Having 2 accounts is known to be legal in certain cases, read up on it in recent threads..

What you're planning to do is like spitting into the wind, and honestly a not very smart idea, you need to also read up on how AdSense and SmartPricing works.

Your higher ctr isn't all that high in any case. It's not a high ctr that will get you smartpriced. Smartpricing occurs when Google devalues your referred traffic because it is considered that coversions (for the advertiser) are less likely. Thus it is possible to maintain a high ctr and avoid smartpricing at the same time.

Hobbs and scurramunga - i thought that a LOW ctr means LOWER income as a result of smart pricing, and not the other way ..

i have read some articles about smart pricing, and it seems to me that a low ctr would be a good logical explanation for earning a smaller percentage of the ads revenues.

CTR has nothing to do with smart pricing.

You're not real clear on what CTR is are you?

Right; CTR is how many of your website visitors click on an ad on your site, as a percentage, so if you have 100 visitors and 3 click on one of your ads, that's a CTR of 3%. Google, and advertisers couldn't really care less about this, as it doesn't effect how much they pay out to you (you need to care as you want to make money out of as many people on your site as possible).

What Google and advertisers do care about is conversions, if when people click on an ad on your site, they don't then convert to a lead/sale for the advertiser, this is bad news for the advertiser, as they have paid for a visitor that brought no benefit to them, if that happens a lot they will stop using ad words to advertise, so Google cares whether people are going to convert too.

Smart pricing is how Google tries to mitigate this, if your customers are very likely to convert, then your traffic is worth more to an advertiser then if it doesn't convert. So you get paid more for sending high converting traffic and less for sending poor converting traffic.

In essence, your low CTR site could be sending better quality traffic then your high CTR site.

of course i know what CTR means, guys ..

i'm sure i have read about CTR and it's relation to smart pricing on some other articles..

what do you have to say about that ? :)

[edited by: martinibuster at 11:14 pm (utc) on Jan. 21, 2009]
[edit reason] Removed URL and Site Quotation. See TOS. [/edit]

what do you have to say about that ? :)

Putting a different Adsense account in will NOT fix your CTR. The ads will quickly adjust to whatever site topic you have and you will remain at the same CTR. Not only that, if Google thinks you're using multiple accounts to try and avoid Smartpricing...well, Google will most likely ban you from Adsense as they show very little tolerance for that.

If you want to increase CTR then consider changing your ad placement.

[edited by: StoutFiles at 6:02 pm (utc) on Jan. 21, 2009]

ok, so i now understand that it's not a good idea to use a different account to improve my CTR,
but as implied by your reply, do you also think that good CTR = positive smart pricing ?

never mind

edited....

Given what's on the table snob is looking good, but here goes again:

Read what Yoshimi wrote for you 6 posts up

t if you have a low CTR (under 1 or 2%), you may be penalised, so you only get about 10% of what clicks are worth

Nonsense, do some reading in the help pages, look at optimization topics, also visit the AdSense blog for info on SmartPricing, it is all there.

wyweb?
have u read the article i referred to ?

Yes, I did. I read stuff like this:

"If your clicks are only paying 10 cents, then you are probably smart priced..."

And then I clicked over to my favorite Dilbert cartoon..

"If your clicks are only paying 10 cents, then you are probably smart priced..."

If I was making 10 cents a click on Adsense I would be jumping for joy.

In and of itself.. a 10 cent click doesn't mean SQUAT.

If you're used to making 35 cent clicks and suddenly you start making 10 cent clicks, then yes, the possibility of having been smart priced exists.

Take those 10 cent clicks in relation to whatever the website's past history is though. Simply saying a 10 cent click is evidence of smart pricing is.. well, a bit premature.

From the Courtney Tuttle website:

Google uses smart-pricing to protect their advertisers from getting a bad CTR on the ads they pay for.

I don't know where they got this from, but why would Google protect their advertisers from a low CTR? As long as the traffic is converting who cares what the CTR is?

Wish EFV *signor_john* was here to clarify things...

Or am I missing something here?

For what it's worth: I'd be quite happy with 10 cent clicks.

I used to get 80 and 90 cent clicks. Now I'm lucky to get 6 and 7 cent clicks.

Yeah, I've been smart priced. I've been told by an adsense rep why I've been smart priced and I've also been told what I can do to counter it.

I've elected not to do that.

You just would have had to have been there...

Go on wyweb. Tell us. What to do about it can't involve moving ads from an unobtrusive position to an in your face position. Tried that a couple of weeks ago and it reduced earnings.

For the OP, I have 2 accounts, one business, one personal. I decided in the summer that a bunch of sites in the business account had really become a hobby. Moved them over. Reduction in the business account, no increase in the personal account.

Number 1 rule in adsense so far as I can figure out is don't fiddle with it else you'll reduce your earnings.

EDIT> Forgot why I posted. My best CPC is on low CTR pages. Don't agree with the article.

Number 1 rule in adsense so far as I can figure out is don't fiddle with it else you'll reduce your earnings.

Well, my take is a bit different. My Number 1 rule in adsense is DO fiddle with it, and continue fiddling with it until you get it sighted in. Then every 2 or 3 months fiddle with it again.

Shake things up.. change colors, change placement...

Re "Smart-pricing" For what it's worth...

My site has approximately 250,000 page views per month (total income p.m. approximately $4000). Some pages get a CTR of 25%, some pages 0%. If I see a page is not performing I remove the Adsense from the page. It's like having a shop (I have that too). If a product doesn't sell, I remove it from you shelves. I know I've never been smart-priced, so the "recipe" is working.

Here's a tip:

The word "free" will get you smart priced in a minute.

Not true, wyweb

The word "free" is used freely on my site.

SusanPilot

Not true, wyweb
The word "free" is used freely on my site.

Ahh well I love you Susan. "Free" has singlehandedly put my ass in the gutter with regard to adsense.

If I get rid of "free" I lose 3/4 of my traffic.

Adsense, fortunately, is not 3/4 of my income.

I'll take traffic any day....

I can monetize traffic in other ways...

Wyweb,

That's unfortunate for you but the word "free" does not affect everybody, in my experience. But I'm not an expert. Anything can happen tomorrow -- I can lose my account etc... which will be okay since it's just a hobby. I do this for fun.

Engine failure is a lot worse than Google hating me.

CPC - i actually get more than 30 cents for each click in my niche website, whereas in my popular site i get much much less than that ..
and as i said before, my CPC on the niche is much higher than the one on the popular site.
the only thing left to do is get more people to visit my niche, which is very hard, since it's a very unique niche, one might say ..

but the annoying part is that after seeing the potential for revenues from my niche, i've tried to play with the google adword keyword tool, and when i've tried to generate keywords using my website as a source, all the words that google yielded were very competetive and very expensive (much more than i actually get, which is CPC 30 cents or so), which is quite sad ..

and one last thing about smart pricing -
i've google blog's post about smart pricing,
and all it says about ctr was this:
"Clickthrough rate doesn't affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)"

but as the third comment says :
"Okay, but does it affect the publishers earnings per click? A simple yes or no will suffice."

which makes me doubt your saying that "ctr doesn't affect cpc"

which makes me doubt your saying that "ctr doesn't affect cpc"

You seem to have it mixed up. Smart pricing has nothing to do with CTR. What smart pricing do is reduce your EPC (or as you call it, CPC) when the traffic you send to advertisers is considered to convert poorly.

i thought that a LOW ctr means LOWER income as a result of smart pricing, and not the other way

A lower ctr? I think you do need to read up on some of the refrence material here, it will help to clear things up.

I've been told by an adsense rep why I've been smart priced and I've also been told what I can do to counter it.

I've elected not to do that.

Now that is truely fascinating. Anything you would be able/willing to share will command our complete attention.

[edited by: Scurramunga at 1:01 am (utc) on Jan. 22, 2009]

Anything you would be able/willing to share will command our complete attention.

He already said it. In the context of being smart priced, the word "free" in your pages is not desirable.

Clickthrough rate doesn't affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)"

but as the third comment says :
"Okay, but does it affect the publishers earnings per click? A simple yes or no will suffice."

The simple answer is no. Google doesn't care what your CTR is, why would they...Go on, give me a reason why it should matter to google what percentage of your customers click on an ad. If you can't give that then give me a reason why Google would penalise you for the fact that more of your customers choose to stay on your site (indicating that it is a good site) rather then click on an ad...

Really this is getting into Google conspiracy theory realms, Google is not there to "play with your head" it really is as simple as being about making money, and penalising you for a low CTR isn't going to improve their earnings, because if you have a low CTR it means that the clicks you do send are more likely to be quality, relevant clicks, which are in turn more likely to convert, which means more advertisers coming to Google, which means more money.