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Adding major sites to your adsense filter

         

DXL

4:59 am on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I have a few sites (primarily music) that have pretty awful click amounts (2-10 cents per click on average). I remember reading that its a plus to add Amazon, Target and Ebay to your filter just because they can afford to get incredible low cpc rates, and you're losing visitors for 1-5 cent clicks.

They've been in my filter for a while, but I'm wondering how wise it is to add Yahoo and Local.com to my filter now. They make up a pretty good number of generic ads on my sites. I'm wondering if they're the culprits on these low cost clicks I'm getting, anybody here have any experience adding them to your filter?

newborn

5:19 am on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



DXL I am actually in Adsense now and scared of blocking those major companies. Wouldnt it be different because I have 2 120x600 Ads on my site:

1. Site = Recipes
2. Site = Travel
3. Site = Real Estate.

I am in the process of blocking some of these ads Im definately going to block those like ebay and others so I guess.

I will let you know the outcom after a week.

david_uk

6:00 am on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I wouldn't try and second guess if an ad is a good payer or not. I don't think you can do that, as you may get a high value or a very low value click from the ad depending on many factors we can't control and don't even know about.

What I go for is "Is the ad of benefit to my visitors, or the site?".

I put ebay in the filter a long time ago on the grounds that "New and used dead cats" ads were not an asset to the look of my site. I put amazon in there for pretty much the same reason - all the affiliates selling products not related to the ad copy.

But if the ad is from a major player or not makes no difference. If the ads are scummy, lead to a page of ads, product has no relationship to the ad or is of no relevance to my site topic it goes.

Newborn - if you have two ad blocks on the page consider reducing it to one. On many past threads here you may find that having fewer ads generates more cash, and you see less cheap scummy ads. Some also feel that this technique over time may lead to fewer junky low paying ads ads being displayed, as the epc may rise to a point where adsense decided not to place them.

mzanzig

7:17 am on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Absolutely second Davids opinion. Put yourself in the shoes of your users. If you'd click that ad and see the landing page, would you be wondering what its all about? Maybe disappointed? Or even furious? If the answer is yes, then you might consider that advertiser for the filter.

Also, please note that putting ebay.com into the filter will have very little effect. Usually, they go through 3rd party re-directs, i.e. the ad points to someotherdomain.com and will then be forwarded to ebay.com - only putting someotherdomain.com into the filter will block the ad.

Re. Yahoo! - I found that blocking them does not influence my EPC, so I keep them in. I believe that some users actually link the Yahoo! brand name with quality, so they tend to click their ads. Also, the landing pages are quite OK, so I do not see a problem with them.

UserFriendly

12:13 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



But most of the ebay adverts are run by ebay affiliates that are using keyword advertising. And they don't have an ebay.com domain, they use a redirect URL to forward visitors to ebay.com.

I didn't think that adding ebay.com to your filter list could stop such affiliates from displaying adverts on your site. Am I wrong?

OptiRex

1:30 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)



I wouldn't try and second guess if an ad is a good payer or not.

Correct, I have 100+ sites that all concern the same subject matter and ostensibly display the same or similar ads.

I vary from USD 0.01-2.20 per click (average USD 0.30) and I couldn't tell you which ads are paying me what since I do not know what ads are being shown in other countries whilst I am working or asleep.

Unless you have overtly MFA ads then you will probably be best leaving well alone until you have firm evidence of precisely which are the low paying ads.

DXL

8:36 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Also, please note that putting ebay.com into the filter will have very little effect. Usually, they go through 3rd party re-directs, i.e. the ad points to someotherdomain.com and will then be forwarded to ebay.com - only putting someotherdomain.com into the filter will block the ad.

I'm pretty good about opening a new window and typing in the URL of whatever ads are displaying to see what they're about. That's how I encounter most of the MFA sites (and those "top4", "top5", "top20" sites that have been all over the place lately).

Chapman

8:54 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Timely topic!

I'm in agreement with david_uk in regard to the "New and used dead cats" scenario so I've been blocking eBay and Yahoo for quite awhile. For the past couple of days my only questionable ads are coming from "books.google.com".

So... do they go into the filter too?

OT: Welcome back OptiRex... how was the trade show?

Chapman

OptiRex

9:25 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)



OT: Welcome back OptiRex... how was the trade show?

Fantabuloso...as always Italy excels when it comes to food and drink:-)

Great time had by all, thanks for asking.

Chapman

9:36 pm on Oct 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



OT: My wife is Sicilian. She visited Italy with her sisters (6) a few years ago. She had sooo much fun... I never thought I'd see her again!

Chapman

[edited by: Chapman at 9:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 9, 2006]

Lagamorph

1:38 am on Oct 10, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Looking purely at the CPC aspect, if G really does display ads based on the probable eCPM wouldn't blocking any ad just make G pick the next less profitable one?

hunderdown

3:18 am on Oct 10, 2006 (gmt 0)



wouldn't blocking any ad just make G pick the next less profitable one?

According to Google's algorithm, yes, but we know our sites, and Google doesn't. Google doesn't adjust that targeting algorithm to account for differences at the site level. So an ad that the algo. predicts will perform well on the system as a whole may not perform well on my site.

Marcia

3:28 am on Oct 10, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



What I go for is "Is the ad of benefit to my visitors, or the site?".
That's been my attitude all along, that the Adsense adverts are value-added content to my sites. And yes, I have started blocking some major advertisers for that very reason.

My traffic has gone down so that the total earnings can't be used as a gauge, but I've noticed some new advertisers whose sites I've never heard of before starting to show up, and even though earnings are down because of less traffic altogether, it seems to me that the amount earned per click has gone up a bit.

It may well be that people have been over-saturated with the "major" sites and are more interested in discovering something new for a change. Over all, CTR has gone up, and I think if we concentrate on providing value for visitors they'll make their click and conversion decisions based on what appeals to them.