Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I can't say I am well versed in Smart Pricing but I was under the impression that there is a "conversion" factor associated with it, meaning that somehow Adsense can determine if a profitable activity, like a sale (a conversion), took place from visitor's click on one of your ads.
Since the type of MFA site I mention above will almost certainly result in a click, because there is nothing else to click on, wouldn't this be a "conversion" and in the long run be better for my site's Smart Pricing multiplier? Wouldn't my Smart Pricing multiplier probably decrease if I blocked these MFA's since their ad would be replaced by an ad that wouldn't as likely be a guaranteed conversion?
Many people report positive effects from CAREFUL MFA blocking. Others do not.
We can speculate here in response to your question but in my opinion the only way to find out what the impact will be is to test it out and see.
So yes, I block them.
You can see a Google tracking code, if you look to the ad with IE in the Adsense Preview tool.
If there's no Google code in there I wouldn't worry at all for Smartpricing and/or conversion tracking.
In my experience blocking MFAs/Ringtones/Ebay etc. only brought me more income, not less.
[edited by: Bddmed at 8:43 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]
I would echo the responses of others in that you have to be careful when blocking. You can't simply guess who is a good payer, and who isn't. You can go too far with blocking and lose money as a result. But if the ad landing page is a wall of ads with no content, that isn't doing you any favours and you can live without it! Also, there is your site's image to consider. As said already, visitors will prefer to see quality relevant ads.
Save your filter for the most offensive ads and maybe for real competitors.
Needless to say, others may disagree.
The only reason for filtering MFA site ads I could think of is visitors are tired of those best4*, best10* ads, and by filtering them out we free space for maybe less cost effective ads but more appealing to visitors. This is very similar to why some webmasters "disable" site-targeted (CPM) ads on their sites.
Any other reason to remove MFA ads?
If an ad is paying 2c, but on the rest of the network has a high ctr, then it's likely it will replace an ad with a $2 payout that has a very low ctr on the network.
Note the use of the words "On the network". They don't take into account how ads perform on your site. Or if they do, it has very little relevance placed on it. So if the $2 ad works well on your site, that isn't necessarily going to help in Google's choice of ads. More than likely the 2c one will get placed based on Google's expectation that are based on data NOT gained from your site.
As has been said already, the fact is that MFA's are very good at manipulating the system, and gaining good ad placement for little cost. Deleting that ad may give you another MFA, but it's been my experience that very often you get better, more relevant ads appearing insted that pay real money.
not quite... as was just pointed out, ad ranking involves more than just the epc.
if you look at the google pages enough, they use the phrase "broadly targeted ads", in a rather mindless feeble attempt to explain why the ctr goes up, but the epc goes down.
i suspect that mfa'ers are part of that "broadly targeted" segment that adsense uses as filler material for the quality targeted ads that you should be getting all of the time.
The AdSense algo. makes a number of decisions on the basis of network-wide averages. It doesn't know your site as well as you do. And that's why you can actually fine-tune the ads that appear on your site.
Seriously, as time passes it is proven to me that the algo is broken, and needs a helping hand once in a while, make your own system, personally I have better things to do than obsess over blocking, I will visit the filter once in a while, but only when things get out of hand, and like kite flying, release and pull regularly (empty and repopulate).
The AdSense algo. makes a number of decisions on the basis of network-wide averages. It doesn't know your site as well as you do. And that's why you can actually fine-tune the ads that appear on your site.
To me much of the "knowledge" passed around here is like the knowledge gamblers pass around Vegas. It simply assumes we are smarter than the big company that studies this stuff daily year after year. Google is basically on a commission basis and it's in their interest that each publisher make the most money and not the least as is so often claimed.
Point? Do I have a point? :) I think the concept of blocking certain ads to let higher paying, higher converting, quality ads have a chance to compete financially against low paying MFA's that are keeping you from your money to be silly.
Blocking for quality is another issue :)
Seriously though, I've bounced a few things but just the worst that I see casually surfing as I don't need eBay, WalMart, Sears or any junk like that floating around.
[edited by: incrediBILL at 2:55 am (utc) on Nov. 4, 2006]
I think the concept of blocking certain ads to let higher paying, higher converting, quality ads have a chance to compete financially against low paying MFA's that are keeping you from your money to be silly.
I think you may seriously misunderstand what people who have successfully used the technique to gain real increases in income are doing.
OK, there are some people who are always going to try and guess what ads pay well and what don't and block on that basis. That's nuts, and I have always advised against that.
The sort of ads I block are those that lead to pages that have lots of ads, and no content. You cannot seriously think that that type of site is a better payer than an ad for a business trying to sell goods and services. Removing them does not lead to another in many cases. As I've repeatedly said, those that can game the systems ads will always manage to get them shown in places they shouldn't be shown.
My site has only got organic traffic. I'm at number 2/3 for my keywords on Google search and that's where most of my traffic comes from. My average ecpm is a figure is one that many would kill for, and yet I still see many of these cheap ads being placed. Does that suggest that the sites with no content and the back button disabled (reported to Google many times - won't ban them) actually pay the going rate that genuine advertisers do to appear?
I rather think not, and if they did I'd be happy to keep them.
You are correct in that people don't block effectively, or block WAY too much. You are not correct in saying that blocking to maintain your income is silly.
And by filtering MFA you are actually filtering some of the "best-payers"
Adsense works on predicting what ads they THINK MIGHT be the best payers
performance is the catchword here. if you block an mfa, you block one of the best performers. performance involves epc and ctr.
so, as we know that mfas just can't pay high because of their arbitrage model, they must show in your ad blocks because on average and network wide the crowd clicks on them like crazy. mfas achieve this through compelling ad text that promises everything - and in effect keeps nothing on their landing page.
second catchword: blocking as consumer protection. sadly, that's your job, not googles. sometimes you need to keep your visitors from doing nonsense and protect them from a bad landing page experience by not exposing them to the catchy mfa crap.
You are not correct in saying that blocking to maintain your income is silly.I didn't say that ;)
But its the only way to make sure its up to date.
You are not correct in saying that blocking to maintain your income is silly.I didn't say that
Erm - yes you did actually.
I think the concept of blocking certain ads to let higher paying, higher converting, quality ads have a chance to compete financially against low paying MFA's that are keeping you from your money to be silly.
lol... Lagamorph, you just got owned :-) and that's twice in two threads that you have denied what you posted.
back on topic... blocking mfa's works well for a whole lot of people, including me.
It works well for me also. I can imagine however that owners of MFA websites will say it doesn't ... :-)
lol... Lagamorph, you just got owned :-) and that's twice in two threads that you have denied what you posted.Owned, OK, I know your age group ;)
I'm not denying what I posted I'm denying he understands what the words mean and the difference between what he wrote and what I did.
this thread reminds me of that sally field movie called "sybil"... it was the true life story of a woman who had 16 different personalities.
