Major changes to AdSense

Pricing structure and ad relevance

[markus007]

Unless adsense is sending out a april fools joke, what do people think of the changes? Every site has a unique pricing model?

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]

[Powdork]

Does anyone think that these changes will take place within a site. For instance, many photography sites have both photography tips pages as well as product review pages. Will ad rates vary within a domain for the same ad?

[anxvariety]

This is their way of being able to lump all the crappy sites out there together and give them less per click.. hoping that they'll switch to affiliate programs - since it costs Google more to maintain these accounts than they are generating.

[yump]

Perhaps best not to take the digital camera example too literally, its not the best one in the world.

Perhaps the intent behind this can't specifically be mentioned, but isn't it true that under the past structure a site about cardboard boxes could put up some vague content pages about domain hosting and get the same CPC as a 'proper' site about what to look for when choosing a host.

Can't see how that can be a good thing.

Yes, some real buyers might click on it, but this is a numbers and percentages game and as an advertiser, I'd rather be paying more for more relevance. Also I don't think its true that choosing keywords in my Adwords campaign would stop Adsense ads appearing on irrelevant sites.

[Jon_King]

Has this relevancy just now taken affect or has it been going on for some time? In other words will there be a major shift yesterday vs. today?

[ken_b]

I read the email as saying that info sites like mine might get lower cost ads, but better targeting could lead to a higher CTR.

If that's right, those two factors will hopefully balance each other out.

[jranes]

So this will mean that a site like about.com that is about everything should be seeing a big decline in epc. That sounds good to me, the deeper into the niche the more targeted.

Sounds good as long as my revenue doesn't go down that is.

[jomaxx]

Scary. I'm willing to wait and see on this, but I wish they would have at least told us when the new changes rolled out/are rolling out/will roll out.

I know they love to keep publishers in the dark, but how can they justify treating their advertisers that way?

[cpnmm]

The email talks about 'pages' rather than 'sites' - a highly product focused page on about.com will have more relevant ads and therefore higher cost than a less focused page on about.com.

[Teshka]

Well, I'll be bummed if my earnings go down on my non-review type sites, but if it makes for better ROI for the people paying for Adwords, it'll be better for all in the long run.

[Silver Surfer]

Are the changes already in effect?