Adding AdSense to my Higher Traffic pages

[mike73]

I've been running a blog server for a couple years now. I've always had AdSense on the front page of the site, but not on my members' blogs. The front page of the site gets about 2,000 hits a day, and that pays for my hosting costs. Now I just threw the switch on the blog pages, which get about 200,000 hits a day.

*waits anxiously*

[I Will Make It]

Shouldn't you be a bit careful about putting adsense on contentpages generated by your users?

Unless you have some kind of "moderator script" which makes sure none of the users write something that's a violation of the TOS?

Anyway.. Good luck with it, make sure you come back here and tell us how it goes!

Admire you the "waiting for 2 years" though, that is not something I could have done ;)

[mike73]

Hahahaha... it's actually been 3 years :-O

But no, I'm not worried. It's a pretty wholesome group of mommies and dog enthusiasts.

[jimbeetle]

It's a pretty wholesome group of mommies and dog enthusiasts

Oooh, great target audiences. Should (of course, depending on whatever) work out quite nicely.

[Shawn Steele]

Be sure to tell us how it performed :)

[Jafo]

I will be interested in the results of this test. Please, let us know! :)

[mike73]

Well, it's about halfway through the day 1 here, and so far it's a total disappointment. CTR & eCPM are way down, making my earnings about the same.

I was calculating the worst-case scenario to be at least $20 a day, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. We'll see.

[jimbeetle]

You really can't go by what stats you see during the day. The data is often not complete and different elements are updated at different times. The only good numbers are the final ones which you should see sometime after midnight Google time.

[mike73]

You're right, jimbeetle, but I still thought it would be showing some better results already.

[frox]

So, 100 x impressions gives you about 1/100th CTR?

That's terrible!

Are you seeing loads of PSAs?

Is the EPC (earnings/clicks) similar, or has it dropped significantly?

If it has dropped, do you see similar ads?

Because, if it has dropped significantly and ads look the same (so, we can suppose you haven't run out of advertisers), the only hypothesis I can make is that Google is "punishing" you for such an increase in traffic (the much-rumored "earnings cap").

I mean, there is no way SmartPricing could strike so fast after a significant change in clicks ....

thanks for such a puzzling thread!

[trannack]

I think it really is early days - I'm sure it takes several days for things to "settle" down, for adsense to start serving the right ads etc. I would give it at least two weeks before drawing any conclusions. Also, why not send them an email - perhaps they could advise on this. Although, I have heard of a number of forum/blog sites experience low ECPM - so perhaps this will be the norm.

[I Will Make It]

Hey.. don't be so negative about it just yet :D

Many times over I have noticed that I haven't made a dime at lunch time. Then when I check my stats again the same evening, I'm up 50% from the day before!

And "new" ads, like the ones you put on your user-blogs, always need a little bit time run OK.

Good luck!

And to tell you all how happy I am today:
WHOOOHOOOO.... I have finally made my first $10 day yesterday.
It was $9.64 the day before that :)
I hope this continues!

[maximillianos]

Sometime you need to give Adsense a few days to learn your pages in order to show the best ads. Give it time.

[joelgreen]

Seems to me Google does not like traffic spikes, but changes its mind if traffic increase lasts for long. Just give Google some time to adopt :)

[MThiessen]

Check for either PSA's or badly off-targeted ads. There is a code you can put in the page to assist targeting.

[mike73]

I'll give you guys an update after turnover.

[andrewshim]

I'll give you guys an update after turnover.

agree with trannack... takes time for the ads to get on-target.

I predict your first day's earning to be $33.99.

;)

[Jafo]

How was day 2?

[mike73]

Well, day one sucked. I gave my users the option of turning off the ads, and a lot of them did, but still, I served 20 times more ads than I usually do, and only got about 1.5 times more money (which amounted to a whopping $11.95). Needless to say, I'm totally disappointed.

Today looks like it will be about the same- possibly slightly higher.

[paul2yall]

Well, day one sucked.

As others have said, give it several days before you make a judgment. My site is about "oranges." Once in a while, I write an article about "apples." When I publish the article, it will usually show ads for "oranges," even though they have nothing to do with the article. It can take up to a week, in some cases, for "apple" ads to appear, and to start seeing some decent income from the page.

I'll be interested to see an update from you in a week or so.

[mike73]

Yeah, despite my disappointment, I'm keeping an open mind about the future. I'll make a report if it gets better. Otherwise, you can assume I killed myself ;-)

[I Will Make It]

I'll be interested to see an update from you in a week or so.

That goes for me too.. Would be nice to hear what you have to say about it next monday/tuesday!

- Good luck

[andrewshim]

As others have said, give it several days before you make a judgment. My site is about "oranges." Once in a while, I write an article about "apples." When I publish the article, it will usually show ads for "oranges," even though they have nothing to do with the article. It can take up to a week, in some cases, for "apple" ads to appear, and to start seeing some decent income from the page.

ditto. worse, sometimes, you get ads about bananas! the mediapartner's (adsense) bot doesn't index quite as fast as I'd like it too.

[mike73]

It's been a week now and everything is still pretty crappy- about $10 to $11 a day.

Too bad my site is in Swedish; English content for the same subject pay off big time.

[rj87uk]

Why don't you create on in English then? :)

[mike73]

Why don't you create on in English then? :)

You know where I can get over 3,000 English-writing dog bloggers? It took a couple years to get this many users.

[florida dude]

hi mike,
i dont know if this will work for u but you should try to turn off the ads for users that are already registered. this will make the turn.
and have u esperienced a low earnings for the other pages of your website after u put spots on your users pages?

[mike73]

Thanks, florida dude, I'll give it a try.

Yes, other pages that did pretty well are doing worse now.

[wanderingmind]

do wait, mike. it will definitely get a bit better.

[mike73]

UPDATE:

I'm now making 2 to 3 times as much money as I was before (averaging $12.81 per day right now); however, I'm serving over 10 times as many ads as I used to :(

I'm experimenting with different ad formats now and using channels to monitor the differences.