When 2 X 2!= 4

Why doesn't the second ad unit appear?

[berto]

I am in the process of replacing a four-ad skyscraper in my pages' right sidebar with two two-ad banners, one at the beginning of the main page content (horizontally in the middle of the page, between the left sidebar and the right sidebar) and the second below the main page content.

On half of the pages, I am seeing both two-ad ad units. On other pages, I see the top two-ad ad unit but not the bottom one.

Note that in all cases, before I was seeing the full four-ad skyscraper.

If there are enough advertisers to fill a four-ad skyscraper, why are there not also four advertisers to fill both two-ad banners?

In other words, on every page, why am I not also seeing the second two-ad ad unit (at page bottom)?

Do advertisers perhaps bid separately for different ad unit types? And if so, is the two-ad banner an unpopular ad type with advertisers?

[HarryM]

I don't know the answer, but I see the same thing.

Previously I had only four-ad skyscrapers, but have now also added a two-add banner. The two-add banner loads first, and sometimes the skyscraper is empty even though the preview tool shows there are sufficient ads available to show at least one or two in the skyscraper.

[DrGUID]

I see this happen on my sites as well. I use tables to give a left panel of about 80% screen width and a right panel of the other 20% for advertising. I decided to place a long skyscraper on the right (i.e. the one with 4 ads) and a small two ad unit at the bottom of the main content ... trouble is the bottom ads always loaded and there were rarely any ads being shown in the skyscraper.

I assume due to the html used that the skyscraper is rendered in the browser after the small ads, which is presumably why the ads don't appear in it. This is annoying, because I'd prefer the ads to always appear in the skyscraper, as it's obviously got a better clickthru rate.

The result is that I don't have any sites with more than 1 ad placement on a page, as it just didn't seem to be very reliable. I'm not sure that it's a lack of ad inventory, as my main site is about an industry that never seems to have a shortage of ads available.

[no9t9]

i have the same problem.

the ads show up according to which ones are first in the HTML. i'm assuming you are using table layout to create your page. that means your 120x600 ad is loaded last in the HTML which is why it shows no ads while the ads at the bottom of the content get filled.

to get around this just use a DIV to position the ad column where you want it. In the HTML make sure it is loaded before the ads at the bottom

[berto]

I, too, tried combining smaller ad units earlier in the HTML code with a skyscraper later in the HTML code (in the right sidebar). And in just about every case, the smaller, earlier ad unit would display, while the skyscraper would not display at all.

I found this to be so frustrating that I considered the idea of using multiple ad units to be essentially bogus.

With my new design--a two-ad banner at the beginning of main page content and an iffy, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't two-ad banner at the end of the main page content--I can grudgingly accept the empty space sometimes appearing at the bottom of my pages.

Despite the net loss of two advertisements on many pages, I still think I prefer this arrangement, because in my experience, visitors seemed to be totally ignoring the skyscraper in the right sidebar. The new two-ad banner pair are more "in your face".

Will my CTRs improve? Time will tell.

[edited by: berto at 4:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 28, 2005]

[berto]

>to get around this just use a DIV to position the ad column where you want it. In the HTML make sure it is loaded before the ads at the bottom

I tried looking this up in my HTML reference, but it gave no clue how to do this.

Might you offer a quicky example of how to use DIV to control ad placement/HTML sequencing in this way?

Or perhaps provide a URL to a web resource describing this technique?

[HarryM]

berto,

Are you sure your pages are attracting enough ads?

On most of my pages both the 2-ad banner (which loads first) and the skyscraper show ads. For me the problem only arises on certain pages where there is only between 3 or 5 ads available. Then the skyscraper often shows nothing.

[HarryM]

berto,

This is how I do it (although I'm not saying it's particularly elegant. :) And it doesn't work on legacy browsers.)

I have a top div followed by a container div.

In the container div I float-right a div which is a few pixels wider than the central and right columns.

Inside this div I float-left the central column div, and I float-right the right column div. By choosing which is floated first changes which shows higher in the html.

Then I float-left the left hand column inside the container div. This is my index panel. Finally I add a footer div.

I use a fixed-width display so I am not sure how it would be done with a fluid format.

[berto]

In all cases before, the four-ad skyscrapers were full. Now, in all cases, the first two-ad banner is full while, in some (too many) cases, the second two-ad banner fails to show.

The pages where the second two-ad banner fails to show are not generic or essentially contentless pages where it's difficult to determine the page theme. No, on many tightly focused pages with plenty of content where I know there are/should be plenty of ads on that topic, the second two-ad banner is blank (<grumble grumble>).

Do I perhaps just have to be patient until the Google bot (re)visits these pages?