Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This makes the site more sluggish because the database is under a heavy load, pages loading a bit (lot) slower than normal, but overall it's not the normal snappy response when we're doing this type of maintenance work on the live site.
We used to do it late at night to avoid such sluggish site problems but it was unavoidable this time, had to happen during prime time.
Well, of all the amazing things to happen, AdSense CTR actually increased, along with revenues, during this maintenance cycle!
Just speculating but perhaps people got tired of waiting on the longer page loads and used AdSense as an escape route.
Earn more, bog down your server today!
Just kidding, somewhat, but I thought the visitor behavioral observation was interesting at a minimum because we've read reports from people that upgrade to faster servers and income suddenly dips so maybe too much site performance is bad for AdSense performance?
Do not try this at home and only attempt with adult supervision.
I'm not responsible if your shared host boots you off the server for bogging down 1K sites during prime time! :)
[edited by: incrediBILL at 3:01 am (utc) on May 20, 2009]
This is gold.
I know it's tongue in the cheek, but actually this could come back and bite someone in the ass after a few weeks with smart pricing.
know it's tongue in the cheek, but actually this could come back and bite someone in the ass after a few weeks with smart pricing.
Maybe the real gold is in convincing others to leap on the "bog down your server" bandwagon, get smart-priced, and leave more gold flakes in the pan for IncrediBILL. :-)
Just kidding, somewhat, but I thought the visitor behavioral observation was interesting at a minimum because we've read reports from people that upgrade to faster servers and income suddenly dips so maybe too much site performance is bad for AdSense performance?
Terrible!
I invested much time October to January to improve load time of my sites.
I thought the visitor behavioral observation was interesting at a minimum because we've read reports from people that upgrade to faster servers and income suddenly dips...
Of course, Incredibill isn't advocating people slow down their servers, he's sharing an experience that resulted in higher CTR and earnings, a small window into page loading times and how it affects clicks and earnings.
What do we make of it?
Shut your mouth Bill! Someone take his keyboard away!
I have dibs on his display!
Perhaps you're even breaking the TOS. It sounds like, in essence, your site was just showing Adsense ads since your sever hadn't coughed up the actual content. So this could at least be considered drawing attention to the ads.
I think you almost always get better CTR when you don't provide the information your visitor wants! That's why MFA sites must be very profitable, if, you can avoid being kicked out by Google.
So remember, SLOW SITE = LOSE ADSENSE ACCOUNT
As Bill says try this at your own risk!
Many here saw a ctr improvement after the last maintenance, one I know had a car accident, another lost her disk to a virus, I changed all my ad colors, we might have something there too ;-)
On a more serious note, yes slower loading pages and ads loading first must boost CTR, shaving off half your content, over blending, site navigation and back button removal should produce similar results, there you have it, the farm is all yours.
actually sad to recognize that for maximum ctr, a butt ugly design, blending tricks like mentioned above and dissatisfaction of user needs will help.
Perhaps you're even breaking the TOS. It sounds like, in essence, your site was just showing Adsense ads since your sever hadn't coughed up the actual content. So this could at least be considered drawing attention to the ads.
Nope, the whole page was served up and my content is always displayed before AdSense, it's the last thing that loads on the page.
I'm just saying the delay between pages being served only slowed somewhat, perhaps enough to frustrate them to click other things, nothing being done intentionally, just an observation.
You do know that a slow server adversely impacts your rankings right?
If that were true all those days when WebmasterWorld runs slow would have a serious impact and it ranks just fine.
I think speed would impact your site ranking if it was a constantly bad problem, not just 1 or 2 days during maintenance or some other heavy load situation.
Besides, if speed were a deal buster Twitter would be a PR0
Every night when my log analyzer fires off around 3am the server gets real sluggish for up to 30 min later in the month and the spiders are all over the site, they don't seem to mind and this has been going on nightly for years.
Don't make so much out of this post guys, it was just a unique one time observation from something that happened out of necessity.
This explains my crap adsense earnings since upgrading my hosting!
How do you know the CTR is from the same window of time that you are doing db maintenance?
Because I sample and record my AdSense reporting in 15 minute increments so I can see the changes per time of day. True it's not real time reporting exactly but the site has norms it hits at various times during the day and it was easily exceeding those norms.
Wish we had more data. Do you know if Ad Manager with Adsense has this ability?
Under that scenario, and assuming a database under heavy load, it's not unreasonable to think the page will "hang" right after the header area, right after the adsense ad. People may very well click on the ad instead of waiting for the page to load hence your increased CTR.
That being said I'm sure Google is aware of this, i'm sure they have metrics to monitor both your sites performance and any such spikes in CTR, and I highly doubt the effect will endure for very long. I'm also positive Google is able to detect if the slowdown is intentional and I would assume they could conceivably add a small delay to the time it takes to load the ads as well if it's an ongoing problem (on some sites it's a permanent problem).
edit: just because your adsense is at the bottom of the page doesn't mean it won't show up before the rest of the page if the database is under load. Different scenario, same effect.
[edited by: JS_Harris at 7:59 pm (utc) on May 20, 2009]
Some of us actually care about our users.
Ya' know, I could not say anything and let you go on your way in a state of outrage. But that wouldn't be nice. So I'd like to respectfully suggest you read the post. No one is advocating doing anything to disrespect their site visitors. ;)
Some of us actually care about our users.
Maybe IncrediBILL just wants to do them a favor by teaching them the art of patience. :-)
Seriously: He said he was kidding, and the observation was interesting. It also sounded reasonable, in that frustrated users are likely to click on something--whether it's the back button or an AdSense ad--if the server doesn't respond. That doesn't mean AdSense publishers should replace the outboards on their servers with trolling motors, or that smart pricing isn't likely to erase any benefits from poorly motivated clicks.
Recomendations.
Load adsense code as early in the html as possible, with as much content and navigation after.
Use a flush in php or asp to push the html immediately after the ad code.
Have database calls occur after the adsense code.
A wait or sleep does wonders, but could have serious effects from google or on usability.
BTW did anyone else notice the difference in ecpm between regular and one time visitors?
Maybe it's about changing the behavior of the site more than anything else. The site changed and that stimulated people to click more. Remember that old experiment when lights in a factory were altered and that increased productive. Maybe it’s along the same lines. The site wasn’t the same old same old.
This happenes with me sometimes, i own a chatting website, some times the chat server go down, so when people try to join the rooms, they kep seeing connecting.... , so while waiting they will give a look on ads and click more. thats true it happen.
But i think providing a good service with no down time, is more important than earning few dollars specially in long term.
