when to remove ads from a page

[dhiggerdhigger]

Every now and then on good ol' forum89 I read advice about removing Adsense ads from pages to provide some benefit or other.

I am finding this particular topic confusing. When is a good time to remove ads from a page?

[Mohamed]

when the page is not performing well.

[dhiggerdhigger]

But why? How do badly performing pages affect my earnings?

[josetann]

There's a number of reasons. One is smart pricing. The less the ads are clicked on, the less you start to get per ad. So if the vast majority of your clicked ads are all from one ad unit, you can reduce the ads shown by 2/3 (assuming you're currently running three ads), retain almost the same amount of clicks total, which will make your clicks per ad go up significantly (because now those clicks are being spread across all of one ad, instead of three). Google says "Good job!" and starts to give you more money per click. It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

The other reason is to insure the ad that's click on the most is also the first one to show up in your page code. Let's say that the best performing ad for you is at the very top of your page. However, due to tables, the code for the ad on the left side of the page comes first, followed by the ad for the top of the page. Google will put the highest paying ads in the first block on your page's code, which is actually on the left (perhaps buried under a menu) instead of the second block of code, which is actually shown at the top of the page. So, get rid of the ad on the left, the first one shown now is the one at the top of the page (which is the one that gets the most clicks), and see your earnings skyrocket!

[dhiggerdhigger]

Josetann - I can accept what you're saying, but I don't see the logic behind it! I have a Link Unit in the header section of my pages (first in code; good) which performs better (many more clicks) than the "normal" ads within the page content itself. I was wondering if I should remove the ads in the content. But why would Google applaud this? It's just less opportunity for advertising if I remove these ads. Why would the header-ad click then be "worth more"? Surely the Adwords bidding which goes on for the links page which appears after clicking on a Link Unit link is the same?

[josetann]

When you boil it down, it's basically this: The higher the ratio of clicks to ads, the more money you get per click. I honestly don't know if Google just gives you a higher percentage, or if they're more likely to display higher paying ads, but the end result always seems to be the same. You get more money.

Now, if all of your ads are performing roughly the same, then I wouldn't worry about it. In my case, I was making $60-$70 (or more) on my site via two channels, the top ads and the ads I show on the forum (inline with posts). The side and bottom ads were making maybe $0.16-$0.20 daily. Don't think they ever got above $1. So I took them off, and am waiting for Smart Pricing to kick in again and give me more money!

[moTi]

- more ads = more cheap ads = higher possibility that someone clicks on the cheap ads

- if you kick out low performing ad blocks, the number of clicks is only reduced in a small amount and the remaining clicks have a higher average epc.

- reducing ad blocks means reducing ad blindness and focusing the visitor on the ads which perform and pay well. you direct your visitors to the hot spots where the money's at. not to the cheap filler ads

- few ad blocks result in a better look and feel for your website. the audience will thank you for not being annoyed with a bunch of needless advertising messages and will gladly come back to your site

- showing ads that nobody clicks on is worthless. show only ads that perform and earn you money, keep it professional

- get unsmartpriced with this strategy by only delivering high quality clicks for the advertiser. you don't want no low-awareness clicks out of embarrassment because visitors can't help clicking in front of a wall of ads

- don't take your crappy competitors who do the opposite as an example. go your own way, be unique

[UserFriendly]

I thought Smart Pricing was determined by the percentage of ad-clicks that convert to sales or registration on the advertiser's site, not the CTR of the ads on the publisher's site.

So why does CTR affect the Smart Pricing factor of a site?

[moTi]

So why does CTR affect the Smart Pricing factor of a site?

this has been discussed many many times in this forum. so please have a look at it.

ctr has probably no influence on smart pricing. maybe on very low performing pages, that is low ctr and low epc.

[edited by: moTi at 5:18 pm (utc) on May 24, 2006]

[21_blue]

I thought Smart Pricing was determined by the percentage of ad-clicks that convert to sales or registration on the advertiser's site

That is one element of the smartprice calcuation, but there are probably other factors as well, eg: some algo-analysis of the page content to assess how relevant it is to the ads being served.