Adsense low-CTR/low-CPM woes got me to thinking

optimizing web pages for search and Adsense

[berto]

I, too, have been hit hard (since mid January) by the turmoil in the Adsense world. Adsense ads have been of especially poor quality recently, and my CTR, CPM, and so on have dipped badly.

Thanks to this Forum, and all the discussion surrounding these Adsense issues, it's gotten me to thinking. Informed thinking for a change. Shaken me out of my complacency and induced action.

--I am tweaking many of my web pages to make it easier for the Adsense AI to discern each page's distinctive theme. For instance, by removing generic boilerplate at the top of many pages. Is it any surprise that Adsense tends to place the same bland and generic ads on each of those pages? Doh! (This will probably help my SERP positionings as well.)

--For pages where clueing the Adsense AI into discerning the page's distinctive theme is impractical to impossible, and where off-topic (sometimes embarrasingly so) ads would appear, I have yanked the Adsense ad units, replacing them with context-sensitive (based on home-grown proprietary technology) affiliate ads. (Applying this context sensitivity has increased some of my affiliate CTRs by more than 200%!)

--In general, I am trying to mix things up, so that from one page to the another, from one day to the next, the returning visitors will see something different (but not too different), might even be curious about "how does he do that?"

--I have revisited the issues of ad placements, ad colors, etc. I thought I had this optimized, but maybe not.

--I am giving thought to joining the Adwords program so that I can see things from the opposite perspective.

--I am also giving thought to subscribing to the Webmaster World private forum, opening the door to what I hope will be still more terrific ideas and insights.

And so on. From what I have been reading in this Forum, I expect all of this to pay off. Hopefully big time. (Recall that 200% affiliate CTR increase?)

It's also inspiring me to hang in there, not to give up.

Thanks to all for your wonderful insights! A shame I didn't discover this Forum long before.

[walrus]

I think thats a wise move,
I've had normal views and ctr but half the epc for 5 days now, very odd.
I don't know what conclusions to draw from this Adsense anomoly either but i plan on doing the same thing, just keep on working and not getting strung out on the wild water ride its been lately.
Whatever problems they may have right now im sure they will work it out.

[europeforvisitors]

I am also giving thought to subscribing to the Webmaster World private forum, opening the door to what I hope will be still more terrific ideas and insights.

The Supporters Forum is a good way to show support for Webmaster World, and the signal-to-noise ratio is a little more favorable than it is on the public forums, but you're unlikely to learn anything more about AdSense than you would here.