page.

I would also suggest that account wide smartpricing does not make any business sense at all. Everyone of us has pages that suck in regards to converting a click to a sale. It makes sense to smartprice that page. However, we probably all also have pages that do very well. Even if the pages that convert out number the pages that suck by 10 to 1, it doesn't make sense to not smartprice the pages that suck as those could account for thousands of clicks that could easily discourage advertisers. Also, I don't see Google leaving money on the table on clicks from pages that convert well even if the pages that suck out number the pages that rock.

Someone find me a piece of Google literature that mentions a click being penalized at the publisher account level.

c) The AdSense database schema that is visible is incapable of doing anything on a per-URL basis.

Oh please... just because our publisher interface is limited that doesn't mean it reflects Google on a whole. Big G has some of the most intelligent and complex algorithms known to man when it comes to their SE, AW and AS. They probably take more variables into their algorithms than we will ever know and that only a very few could comprehend.

AdSense haven't a clue themselves how it now works since they have so many algo variables that none of them actually understand the comprehensiveness of what has been created.

They dare not dismantle it since they haven't no idea what would happen consequently they tinker with it a bit more in the belief that they "know what they are doing"!

If they did, tell me why my contact page yesterday suddenly had a 500% increase in EPC...ah, I forgot, alogo's do not have logic:-)

"Smart pricing affects an entire account. It is not on a per page or per site basis"

Big G has some of the most intelligent and complex algorithms known to man when it comes to their SE, AW and AS.

Anybody who lumps the Google search engine in with Google's AdSense system design-wise clearly doesn't understand that they wrote their own distributed filesystem for one, while the other was built on top of MySQL. Let me know when AdSense goes a year without being "down for maintenance". :-)

tell me why my contact page yesterday suddenly had a 500% increase in EPC

Hard to say, but perhaps you've enlisted in an advertising system in which advertisers are free to come and go on a minute-by-minute basis, and different advertisers may pay vastly different prices per click?

Please join my protest of eBay for not suppying consistent returns on my auctions! :-)

the blog you mention above is owned by an ex mod of this forum who has it on very good athority that smart pricing affects an entire adsense account and hence why she posted

"Smart pricing affects an entire account. It is not on a per page or per site basis"

Where does Jen say anywhere that she heard this from more than the one WW member who posted the original thread [webmasterworld.com] here at WW?

I haven't seen anyplace where Jen reports having been told this directly by anyone other than the WW member who posted it in the original thread. If you have, please tell us where.

I'd be glad to be wrong about this, but Google said nothing to confirm this when they addressed Smart Pricing on the Inside Adsense blog a couple days after the thread here at WW and Jens post on her blog.

Where does Jen say anywhere that she heard this from

Over time Google could amass enough information to analyze the on-page and off-page factors at the domain level, the page level, or even the individual-advertiser-on-each-page level. I don't see why their analysis would stop at the account level, when many of accounts consist of a variety of diverse websites.

We have no way of knowing how Google calculates the payout percentage--i.e., whether it's a fixed number, a sliding scale based on earnings, a sliding scale that takes some kind of "quality score" into account, or something else altogether.

So, at least in theory, two sites with identical gross nominal revenues from AdSense could be earning different amounts because of:

- The same smart-pricing discount, but different payout percentages

- Different smart-pricing discounts, but the same payout percentages

- Different smart-pricing discounts and different payout percentages

for what its worth mrSEman it was straight from the horse's mouth, the blog you mention above is owned by an ex mod of this forum who has it on very good athority that smart pricing affects an entire adsense account and hence why she posted

ronburk

Anybody who lumps the Google search engine in with Google's AdSense system design-wise clearly doesn't understand that they wrote their own distributed filesystem for one, while the other was built on top of MySQL.

Ok so AS is not as mature as their SE and it is ever mutating.... still, compared to the other PPC, its leagues ahead. It may be based on a MYSQL db, it might require maintenance once in a while, our stats do get sluggish sometimes.... oh well its not perfect... then again, what is? YPN and MSN sure aren't.

The only thing I have faith in is my bottom line. I do what G tells me and I make money. I also believe that G is a business first and foremost and a business exists to make money. If they lose their advertisers because ads arent converting, then yes they would make less money... thats bad. But what would happen if every AS publisher dropped AS on their pages that have a poor CTR, CPC, CPM and so on? That would mean milions and bilions in ads lost for G, the publishers as well as the advertisers. VERY BAD! Ever hear the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"? Until I hear it from them, I can't bring myself to believe that G is that stupid.

Looked at from the advertiser's point of view, the publisher account is of little if any significance. The domain, yes. The particulars of a specific page, yes. But the overall account, not so much.

Yes I do see the "many factors" part, however, that is very vague. What is less vague is the example that mentions the difference between 2 pages... no mention of sites, domains nor accounts. So assuming for an instant that the keywords are the same the only other specific reference they make is to the page.

They refer to pages in the context of what they take into account. Of course they take into account the conversion rates for different pages. But that doesn't mean that they then rate those pages differently, especially on the fly. What they take into account and how the apply smart pricing are two different things.

Re the source of the account-wide assertion, it's not just Jenstar's blog. We've had people post responses from AdSense to emails in which they confirmed that Smart Pricing is account wide.

In the end, I think that smart pricing must be applied at the account level (though possibly at the page level also). That way, Google has a method to reward publishers who consistently produce effective sites.

But let's assume that it really is only applied to individual pages. For those of you who believe that smart pricing is done only at the page level, what practical difference does that make? What should a publisher do differently if that is so?

Looked at from the advertiser's point of view, the publisher account is of little if any significance. The domain, yes. The particulars of a specific page, yes. But the overall account, not so much.

I'm not so sure. If account-wide smart pricing were to discourage publishers from creating junk pages or to experiment with optimizing for CTR at the expense of conversions, wouldn't that benefit advertisers?

Think of places where having a per-domain approach would be VERY sensible:

Competitive filter. If I have two sites about two different subjects, wouldn't it be reasonable to have two different filters?

Adsense Referrals. As often noticed, having two VERY different sites that send to the same referral page is often bad for your image. Until someone noticed that you can leave the site's URL empty, you often read hear people that took referrals down because through the referral page people could discover links between sites that should have been separate.

Whitelist. The 'whitelist' concept (yuor ads are only paying you if they appear on a certain set of sites that you authorize) would be trivial to implement it their algos were including the site containing the ad. This would also be a good measure against click attacks, making them a little biut more complex. The fact that this whitelist is not activated is, IMHO another clue in the same direction: Adsense algos are not per-domain.

The fact that this whitelist is not activated is, IMHO another clue in the same direction: Adsense algos are not per-domain.

If we had 32768 filters and 32768 channels and all the info we ever wished for, Google would probably get stuck with alot of ads on the shelves because we would fill up all our filters with anything that doesn't convert for us. The interface is limited at what it is because of Money and not because of technological limitations. Who knows what the algos are doin... however you can bet the farm that it is geared to increase profitability.... and whatever our share is, that still means more money for us.

Back to the original post for a sec... I still think that if the original poster is trying to turn $100 a month into $125... if he was makin $10K a month, he wouldn't be so eager to drop 30% of his revenue ($3000) to try and turn it into $12K or $15K to run a little test on something that is not confirmed by G themselves.

I don't believe I have been smartpriced account wide even though according to many posts here I should of definitely have been... I challenge anyone here who earns more than $4k a month to contact Google and get a straight answer on the question that if they remove their ads from what they believe to be poorly performing pages, that they will be un-smartpriced accross their whole account and that their earnings will or could go up on other pages.

Back to the original post for a sec... I still think that if the original poster is trying to turn $100 a month into $125... if he was makin $10K a month, he wouldn't be so eager to drop 30% of his revenue ($3000) to try and turn it into $12K or $15K to run a little test on something that is not confirmed by G themselves.

Last night, I took off ads from low performing pages. I'm making $100 in 2 months, so why not. We'll see what happen after one week.

Who knows, Google might use an algo that can calculate (or guess ^^) and assign different smart pricing level for different account.. ..