Here are some reasons why your site doesn't convert

Patiently waiting for necessary changes

[NoLimits]

AdSense is the best ride in town. It has competition now, but currently - it is #1 for the vast majority of people. This is why we need to protect the program, even if it means getting rowdy in a forum.

This is my attempt to summarize several problematic areas of the AdSense/AdWords relationship - In hopes that these things can be resolved, so that AdSense will remain the best ride in town.

Click Fraud - It comes in all shapes and sizes - in the end, it represents short term gain for one individual with the costs being absorbed by Publishers and Advertisers.

[webmasterworld.com...]
This would explain low conversions for some people. Conversions having direct impact on Smart Pricing, lowering EPC. (Smart pricing can go real low, reaaaal low - ask any forum owner)

[google.com...]
This doesn't need explaining. This type of click fraud is theft... pure theft. I have found forum threads in Google from 2003 where the forum owner engouraged people to click like crazy, and even provided them a link to a separate window to click them in. The sad part is - today, ads still show on the site in question.

MFA Sites Plain and simple, they bring advertiser costs up, and publisher earnings down. There is no way that they convert better than "real" sites. We all know what they are, and what the look like. They are useless to people searching for real information. In case you've been in a closet and do not know what MFA's are - they are Made for AdSense sites that contain only links to adsense for the most part with no real purpose. Most of them steal content from other sites to form their own content from. Often times they are thousands, upon thousands of pages large.

Here is a recent thread targeted at MFA's: [webmasterworld.com...]

Often times the owner of a MFA site will game Google's system by trying to advertise cheaply and convert the traffic into high dollar clicks on their "traps" that often times even disable the back button to force most people through an advertisement. These sites typically maintain about 90% ad content, and 10% scraped content. They must yield insane CTR's.

Content Theft You may say - well Google can't stop content theft! I beg to differ. Being the most searched of all engines - it is their responsibility to manage their content.

[google.com...]
Now you can even find AdWords advertisements that are advertising SCRAPING and scraping software. They are allowing their network to be used to advertise for copy wright infringement, and content theft. Just look at the ads!

Conversion Tracking and Statistics It would be nice to have clarification on how conversions can be properly tracked, if it is optional to place conversion tracking code on your pages - and even more impossible to know if the landing page is the problem. Poor landing pages, and un-tracked conversions could beat you into Smart Pricing submission.

On the statistical end of things. I find it highly puzzling why perhaps the single most important factor in the publishers long term EPC does not appear in the statistics. If conversions are affecting my earnings - I'd like to improve them. This would be best for the publisher, and the advertiser.

Again, I'm not posting this because I hate AdSense and I want to start a riot. In fact, I appreciate the program greatly. AdSense, combined with advice that I have received from forum members here has been providing me with an income stream that comes from something I enjoy. I never would have imagined. I would love for AdSense to contine on being the best ride around - it's simple, it is efficient, and it works for almost everyone to some degree. If the ride is going to go on smoothly - the tracks are going to need to be ironed out, as even gravity has its limitations.

[Clark]

I learned something new from this post. Thank you.

[justawriter]

A very thoughtful and well-reasoned post.

[maxgoldie]

There are two things which intrique me more than anything else about adsense: conversion and CTR.

I bet that they are the two most closely related factors in the degree that smart pricing "hits" any one site.

This business is a confusing one, as not all conversions are based on Google's official definition of sales, subscriptions, etc. What about advertisers who are just using Adwords to get traffic? How is the conversion/CTR ratio being measured there?

The other point the OP made about some of those sites having an insanely high CTR: this is exactly why I am really starting to suspect that part of G's smart pricing algo actually puts arbitrary, floating "caps" on sites hit with smart pricing. G might figure that the conversion to CTR ratio is off, therfore a site may be an MFA, thus triggering a cap on CTR, instead of capping CPC, ePCM, etc.(because CTR is tied to conversions more than the other factors).

[NoLimits]

I wonder what kind of EPC these scrapers are getting now... even targeting high paying ads, they can't be making more than .01 or .02 per click if Smart Pricing is doing its job.

Some seem to think that scrapers convert better for the advertiser. I find this extremely hard to believe.

[moTi]

NoLimits, very good post. time to adress the dirty tricks directly. i second your claim for a conversion column in our adsense stats.