Test: Removed all AdSense Units Except One

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Test: Removed all AdSense Units Except One

Just done something radical

fredw

11:24 pm on Nov 5, 2006 (gmt 0)

One of my site's EPC has been in the basement (sometimes less than .02 per click average) for several months. These pages had one 120x600 skyscraper in the leftnav, one 468x60 banner within and near the top of the content, both "blended", and one 468x60 image banner at the bottom of the content.

As an experiment, I have just removed all of the adsense ad units from the pages on this site except for the one 468x60 text banner within and near the top of the content. I'm going to leave it that way for perhaps the rest of this month and let y'all know how it goes.

I figure my daily income from this site couldn't get any worse...

longen

11:53 pm on Nov 5, 2006 (gmt 0)

I have used a leader or large rect near the top for a few years. CTR is very good - all i need is more traffic.

joeking

7:40 am on Nov 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

fred keep us posted and good luck ;-)

LBmtb

9:55 pm on Nov 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

We need more of these "I'm gonna try this new idea and see how it goes" threads. Fred, how's it going with that so far?

Genuine1

12:32 am on Nov 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

I suspect that eventually your earnings will come back to normal, almost, once smartpricing has adjusted things back into line! Let us know!

fredw

12:37 am on Nov 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

Glad you asked. Two days in and I'm very depressed. (Not really, but it's no fun watching the stats as the site makes no money.)

Clicking is down by half, but average amount per click and EPCM are not going up. Average amount per click is less than 3 cents. Before I made the change it was hovering around 4 cents. So, so far my revenue for this site has gone down.

My other sites in a different niche average around 11 cents per click. It's very frustrating...

sailorjwd

1:37 am on Nov 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

fred,

let it run for 10 days.

hunderdown

3:08 am on Nov 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

Some have posted that smartpricing adjusts on a weekly basis so I agree, let it run longer.

fredw

3:42 am on Nov 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'm sticking with it... Thanks guys!

fredw

11:49 pm on Nov 11, 2006 (gmt 0)

For the site curently undergoing the one ad unit only test, which had been in the .04 and .03 cent average per click range for weeks, I am seeing, now that Adsense is back on line, almost .10 per average click now.

Anyone else seeing a difference like this today? Is this a result of the maintenance or have I been un-smart-priced? Or both?

hunderdown

11:54 pm on Nov 11, 2006 (gmt 0)

My eCPM is more than double normal for today, but too soon to tell if it's due to some change from the maintenance. It could settle back down.

Pedent

11:52 am on Nov 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

Sadly, Google has sabotaged this test by doing an update. As you aren't A/B testing, it'll be difficult to tell whether any improvement is down to changes you made or changes they did.

[conspiracy theory]I guess you were too close to discovering something really important, so they had to throw up a smokescreen. The truth is out there ... [/conspiracy theory]

Leonard0

4:37 pm on Nov 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

The effect of number of ads per page has been discussed several times in this forum:
[webmasterworld.com ]
[webmasterworld.com ]

I think that in many cases fewer ads on a page leads to better EPC because there are fewer low-paying ads for the user to choose from. But if the page is about a high-paying topic, there may be plenty of lucrative ads available.

fredw

4:45 pm on Nov 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

Unfortunately, Leonard0, I think my niche is the opposite. Because this niche appeals in a great amount to kids, I think all of my ads might be low paying...

fredw

2:00 am on Nov 13, 2006 (gmt 0)

I agree with Pedent, I think this latest maintenance invalidated my test. I've put back my second ad unit, and will conduct the test again at some later time.