Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It looks terrible. Any ideas how to get it to show four ads?
(I have opted out of CPM and "advertise on this site".)
I'm lucky to get three ads showing, 2 ads is common, and 1 ads isn't unusual. And that's when we are just talking about regular CPC ads in the regular size.
So this isn't affecting me negatively that I can tell. In fact, I'm guessing it would help me.
One thing about varying the number of ads is that it may combat ad blindess because not every adblock looks the same. Combine that with rotaing background colors, etc and the result may get even better.
[edited by: ken_b at 8:10 pm (utc) on Jan. 2, 2006]
It didnt hurt my income though since this month is around 3000 much like the last 20 have been - probably the opposite in fact since december is normally lower.
If yesterday's results are any indication then they can stay that way.
Had a record day on Monday.
I'm going to try 2 460x60 ads to see if it makes a difference.
I think that this might even be the reason for this en masse change to large rectangles; with the sudden growth of competitors of Adsense like YPN with similar looking ads, perhaps G is trying to combat a creeping ad blindness that may be setting in with all of the contextual ads out there now.
As an aside, I wish there was a way to measure the performance of rotating random background colors.
Not only does it change the look of the page, but it changes the flow. My CTR and earnings are down because of it.
Does anyone know if this is because Google has a low ad inventory now that the holidays are over?
Sorry I didn't jump in earlier. The ads you're referring to are called expanded text ads (for more information, see [google.com ]).
I assure you that we performed lots of testing before releasing this feature, and found there was a revenue benefit for publishers. If you see expanded text ads appearing on your site, it's because our technology has determined that showing fewer ads on a particular site represents a greater revenue benefit for you.
As you know, the ad auction is dynamic so while you might see expanded text ads appearing sometimes (i.e., when they represent the greatest revenue potential), at other times your ad unit might contain more ad units.
-ASA
I have no idea what this means.
Does this mean that you are limiting the number of ads? Does it mean that due to people buying ads specifically for our sites or genre kicks in limiting?
Is there a way to opt out of this and return to the way it was?
Was any thought given to the way the pages look with the new ad format?
When will the results be reviewed and turned back to the way it used to be?
"As you know, the ad auction is dynamic so while you might see expanded text ads appearing sometimes (i.e., when they represent the greatest revenue potential), at other times your ad unit might contain more ad units."
Although I haven't looked at every site with 336x250, I don't recall seeing any with the normal amount of ads before this change.
Was this change communicated to advertisers in Ad Words?
What if it brings us less revenue?... which it is.....
It sure would be nice to be able to turn this "feature" off.
heyday
Now I am just getting big companies and when I use the adsense tool to look at them they really don't offer anything related to my hobby topic.
The problem is these ads are selling the object made in this hobby while my visitors want supplies for their hobby.
I went to check my stats for December, and what do you know... 50% drop in clicks and revenue since about the mid month for this channel.
The rest of the site uses a different ad format and there is no shortage of ads. A scary thought just crossed my mind... what if this spreads to all ad formats :/ Ouch!
I could see how this might be beneficial to advertisers, but not publishers IMHO.
Some of us do a lot of testing before deciding which ad format works best, if google wants to do this for us, they should at least give us an option to opt out! Or maybe they should just make a special auto-pilot-format and show 1 to 8 ads depending on time of day or some other factor.
Anyway, it's very frustrating to see this change. Does anyone feel they are making more money since this change?
Showing fewer ads works to your advantage,
allowing the better-performing ads to draw more user attention and click-throughs.
I've been wondering why my eCPM was so low recently. All the ads that are big rectangle are showing only two ads. They are in prime locations. Google is hurting me and themselves with yet another brain-dead move.
4 ad units in the box looked way better, converted better. Get a clue, Googlers.
As you know, the ad auction is dynamic so while you might see expanded text ads appearing sometimes (i.e., when they represent the greatest revenue potential), at other times your ad unit might contain more ad units.
Is ASA saying that only certain times of the day the ads are reduced, such as, when the site is recieving the most visitors and then returns to normal after the visitors slow down? Or am I reading into this?
Good point Vlad, I've done plenty of testing, and when I settled finally on a large leaderboard, I had to go back and change it again and rebuild the whole site because the one ad, (which is not expanded text) looked ridiculous and was way off topic.
My earnings are consistantly lower since my number of ads shown in the 336x and 250x AdBlocks have been cut down. CTR is less than 1/3rd of normal, and while the EPC is up - it doesn't come ANYWHERE NEAR compensating for the reduction in EPC.
This should have been optional. If this is optimizing for CONVERSION RATE - then I won't fret, but if this is supposed to be an optimization to increase MY bottom line, as I understand it to be - the algo being used is seriously flawed.
I mainly advertise on the Content network and even though I just said all that I'm actualy getting more impressions today then I was two weeks ago.... but then Jan is always my hotest month....
heyday
It looks dorky, but it pays well.
I just read this on the link you posted:
Our AdSense technology will automatically determine the optimal number of ads to display and will only show fewer ads when it improves monetization.
Well, it's not working for me. My eCPM is half of what it was for the previous four months, while pageviews and clicks are roughly the same. So, these ads take up more space (2 ads instead of 4), but pay LESS per click. I would not call this an improvement of "monetization" unless the improvement is wholly on Google's side and not mine.
Please respond in English.
That was my main point.
I find it frustrating that they've done this to help us, but it's hurt some of us. If it was really done to help us their would be a way to opt out of it.
The explanation from ASA doesn't dampen my concern that Adsense is constraining the ads shown for their benefit and not ours.
What I have seen is disheartening. If my page is about blue widgets I used to get two ads for blue widgets, one for widgets and one for orange widgets. On those same pages I have seeing two ads for orange widgets.
This isn't site specific, either. On all my sites I am seeing the same ad results. Less specific and fewer ads.
If the ad type has shown to be too successful for publishers can anyone suggest another ad type?
I assure you that we performed lots of testing before releasing this feature, and found there was a revenue benefit for publishers. If you see expanded text ads appearing on your site, it's because our technology has determined that showing fewer ads on a particular site represents a greater revenue benefit for you.
ASA, I respect your answer and intentions, expressed here. But I hope you will also respect mine/ours when asking the question Does it really increase revenue for our site?.
For example, similar things were said about CPM ads, that they represent a greater revenue benefit, but I submitted a detailed report to Adsense Support in December showing strong statistically-based evidence that CPM ads reduce revenue to my site (I can sticky references if you wish).
From a "systems-thinking" perspective, any testing you do on other sites cannot, by definition, predict how these dynamic ads will perform on, say, my site. And it is difficult for us to tell how they perform: there are so many factors affecting pricing that the introduction of a good feature could coincide, say, with a downturn in bidding rates; on the other hand, a feature could depress earnings, eg: through an indirect impact on smartpricing, but be masked by an increase in general bidding rates.
The key problem is that the reporting system doesn't provide enough information for us to be able to compare how these dynamic ads perform in relation to fixed ads. Is there any chance that you could introduce a more flexible reporting system that gives sufficient detail to compare the performance of different types of ads (CPM vs EPC; plain vs seasonal; normal vs expanded; any new feature vs not that feature, etc..)?
I am experiencing this same problem on one of my sites. Pretty much since the new year began my CTR and eCPM dropped by over 20%. I quickly discovered the reason, all of my big rectangles were showing 2 ads instead of 4. Now Google should realize this might be a problem since we are obviously going to try to fit the ad units to blend with our content. Well my ad units don't blend at all so guess what my CTR goes way way down.
The optimizer is not working. It is as simple as that. It is pretty easy to see that for the last 5 days by eEPM is down over 20%. It doesn't take a super computer to figure it out. Come on Google with with the program here.
I'm sitting tight until they change it back.
I want 4 ads in my block so it blends well into my page - end of story! Google - I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here
I've had it with this nonsense and have fired off three emails to G Support in the past two days about this. Here's part of my last one, after getting a polite response from one of their reps, repeating the "it's good for you" mantra.
Thanks for getting back to me, but, seriously, is it not true that your fellow Googlers are just guessing when they say increasing the size of the most relevant ad and dropping one or more (while adding more white space) ads will improve my "monetization"?If this were proven fact, I'd love to see the proof. My situation is showing the opposite. Click throughs are slightly lower, and the value per click is also MUCH lower. This is damaging my revenue, not enhancing it. And I would assume it is hurting Google's revenue as well.
Someday, somebody is going to actually understand the meaning of "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT."
In the meantime, we, the publishers, have to suffer at the whims of the whiz kids at the Googleplex. Give us a break and start paying us what our ad space is really worth. As far as I can tell, the only internet space that Google considers valuable are your own SERPs, when in reality, it is the individual web sites without which Google would be unnecessary. Google is making $Billions while abusing the heart and soul of the internet.
It's wrong, monumentally arrogant and stupid. Feel free to pass this all the way to the top. Somebody needs to get a clue at Google. The webmasters built the internet, NOT Google. I am not concerned about upsetting anybody at Google or even of being kicked out of Adsense for my opinion. There are a great many flaws to AdSense and AdWords, so don't for a minute think that everybody simply swallows the PR that is constantly being barfed up, telling us that this or that is "good for us" when the empirical data is showing that it is not.
Disgusted regards,
