I saw the "urgent message" in my control panel.

So I gave in a set all my ad blocks the way they suggested.

Then I got the email telling me I had a "urgent" message.

Apparently they don't cross check before they send out the emails. :)

This morning -

"At least #*$! of the pages on abcdefg.com are running less than three ad units."

BINGO! That's correct. My philosophy is ONE ad block per page. I will go to ZERO, before I go to three.

"Adding any of our top performing units (336x280, 300x250, 728x90 or 160x600) to prominent sections of your pages will substantially increase your ad impressions and overall revenue."

So what? I choose NOT to use ANY of those formats. One size does NOT fit all, not even close.

Google ALWAYS assumes that EVERY webmaster wants to MAXIMIZE their revenue, AT ANY PRICE! NOT SO!

Some of us have other top priorities, such as -
1. DON'T look like a foreign, low-class money-beggar.
2. DON'T look like a spam-fest, MFA, or tin-cup site.
2. DON'T antagonize visitors with 8 bazillion ads.
3. DON'T get penalized by Google Search for crossing the unknown Panda threshold for "obnoxious ads above the fold."
4. DON'T look like a groveling, panhandling whore-dog.
5. What is in the best interests of Google is OFTEN not in the best interests of the webmaster. GOOGLE HAS NEVER, EVER CONCEDED THIS, which generates big credibility issues. Google has trained us since Day 1 that we MUST read between the lines.

C'mon Google. Don't you think that after 7 years of doing this, my "ad-running-mentality" would have progressed beyond the "spam-them-with-ads" stage? As a matter of fact, I am about to remove ALL ads from some pages, where the performance has been dismal. I need to improve my overall CTR and eCPM stats. Adding more ads will have just the OPPOSITE effect, especially under the current "ads-from-outer-space" ad serving situation. If IBAs are served first, will I get appropriately page-targeted ads in the second block? Or is it the other way around? We just don't know. I am hoping for "take-your best-shot-first" performance. If that can't be done, too bad. I am not going to use the "see-what-sticks-to-the-wall" approach, by putting up as many ads as possible.

Thanks, but no thanks.
.

[edited by: Sally_Stitts at 8:28 pm (utc) on Jun 15, 2011]

Oh I don't care about looking like a whore-dog.

But I need to be able to test to make sure that looking like a whore-dog is actually working for me.

(ork ork)

Whenever I apply one of their tips, my revenue goes up, so I am happy to do what they say (mostly).

It's the alarmist tone of their notifications that is annoying, like you're about to get banned if you don't read it at this instant and take immediate actions. Then you get suggestions that might get you pandalized. Sheesh.

Seems GG Adsense is at it again - I got the "Place 3 ads on all of your pages" notice as well.

I cuurently run one 160x600 on the side and one 728x90 across the bottom on many page, but not all.

I think GG should quantify what I would actully gain following thier advice.

Haven't had the 'urgent' message (yet), but for months I've been getting the 'Your ads have recently appeared on websites you haven't authorized' message. It's always there. It never goes away. It's like the wife.

And the unauthorized sites? translate.googleusercontent.com, and webcache.googleusercontent.com

(buggered if I'll put them in my 'authorized sites' list).

I just read about the controversy over whether Google has given one particular U.S. Presidential campaign special access to a new advertising product.

And that new advertising product apparently captures the email address of anyone who clicks and sells the email address to the advertiser?

And then I notice I also have one of the "URGENT" messages in my AdSense account.

I'm really beginning to have doubts about this company's judgement and decision-making.

It's like that old saying, "Things that can't go on forever won't."


FarmBoy

Google never knows what the other hand is doing. They'll tell you to do one thing, and then turn around and penalize you for listening to them.

I would have to wholly agree, Sally_Stitts. I'm currently working on a new layout for one of my sites trying to overcome a pandalization and I almost got sucked in to that 'urgent' message and the case study they cited and for a brief moment considered adding more ad units to all my pages going against all my better judgement (and testing) over the past five years. Then I came to my senses and thought, what in the world am I doing? I already know the outcome of adding another ad unit and have long since decided against it. One size does NOT fit all.

I swear, they've got some kind of Pavlov's dog thing happening with me...

URGENT MESSAGE! MORE ADS = MORE $$$!

Me: Really? (*salivating*) Okay! You bet! I'm there! :D

Same here, I thought I was banned or something. Nope,
"You have 1200+ new opportunities to get a 6-12 month vacation to PandaLand."

Google never knows what the other hand is doing. They'll tell you to do one thing, and then turn around and penalize you for listening to them.

I am starting to think that not even search does, they are so many engineers and what one said to do last month, another adds it to the algo as a negative. Tough luck.

I think of the "urgent" message like a mousetrap..those who are MFA but that panda missed, and who aren't too bright, will fall for it, and panda.v.? will go "BANG" and get them ..

It is "Bait for MFAs" ..don't bite ..

but many will, $$$ signs speak louder than the voices of reason.

"You have 1200+ new opportunities to get a 6-12 month vacation to PandaLand."

Hahaha -- that really made me laugh! :)

I got the "urgent" message too. Someone just may have chosen that word, or it reveals a desperation caused by other "things."

I found the whole thing (both the increase your ads suggestion and the "urgent" notice) very offensive.

I can't imagine how you would react when someone actually says something offensive.

I haven't received it, but it is unacceptable. It borders on spam IMO. An urgent message is - as you say - about being banned or a policy violation. The title of this message reminds me of the make money online niche. Y'know, the:

"URGENT MESSAGE! Do NOT avoid this URGENT MESSAGE"

*Clicks*

"DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE $192,018 PER MONTH WITH JUST 0.1 HOURS OF WORK BY CLICKING ONE BUTTON ON OUR AWESOME SOFTWARE LULZ?!?"

- type spams/sales 'letters'.

Very bizarre from Google - especially since the search quality team have clearly said that too many ads is a bad thing.

Sounds like we are talking about two different things here.

The "urgent" message in my account was simply about setting ad blocks to allow image/text/richmedia instead of just text.

Nothing about adding more ads to my pages.

Ah makes sense. It still isn't acceptable IMO to call that an 'urgent' message, but fair point.

I have my payments on hold because its June, EOFY here and I HATE that I don't know if they will pay me on June 30 or July 1, so I avoid the problem by delaying the June payment.
I have had this huge red bar across the top of the page since I set it on May 1 saying loudly

Your payments are currently on hold. Action is required to release payment. More details.

Yes! I know! I set it that way!
Its so in your face. Sure, a small onscreen reminder. Maybe a bigger one around the 15th when its cutoff for turning it back on, but all the time?
Its one of those things that promotes message blindness - they will put something else like 'your account has been banned' and I won't even notice :(
Even if I could say 'don't tell me for 3 days' or some such, but no...!

I received an e-mail recently advising me to turn on images and text but I can't remember if it was labelled urgent.

I had recently turned on images and text for all but one ad unit and the e-mail highlighted the one ad unit in question. The bods at Google seem very keen for publishers to have all options open. I followed their advice.

For the last couple of months I've been doing some long-term testing on text and image ads. By this, I mean making a change and leaving it for a whole month instead of reverting the change as soon as things start to look bad.

The stats in the new interface tell me that image ads get very few clicks; it therefore seems better to turn them off. I ran this way for a month.

However, when I turned both text and image ads back on, my CTR went down but my earnings went up. This seems to be in line with Google's explanation that when you have both turned on there is more competition in the auction and therefore the value of clicks goes up.

AdSense is such a complete mystery to me that I have given up trying to improve anything myself by messing around with the publisher options. All ad blocks are now set for images and text, and I've cleared out my competitive filter list.

I have done a lot of messing around in the past trying to improve things but nothing ever worked. Google has complete control now over which ads are served and I have to admit that my earnings have never been better.

March 2011 was a record month, May 2011 was pretty close, and June 2011 should be a new record again.

Two ads on a page is more than enough for me. I would fear placing three would get my sites penalized by Google's search algorithm. The fact is, Google search says one thing, and AdSense says another. I stay safely in the middle.

I can't imagine how you would react when someone actually says something offensive.

It's easy to find this offensive if:

1)You participated in a phone consult within the last half year, mainly to get confirmation that your ad placement met proper standards.

2)You were Panalized.

3)You anticipate that too many ads (the Adsense recommendation) may be one of the reasons.

4)Being told that you have an "urgent" message (which most of us would assume was related to possibly loosing your account) only to find out that it's a recommendation to do more of what you believe caused your traffic loss.

Yes, I find it very easy to find that offensive.

The main reason I returned to this thread was because it struck me. Adsense can tell me I have over 500 "lost" opportunities, yet somehow they can't count the ads on (and ban the accounts of) websites that show more than the maximum allowed number of units on a page?

This is just that much more reason to have no faith in Google/Adsense.

Well, now GG is sending me direct emails "Your missing 8234 opportunites" blah, blah..

I got another one today "Did you know that you can place three..."

Wish I could get assurances that Panda would like me with three GG ads...

Panda wasn't because of too many ads on a site/page. It was because of sites' quality or lack thereof. Google wants every site to have fresh, original, quality content that is valuable to users. If you have lots of that, on every page, then the number of ads is not the issue. Google views Panda as a success.