Too good, to dangerous?

With channels I've rised too much

[cyberair]

After having the new feature of channels, I've been able to maximize CTR in some sections to ridiculously high CTR by integrating it into content. I never click on my ads, but I am worried that too good of a performance will raise flags and get me kicked out.

[JinxBoy]

normally, it will not give u any troubles...

[jomaxx]

Partly depends on the definition of "ridiculously", I suppose. A very high CTR might well trigger a manual review of the page to make sure there is nothing deceptive or otherwise against the TOS.

[anallawalla]

I don't understand. Channels are a private categorisation for your understanding where the good clicks are. You should expect to see great performance in some channels and none in others. If your earnings have shot up, it is for external reasons, as others have noticed, not because you have applied channel code and optimised for the good channels.

[varya]

If you remove ads from the pages in the channels with no or low performance, your impressions will drop, clicks should stay the same, and your CTR will shoot up.

[yintercept]

Channels are a private categorisation for your understanding where the good clicks are.

Damn, I thought the main use of channels was so that web sites could divide up their internet revenue by cost center. For that matter, I thought Google delayed the reporting of channel data, and limited the number of channels specifically to throw roadblocks up for people wanting to use channels to manipulate the ads.

It seems to me that using channel data to "optimize" the revenue from Google ads is not in keeping with the spirit of the over all program.

Does the act of checking channel data frequently accompanied with frequent changes to the pages in a channel create a pattern Google can catch is an interesting question.

Does a company with a manipulated channel that produces higher revenue than other channels raise a flag? Again...great question.

Does Google catch and toss such people out on their keister is also good question. I would like to think yes.

Are these questions that you should have asked before spending a great deal of effort manipulating pages to increase ad revenue? This thread brings up lots of good questions.

Is Enron still hiring accountants with great imaginations? 'Nother good question.

It seems to me that the spirit of the program is that people should run the ads without manipulating content for the ads. Personally, I will hold that as the ideal. I fall into the camp that really wants to implement adsense according to the spirit of the program.

[danny]

It seems to me that the spirit of the program is that people should run the ads without manipulating content for the ads. Personally, I will hold that as the ideal. I fall into the camp that really wants to implement adsense according to the spirit of the program.

I feel the same way, but there are ways in which channels can be used that aren't contrary to this.

For example, I've used channel data to remove AdSense from pages on which it wasn't performing well - that's clearly better for my users.

And many people have used channel data in selecting ad formats and colors. (My own approach here is driven more by aesthetics than anything else.)

[CalArch90]

As long as you are running your campaign in an honest manner, I can't imagine that you have anything to worry about.

[cyberair]

"It seems to me that the spirit of the program is that people should run the ads without manipulating content for the ads. Personally, I will hold that as the ideal. I fall into the camp that really wants to implement adsense according to the spirit of the program."

Optimizing an ad is the goal of all advertisers. An Adsense ad will only be clicked if the person is interested in finding out more about the description in the link. Therefore, the spirit of the program should be to lead highly targetted visitors to the advertiser.

Optimizing an ad on our sites could be seen as a TV station moving an ad from the 3am time, to prime time. It will only bring better results for the advertiser. And that is the spirit of the program.

[yintercept]

First, I agree, there are lots of legitimate reasons for channels, I am glad we have the functionality.

the spirit of the program should be to lead highly targetted visitors to the advertiser.

Unfortunately, in a published program like this, Google (the company writing the checks) is the entity that defines the spirit of the program.

Despite what we think the spirit of Google should be, until we get our membership on the board of directors, we don't get to make our should be into an is.

Obviously, Google does not think the webmaster is the right place to decide which keywords to push. If they did, they would let us define keywords for our ad boxes. There are many reasons why Google would think that manipulating content on a page to increase ad revenue is bad. For example, they may fall for the old journalistic integrity argument.

The webmaster's goals and Google's goals are not entirely in sync...so it takes effort to imagine what they want. I guess I spent too much time designing software for clients, but I really believe in trying to deliver what the customer (in this case Google) wants.

[anallawalla]

Does a company with a manipulated channel that produces higher revenue than other channels raise a flag? Again...great question.

Channels can represent ad formats or colours or topics or anything I like.

But I can't "manipulate" them. I can drop the low-performing channels and reallocate those pages to a better performing channel. Therefore CTR overall will improve. Google doesn't see this as a bad thing - it prefers that the ads have become more clickable, hence we were given channels.

As for the OP's sudden rise in CTR, only he will know if it raises any flags.