Forum Moderators: martinibuster
1. Show ads based on highest cost-per-click
2. Show ads based on highest expected earnings
#2 is how Google does it by default -- these MFA ads are crap with crappy cost-per-click payouts, but the titles are written in such a way that they compel people to click more often than some of the other ones. Hence, Google "thinks" you will make the most by putting some of those in, despite the fact that they're likely to pay $.03 or so each.
How much do you want to bet that the MFA'ers have exceptionally good competitive ad filters built for their sites? So it will cost them $.03 to get a visitor onto their page, but I'd bet you a dollar that they will block all the $.03 ads from appearing on their site and try to focus only on the high-dollar ones as their exit points.....
What happens next? Frustrated users that end up on junky pages, ad blindness, etc. ....sigh....
If we could have a way to tell AdSense, in our account configuration, "Yes ... I know you think I would make more money this way - but instead I'd prefer to make less by only showing the higest $ cost-per-click ads on my site ... I think it will be better for my users."
You know what would happen, if Google allowed us this simple option? MFA's would disappear overnight ....
I can see that the idea of webmasters setting a minimum click value has it's pro's and cons. Clearly there will always be webmasters who set the minimum click at $20 because they keyword "value" is apparently $30 and they feel generous. PSA city here we come. However, these webmasters would have to reduce their ridiculous expectations downwards until the maximum income threshold was reached. I can also see that ads that otherwise pay well might be excluded.
I'm not completely sold on the idea, but in general I'd fall on the side of the fence of having the facility. Many of the tricks we discuss here are aimed at effectively pricing MFA's off of our site. I think that it's possible this would effectively price MFA's out of content.
Google isn't going to discontinue it's love affair with scummy arbitrage (love is bling G - take note!) It could lead to the situation of having relevant, well paying ads only in content, leaving Google's own search engine pages showing nothing but arbitrage sites. Hey - that's all you get on search pages now. Nothing changes!
I hope at some point Google will seriously take a look at this idea - It's time has now come. However, until G and arbitrage have a marital row and one of them storms off in a huff that seems unlikely.
You know what would happen, if Google allowed us this simple option? MFA's would disappear overnight ....
What actually would disappear, if at all, are ads for products that for whatever reason have a low return of investment. That could be a part of the MFA clicks you mention. But I also would have a very hard time selling greeting cards, pins, music downloads, magazines, etcetera.
What actually would disappear, if at all, are ads for products that for whatever reason have a low return of investment. That could be a part of the MFA clicks you mention. But I also would have a very hard time selling greeting cards, pins, music downloads, magazines, etcetera.
Certainly - for some niches it would make sense, and for others it would not. I tend to fall on the side of david_uk in that I would at least like to have the capability.
So for a site that lives in an area where the average ad click is already measured in single digits -- yeah, it wouldn't be much help there.
But for a site that dealt with something like high end consumer electronics reviews, for instance, getting rid of those $0.01 and $0.03 clicks would actually be more beneficial. Not when you look at a single day's earning ... but in the very long-haul, IMO.
So, I for one - would appreciate having a per-site "minimum CPC" option to set on my content sites. And based on the number of people who spend hours tracking down MFA's, tells me that there's a desire to have this in the content publishing community.
Maybe MSN will come out with this feature on their network :-) Hello - any MSN folks out there reading this? Make sure you add this feature to your offerings!
[edited by: martinibuster at 3:25 am (utc) on May 12, 2006]
[edit reason] Removed moderation comments etc. [/edit]
And I find it hard to believe that only MFAs have been able to master the copywriting skills to deliver attractive and compelling ads. One would think that talent like that could also go far with more informative sites. Just something to chew on.
