Yes.

I wouldn't.

It's OK to do so but there are many arguments against it:

The majority of search engine traffic normally does not land at your homepage so you won't be missing out there.

Someone going to your homepage will want to find more specific information, let them do this on your information pages (which show relevant ads).

Related to the last one - homepage ads may be poorly targeted.

It's more professional to not show ads on a homepage.

The fact you are asking if it's OK means you are already thinking it would be better not to.

There are a number of other threads on this. For some people it works wonders, others feel it cheapens the site image. Only you can judge what is right for you and your site. If in doubt - try it!

<<<< The majority of search engine traffic normally does not land at your homepage >>>>

Not in my experience.

<<<< The majority of search engine traffic normally does not land at your homepage >>>>

Not my experience either.

It depends,

If what your readers are after is on your deeper pages and your index page is just channeling them, then no. Their attention span will be short when they click the ads and your conversions will be lower and you will get smart priced. (happend to me)

If your home page has substantial info and is "sticky" where readers will tend to linger then it might pay to put ads on it.

<<<< The majority of search engine traffic normally does not land at your homepage >>>>

Nope, almost everyone comes through the homepage. There is a few stray cats but not enought to consider.

[edited by: Khensu at 4:33 pm (utc) on Oct. 11, 2006]

Every site is different.

I do get a lot of search engine traffic to my home page, and I'm pretty sure from analyzing people's behavior and the keywords that a good chunk of them don't find what they are looking for (and won't--it's just not on my site). This is basically because my site focuses on a particular subset of a larger subject, and yet it draws visitors looking for information about that general subject.

Consequently I have a high bounce rate. Now, if that's your situation, you could just wave goodbye to those people or you could experiment with a nicely integrated adblock OR an adlink unit.

I have an adlink unit on my home page. It's inobtrusive, but it generally displays at least some of the keywords that have brought people to my site. And people use it. It's my highest earning-page by a long way, often 1/3 of my total AdSense income. And, which is most important, traffic to the rest of the site does not seem to have been reduced.

Try and see what works for you.

hunderdown

The problem with a high bounce rate is that you are still charged a page view so that plumits your eCPM on an adblock.

Is that not the case with a link unit also?

Or does the propensity to click the links outweigh the negative aspect?

The other question is, doesn't a link unit open up the door for additional MFA intrusion that might spawn to your adblocks (one per page)? Or does that activity say isolated within the link unit?

[edited by: Khensu at 4:57 pm (utc) on Oct. 11, 2006]

It's more professional to not show ads on a homepage.

That's simply untrue, as anyone who visits leading media Web sites can attest. However, it may not be wise to display AdSense ads on your home page if Google does a poor job of targeting.

Nope, almost everyone comes through the homepage.

As Hunderdown points out, every site is different. On my own site, for example, only about 5% of traffic is on the home page, and most visitors arrive on inside pages. (The traffic pattern on a site like REI.com, Google News, or Webmaster World is likely to be different, because those sites aren't editorial content sites built around evergreen coverage of frequently-searched topics.)

The best way to learn whether AdSense ads are worth having on your home page is to test them.

Khensu, my CTR for the link unit on my home page is above my site average, so the high bounce rate on the home page is not a problem. I agree that if you are getting a poor CTR with an adblock or an adlink unit on the home page you might want to put something else there.

I haven't experienced MFA intrusion as a result of the link unit. My filter list is nowhere near full--I just don't see a lot of MFAs, either in the link lists or elsewhere in my site.

I don't know if you can put the Ad in the index page.But I don't suggest you to do that.

Yes you can put the ad on the index page - and why do you say not to do so? Surely everyone's site is different and has a different function/audience. What isn't good for some may be very good for others.

I have a number of sites - some have adverts on home page, site map etc, others don't. On some of my sites it looks tacky and doesn't go with the overall appearance - on others it works well, and converts well. Only the publisher can assess the viability of ad placement and appearance, whether it does or doesn't convert. IMHO :)

Every site's owner has their own judgement regarding placing adsense ads on their index page.

In my case, I chose not to (I did try), because it's poorly targeted (too spread) and the CTR is low.

Besides, haven't we discuss this in one lengthy thread before?

[webmasterworld.com...]

Agreed...

The link above is much more lenghty than what we could ever repeat here.

ARC

My site is in a competitive niche where visitors want answers FAST. So you could say the bounce rate is high. That's also probably why my homepage scores the highest everyday in terms of clicks and earnings. The ads on my homepage are very, very targetted.

I use magazine advertising as a model for my site. The first several pages are ads--you don't see the TOC immediately. It used to be the TOC was just inside; now you have to keep looking for it. :/ It's widely accepted in the (magazine) publishing industry.

p/g

Every site is different.

Yep, as much in Adsense and other advertising, in some cases it works, and some it just doesn't.

I started a test using channels a few months ago that, so far with the results, I think I'm going to knock Adsense off the home page and give folks an opportunity to explore beyond that if they happen to reach it. And for this one site, many don't.

After I make the change I'll give it a few months and see what happens. I'm going in assuming that--for this site--it's going to have a very negligible difference on the bottom line for Adsense, but might open a few more spots for other, maybe CPM, advertising.

<<<< The majority of search engine traffic normally does not land at your homepage >>>>

Thats my experience :) :) :)

I have tried many ad formats on my index page to recieve only low numbers in income.

I live with it knowing that the other pages, which are far more profitable, are working OK.

The index page is merely a feeder to the better pages.

For most of my sites I keep the index page and any sub-index pages ad-free except for a Google Search box. On the couple of sites where I have ads on index pages they are very discrete, and in the main I have just put a small link block. I agree, at the end of the day I want people to delve deeper, however, it does catch the odd very good click, and I suspect I traffic here when Google have badly targeted my advert on another content site.

You've just got to experiment!

In my case:

- lots of regular visitors who read the news on daily basis, so these go to the index and then leave after having read the news, so yes, adsense there makes sense.
- lots of search engine visitors who do not go via the index, so i also have adsense in the single pages
- lots and lots of traffic via the search engines to my forums, so there again I use adsense.

It depends on how your site is constructed. In my case, all three make (ad)sense.