3 skyscraper ads on same page, side by side

[richmondsteve]

I just saw a page with three 160x600 skyscraper ads side by side. The result is a mega-block of 15 ads. I'm curious whether anyone has tried such a layout, whether you've found it successful and what your opinions are. Looking at it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. And in the case of the page I saw, the mega-block, which is in the right-hand column of a two-column layout, is so wide the 3rd skyscraper is clipped at 1024x768 - something the page author even calls attention to with a note below the left-most skyscraper. You can see the page by going to Wired News and looking at the bottom-most article under "Elsewhere Today".

Apologies if this has already been discussed. I haven't been active at WebmasterWorld in months and I didn't see anything discussing this specifically after reading various threads while searching via Google (site:webmasterworld.com forum89 <search_phrase>).

[icedowl]

Now that's tacky. :(

[wheelie34]

I thought 3 ad units was max, he has 4 3 scrapers and 1 adlinks?

[elsewhen]

wheelie... according to the google adsense program policies you are allowed to have 3 ad units and 1 link unit on a page:

[google.com...]

[fischermx]

It seems he read this, now it shows just two scrapers and the ad link unit :)

[vabtz]

thats great lol

[Dantol]

f*** it (pardon my english, it's just an expression).
I don't like to see more than 1 ad per page. Do you?
I experimented recently with 3 ads per page, and guess what guys? I did not like it.

I will stick with 1 ad per page, and I hope my visitors appreciate rich content and almost ad-free environment.

[richmondsteve]

fischermx, strange, I still see 3 skyscrapers (5 ads each) with 1 adlink unit above them. I think it's within the program policies, at least according to Can I place more than one link unit on a page? [google.com], but like icedowl, I think it's tacky. I'm not keen on putting ad units together like that, but two of a smaller ad block, visible without scrolling, probably would look a lot better. At 800x600 it looks even worse since I can only see 1 1/3 of the 3 skyscrapers.

[hunderdown]

May be OK under TOS, but that's excessive. And the odd thing is, one ad shows up with Chinese characters (and I'm in NY).

On the other hand, the author's comment

You might need to scroll right to see all of the ads.

may well be "calling undue attention"....

Added: when I see something like that, I also wonder if the person who put the page together understands how to use AdSense. There are a lot of other distractions on the page, and I would think they'd get a very low CTR, possibly causing lowered EPC. Maybe the multi-block is an attempt to counteract that.

[edited by: hunderdown at 8:56 pm (utc) on June 1, 2005]

[Webwork]

Ads as content are nothing new in my observation. :(

Question: Are such sites "made for AdSense" or "make of AdSense"?

I think the former - made for AdSense - would be a violation of the T&C.

Oddly enough, the latter might not?

[fischermx]

The third skyscraper may disappear since it may not have ads to show to my country.
I see one ad unit full with ads and the other is not.
Therefore I guess there are not enough ads for a third (for my country).
I tried by reloading the page several times and even sometimes it shows only one ads unit (plus the ad link).

[hunderdown]

The amount of ads relative to content is actually not that bad--it's a long article. It's just that that ad-block looks like a tumor hanging off one side....