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8 AdSense ads on 1 page - it's possible

1script

4:35 am on Jul 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

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Came across an interesting site today. It appeared on SERP #1 on a long tail KW I've tracked. Anyhow, it's not its rank that piqued my attention, even though I can't understand how the site got there. I was very surprised to see 8 AdSense ads featured on the page. And I mean 8 regular contextual blocks, not a combination of various types of ads.

When I sometimes mess up with programming and have a script insert more than 3 of those blocks by mistake, #4 and higher never actually show, I always get empty spaces, which is how I usually catch the error. But here are 8 blocks, all looking quite normal. The site is way too small for them to get any preferential treatment by Google (though I don't know if the publisher owns a boatload of these and got his deal that way) - so how do they manage to show 8 blocks?

I am looking into this from the technical perspective - it's hard for me to see value in 8 blocks, CTR drops so dramatically below the fold, that it's not really worth it IMHO.

So, I opened the source and it appears that they are pulling the AdSense code into the page using JS. I'm not so sure how it's possible that Google does not catch that the referral page for all 8 requests is the same, but it looks to be working for this site.

Does anyone know if this is allowed by Google? Not 8 blocks on 1 page, which I don't care for, but inserting AdSense code into a page via JS? Since JS is the only reliable way to know the browser window size, I see a real value in being able to dynamically call up different size ad blocks. This may be especially useful for the mobile version of the site I'm working on. Does anyone have an idea how AdSense and JS coexist?

freitasm

8:10 am on Jul 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

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The site is an AdSense Premium Partner?

1script

2:49 pm on Jul 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

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The site is an AdSense Premium Partner?

I seriously doubt it. But, again, the publisher may be. Who knows.

Swanny007

5:33 pm on Jul 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

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If the ads are showing he/she must be a premium publisher. I'm quite sure normal accounts can only show 3 regular ads plus the ad units, Google won't serve more than that unless you are premium. I have seen sites with more than 3 regular ad units showing.

hannamyluv

9:03 pm on Jul 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

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They are running display ads. Some of the display ad companies backfill with AdSense. I believe this has been approved by Adsense.

So it is not so much that the site owner has 8 blocks, but that several Adsense publishers have some kind of code on the page.

I could be wrong on this, but this was my understanding.

swa66

8:25 am on Jul 23, 2013 (gmt 0)

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I can think of a number of ways to have more ads on one visual page, but if you do that without the approval of GOOG, you're putting your account at risk.

HowYesNo

6:55 pm on Jul 25, 2013 (gmt 0)

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i came across a site with 6 adsense units, they are using iframes and 2 different accounts :)

simplewebs

12:28 pm on Jul 26, 2013 (gmt 0)

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Use iframe can do that, but that will be killed one day.

JS_Harris

1:56 pm on Aug 1, 2013 (gmt 0)

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Adsense did a publisher feature about askthebuilder.com eight years ago, which was a premium partner site [webmasterworld.com...] When publishers looking for tips visited the site they realized they couldn't duplicate the results because they couldn't server up eight ads as well.

Earnings went through the roof and limits were pushed, the sidebar for example became wider than the content area and placed in such a way that the sidebar with ads looked like content, in my opinion. Then two sidebars later appeared side by side covering the left and center of the page with the content area pushed off to the right side.

Google caught up with the site, traffic disappeared, words were exchanged and the site went private. Now it's all just water under the bridge. Back to 3 units and fairly plane-jane, Google deleted the case study page.

The moral - who knows if there is one but just because you can post 8 ad units with a premium account doesn't necessarily mean you should.

Inspector Gadget

4:32 pm on Aug 1, 2013 (gmt 0)

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If you use Google DFP to run your ads, it is possible to have more than 3 AdSense ads show up. The only criteria is that on the 4th ad unit and higher, there must be competition from other networks.

If you run AdSense without DFP, you can only display three using the hard code.

freitasm

8:19 pm on Aug 1, 2013 (gmt 0)

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Are you able to refer/link to a T&Cs that tells me I can do this with DFP, please?

Also, is it for Google DFP or Google DFP Small Publishers?

Inspector Gadget

4:44 pm on Aug 4, 2013 (gmt 0)

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I haven't looked through the T&C's, but I've been told this in email and over the phone by at least three different Google reps. One worked with DFP, one worked with AdSense and one works directly with my account.

Inspector Gadget

4:45 pm on Aug 4, 2013 (gmt 0)

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Oh and I use DFP Small Business

freitasm

11:16 pm on Aug 4, 2013 (gmt 0)

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The only reference I could find about this question is a non-Google post in the product groups (http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/dfp/otTvR8Iv90Y/d4uxZmlxkZAJ).

Basically you can have more than three Google DFP Ad Units enabled for Google AdSense fallback. You have to ensure there's enough competition that only three are actually showing AdSense at any time.

In my case I have six ad units in a page and I only have three of them enabled for AdSense seeing I can't guarantee that at any moment four, five or even six won't show AdSense.

The problem is that you have to either sell your inventory directly or have a competing ad network *AND* correctly enter the eCPM for each ad network to make sure Google knows exactly what to show and you don't lose money.

This is no small taks as for example eCPM on TribalFusion varies wildly during the month, week and even days.

In my setup I have TF tags for US/CA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and rest of the world. The eCPM for each region is very different and takes me some time every week to calculate it for each ad size and enter these values so Google DFP can correctly select which ads to show.

After a while I just have three ad units with Google AdSense enabled and competing with direct sales, if any. The other three ad units show TF, also competing with direct sales.

This guarantees I will never fall for the "you have more than three adsense ad units in your pages" trap and lose my ten year Google AdSense account.

Inspector Gadget

6:19 pm on Aug 5, 2013 (gmt 0)

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You can show more than 3 AdSense units at any one time without issue, provided that the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. ad unit have competition from other networks. Google has told me that they don't give webmasters enough tools to prevent more than 3 AdSense ad units from showing at once and they ARE OKAY WITH THIS provided the eCPMs are competitive and it is not done in a way to try and fraud the system.

There are also disadvantages of running AdSense in more than 4 ad units. As more ad units are added, the CPC of these subsequent units is lower and if a visitor clicks one of the low paying ads instead of a higher paying one, you lose $.

In any case, I have had AdSense enabled in all my 6 ad units since about February and have had no problems whatsoever and a real person regularly checks out my site.