Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.
[edited by: markus007 at 8:08 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]
EFV you don't seem to be making sense. Of course the payment structure has changed.
Mario, I'm not talking about payment, I'm talking about payout, which is how Google splits incoming revenues with the publisher.
Incoming revenues may be affected for better or worse by the new variable ad rates, but that's a different kettle of fish from changing the payout formula.
The value is calculated based on a large number of factors, and is constantly updated as information is fed back into the system.
I hope that this is a work in progress, if it went into effect today then my EPC for today is about 50% that of my last months average.
I have to be honest and say that you google guys must be working with a lot more data that I could possibly imagine, but I hope that the calculations that you alluded to:
the pricing for a particular ad will take into account the keywords/concepts on the page that triggered the ad, the context of those keywords/concepts on the page, and the system's calculation of the value of that combination.
Are well supported. I just can't imagine how one single formula could apply to all possible topics......
In the end, as many of you have pointed out, we expect it to drive growth in the advertiser base for content sites, which can only be a good thing :)
I think that may be true, and it shows that Google is concerned about delivering quality leads, not just raw clicks. That should be very reassuring to advertisers who are afraid of having their ad budgets sucked up by clicks from parked domains or quickie made-for-AdSense sites.
I also believe some members are taking the photography example too literally. The pricing algorithm is obviously a lot more complex than "if 'tips' = cheap" and "if 'review' = expensive". I'm a little skeptical about the idea of using an algorithm to judge click quality, but let's face it: Google prefers algorithms to human judgment.
The numbers will tell the story. I'm sure we'll all be watching closely. :-)
I also believe some members are taking the photography example too literally. The pricing algorithm is obviously a lot more complex than "if 'tips' = cheap" and "if 'review' = expensive". I'm a little skeptical about the idea of using an algorithm to judge click quality, but let's face it: Google prefers algorithms to human judgment.
the pricing for a particular ad will take into account the keywords/concepts on the page that triggered the ad, the context of those keywords/concepts on the page, and the system's calculation of the value of that combination.
Lets not even get into modifiers such as having the word “free” before “widget”. It could be that this layout might affect your EPC more than having the word “free” later in the sentence.
Arghhh…. Enough rambling. I know that I said time will tell, but I am going to take a semi-educated guess and say that this is going to hit me in the pocketbook by the end of the month.
/back to bagging lunch to work for me.
Anyone knows when?
ASA said today in msg #60 in this thread.
[edited by: MarkHutch at 1:29 am (utc) on April 2, 2004]
I was concerned about this until I looked at the numbers today. My dollars have SHOT UP today! Wow! Hope this continues
Hummn, obviously too early to tell but it certainly is not a good day for earning levels for me.
I don't necessairly agree that say a camera review site is more likely to get the clicker to buy the camera any more likely than when someone reads about an image created with said camera and decides they want one based on what they see.
But then.. what do I know ;)
HOPE it all works out for everyone, advertisers as well as publishers and, of course, G...
Wayne
Words like "free", "reduced", "discount", could become poison words for some advertisers - what are the chances of selling an expensive product to web-surfers chasing those terms.
We have had some good threads about semantics over the last few months which i must reread.
Meanwhile, over in the Google Adwords forum, Adwords Advisor said that Google would be charging advertisers lower CPC and that "many of you will be pleased."
Not really sure how this advertisers pay less but publishers earn more formula is going to work.
Meanwhile, over in the Google Adwords forum, Adwords Advisor said that Google would be charging advertisers lower CPC and that "many of you will be pleased."
Well, this obviously is meant to cater to the advertisers. I am not saying that is a bad idea, after all they are Google’s customers. We are …. Hmmmm what is the best word {partners}.
Words like "free", "reduced", "discount", could become poison words for some advertisers…
This is going to be kind of a problem for those of us giving something out for free. :D
CTR is the same as for the last 7 days and for March.
EPC is the same as for the last 7 days and for March.
Even the ads appear to be the same as they were before the changeover, at least on the pages that I check now and then.
Granted, it's early days yet, and advertisers haven't had a chance to respond to the changes. But so far, on a site that gets about 11,000 visitors a day, both the ads and the numbers represent business as usual.
Time will tell if this is actually beneficial, but I wonder if Google is out-thinking themselves on this one.
Something is better than nothing, I like the way the ads are served and have enjoyed a great 22 days to date..
I'm not going to get too dissapointed for a few weeks I think.. it does bear watching though.
Wayne
Up until yesterday I was getting very targeted ads related to the interests of my users. For example, in a section about older cars there were ads related to restoration parts, etc. Today almost all I see are ads for new car dealers.
Same here until this evening, now the targeting seems to be a little better. I'm not seeing anything new and different in terms of better targeted pages though.
I can't tell if my earnings are down today or if the reports are just slow in coming as the impressions are down compared to a typical Thursday.
edit - sorry just checked and I did receive it.
I think my current strategy is safe... concentrate on good content, don't worry about adsense ;)
Was 2-4 dollars a click asking too much? =0
Isn't it logical to say that nice, quality sites with good content should attract better paying more confident advertisers, but, what if the bad old black hat boys & girls nasty websites show higher ROI and greater click throughs? Strange world indeed.
Veg-o-matic anyone?
This announcement presages the next generation of black hat system gaming...
Actually, it sounds more like a strategy to discourage black-hat system gaming by making it harder to profit from keyword-based sites that were created solely to exploit AdSense.
One thing I'm noticing, my main keywords have two general product meanings, and I notice that Google seems to be alternating displaying pages containing ads clustered to either meaning. So, get a page with 4 ads relating to off-topic meaning #1, refresh and get a page with 4 ads relating to on-topic meaning #2.
Now, in the past, Google didn't really have any trouble matching my topic - almost all ads were on-topic. I'm getting annoyed by all these off-topic ads and am wondering if I should go on a blocking splurge.
So far I've only blocked **one** domain, starting today actually, since it's a product with a name identical to something completely different, and it's showing up **everywhere** as the #1 result on my ads.
Not really sure how this advertisers pay less but publishers earn more formula is going to work.
Consider two hypothetical webmasters though--the first tends toward articles/pages on broader topics, perhaps widgets and widget repair with a smattering of interviews with widget makers. Still with a site-wide coherent topic, the articles are mainly general. Our second writes specific, narrow articles: red widgets for April, using hand tools for widget repair, 10 essential widgets for your collection, 5 features to look for in a heavy-duty widget, etc.
Now consider two advertisers--the first buys broad keyphrases, the second narrows things down to specifics.
It makes sense to me that if the system does a better job of bringing the second webmaster and second advertiser together, that is the most efficient case and should result in the highest CTR of all the possible publisher-advertiser combinations. And bringing the first publisher and first advertiser together should result in no worse results than the previous system produced. So there would be a net improvement of efficiency, that should on average produce the thing that varya is skeptical about.
Unless you happen to be the first publisher in this example (and we can discuss the first advertiser), things look pretty good under this scenario, as far as my analysis goes.
Now, enough theory, on with the empiricism:
On a couple very popular pages that I have on the topic of spraypainting widgets, the ads used to positively suck. They were for everything but the right thing, namely spraypaint and associated stuff like sandpaper and rubbing compound. I chalked it up to the articles being long (okay, wordy) so that the algo couldn't suss out the real topic from all the text.
Today the clouds parted, and these pages are serving spot-on ads. I didn't have a channel set up to watch them, but I'm starting one right now. I can pretty safely assume a minimal CTR for these pages under the previous look, I'm just curious to know how well they do now.
And that's how both sides can win.
I represent a couple domains (pretty badly) on the advertiser side, and from my experience the advertisers are still going to be willing to pay the same if nor more money per click. The complaint I've heard most often is that Adwords doesn't convert as well as some of the other options.
As it stands I imagine when it all plays out, that the average earning per click will go down, but the CTR will go up a bit.
I can't help thinking that the google team knows how happy most publishers are at the moment. So happy that they could probably trim back a bit over time resulting in decent jumps in net revenue.
