336x250 only showing two ads?

[maxgoldie]

For the first time I see only two ads in my 336x250, where there normally should be four. Plus the fonts are almost twice as big as normal.

It looks terrible. Any ideas how to get it to show four ads?

(I have opted out of CPM and "advertise on this site".)

[webpublisher]

heyday - I totally agree. I'm in shock.

The bottom line is that

1. My pages have too much whitespace due to only serving 2 ads - thus the sites look badly formatted

2. There is less choice, hence my CTR is down

3. I'm earning less

4. Google is making less

Go figure!

[Freedom]

The fact is, we publishers are no longer partners with Google when they decide to make changes in the lay out of our websites without consulting us or giving the option to opt out of it. I don't give a #*$! what their technology says, I don't care what all their tests tell them, - I don't like and don't want this 1 ad 2 ad crap on my website. The layout is designed to look good for 4 ads, I think I make more $$ with this, and I want there to be more choices for my visitors.

And for the third hand hearsay that a Google rep said: "Publishers get exactly what they deserve." - I can believe that from a snot nosed punk kid from California. She arrogantly forgets her bosses are the jackasses that lowered the bar on who can get into Adsense, thereby lowering the reputation of all publishers who work hard to give value and build quality websites.

Bottom line: when Google makes decesions about the layout of your website without consulting you, you and Google are no longer business partners in this venture.

[maxgoldie]

Maybe this is connected to the CPM ads?

If there were too many people opting out of CPM ads, this could be a countermeasure to what G was trying to achieve on the advertisers ends of things?

(It just seems funny that they didnt give us the opt-out option here)

[billcale]

Add me to the "negative" mix, also. This has occurred during an increase in traffic to my website - so it's hard to track - but click throughs appear to be lower and the value per click seems to be lower. It also seems that where I might have gotten 2 good targeted ads out of 4 before, there is now only 1 or none. Plus, the format just looks awful. It seems more of an effort to reduce bonafide but fruitless clicks from overzealous clickers doing comparison searches than any other thing.

[webpublisher]

spot on - format just looks awful.

I have already started implementing new layouts with other ad sizes, I just can't afford my sites to look as if they are unfinished.

[Vlad]

our technology has determined that showing fewer ads on a particular site represents a greater revenue benefit for you.

I followed this advice and replaced adsense with a competitor ad of the same format. Now I'm showing fewer adsense ads and I see my bottom line has benefited from it. Thanks Google, it's working!

[icedowl]

As an experiment - I've just changed to stacking two banners one on top of the other instead of the 336x280 rectangle. If nothing else, it looks better than the rectangle only showing two ads. I gave each of the banners its own channel.

With the recent poor results of the rectangle I figure it can't hurt to try something different.

[fearlessrick]

Proof that this change earns less for me. Here's a comparison, using Dec. 25, 26, 27, 28 (the 28th was my last really good day) and Jan. 1, 2, 3, 4. That's holiday vs. holiday and a slow week after Christmas compared to my "better monetized" results (I've left off the actual earnings, but you can probably figure it out):
Before
Date Page imps Clicks CTR eCPM
Sunday, December 25, 2005 1,517 32 2.1% $2.55
Monday, December 26, 2005 2,463 57 2.3% $2.49
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 3,129 70 2.2% $2.45
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 2,647 90 3.4% $3.99

After
Date Page imps Clicks CTR eCPM
Sunday, January 1, 2006 2,589 41 1.6% $1.09
Monday, January 2, 2006 2,763 50 1.8% $2.07
Tuesday, January 3, 2006 2,611 54 2.1% $1.30
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 2,744 57 2.1% $1.10

[webpublisher]

icedowl - I replaced a large rectangle for a banner - as it looks better. I haven't stacked one on top of the other, but might just look into that.

It annoys me we have to play around doing this instead of working on our site's content

[fearlessrick]

Making matters worse, YPN is doing the same thing, or even putting just 1 ad per large rectangle. It's a freaking conspiracy!

This just sucks.