April 2007 Optimization Report

New feature?

[youfoundjake]

Logged into Adsens today and saw this, the report recommended that I place another ad unit on my highest performing page. Anyone else get these, or am I finally past some point of metric for getting this feature?

[sailorjwd]

Just got my report.

Says I may be filtering too many advertisers.. I have a total of 1 in my block list... teehee.

[youfoundjake]

Have you ever seen this report before?

[m0thman]

Yup, just spotted this myself and I'm filtering too many adds - there again my block list is full. I like my visitors though and wouldn't dream of sending them through to a page full of ads with no content!

Feel like sending an AdSense optimization report back - weed out the "crappy advertisers because I'm fed up doing it!"

[creepychris]

I got to many filtered ads and not enough ads per page.

[koan]

Me and a friend got a report about filtering potential high paying ads.. dunno.. I add only MFA culprits, but yeah, our filters were close to full I guess. I'll remove them, save the list in a text file, and see how it goes for the next few days. Does that report mean our sites were reviewed or was it sent by some automatic means?

[youfoundjake]

It looks like it went through an automatic review. From what I gathered.

[proboscis]

"After an automatic review of your sites" ...I don't think the automatic review is working...

[Dringo]

They specifically say in the message that it is an automated report.

[maxgoldie]

On mine they say "You may be filtering ads that monetize well on your site."

This could mean a few things. It could be referring to the fact that my URL filter is full (mostly of MFA and misleading ads), or that I decided to opt-out of site targeted ads. Every single time I tried to test dumping the URL filter, my earnings dropped and stayed that way for weeks until I filled it again with junk/spam ads.

These kind of messages could be more helpful if they are specific (or at least a bit more specific). In fact, if they want to be really helpful, they should let us filter by advertiser, b/c I have one domain parking MFA who is 40% of my URL filter.

[Scurramunga]

I've been seeing messages advising me to increase the number of adblocks and to reduce blocked ads.

CONCLUSION:
Google wants me to display MFA's and more adblocks containing them.

[gendude]

Google wants me to display MFA's and more adblocks containing them.

That's kind of what it sounded like to me.

I filter any and all MFA sites, arbitrage (which I report), etc.

Your advertising reflects on the quality of your website, and people will associates those external sites with your's, especially if they are first-time users. They won't come back.

[Scurramunga]

Just wanted to say; that in past cases where I have added more than one adblock on a page I have found that the very best case senario would be be more or less the same revenue level resulting from more clicks with a lower cpc. Sometimes I would observe the same number of clicks and lower revenue.

Also:

Where I have increased ads by increasing the number of pages containing adblocks I see the same effect, sitewide.

[edited by: Scurramunga at 11:28 pm (utc) on April 3, 2007]

[frakilk]

I agree Scurramunga, one of the best AdSense changes I made was to reduce down to one ad unit. Made the site a whole degree prettier too.

To be honest I don't think these new tips are entirely helpful and are one-sided to being beneficial to Google.

[Scurramunga]

Frakilk,
Yes, one sided they certainly are. I can't wait to see what advice future tips will hold.

[tbear]

I saw the reports in my account too.
Did every account see something?

Advised me to add adsense for search. Seemed like a kind of mailshot to me........LOL.

[sailorjwd]

I advise something that will help all of us:

Reduce the number of ads per page!

It will be good for everyone. My CPM has recovered after getting rid all extra ads, such as adlinks. And, the site targeted ads I get are now paying reasonable money.

[ken_b]

Says I may be filtering too many advertisers.

Yeah, me too apparently. I'd have to check, but if I have 10 sites blocked I'd be surprized.

[chikung]

It says I have filtered to many sites that can monetize....well thats true..its a large number but those sites created nightmare once. If they are disappreaded forever from adsense, I would give a try for a while and remove the list temorarily.

[Scurramunga]

If they really wanted to offer a valuable tip, perhaps provide tips on how to avoid smartpricing, or they could provide a link to W.World for optimisation tips .

[edited by: Scurramunga at 12:32 am (utc) on April 4, 2007]

[farmboy]

To be honest I don't think these new tips are entirely helpful and are one-sided to being beneficial to Google.

Allow me to offer a few useful tips:

If you have URL's in your competitive ad filter, you may be blocking ads that could result in additional revenue

If you do not have URL's in your competitive ad filter, you may benefit by inserting some URL's into the filter

If you do not have AdSense Search on your site, you may be able to increase revenue by adding AdSense Search

If you do have AdSense Search on your site, you may be able to increase revenue by removing AdSense Search

If you have more than one adblock on your page, you may be able to increase revenue by reducing the number of adblocks

If you have only one adblock on your page, you may be able to increase revenue by increasing the number of adblocks on your page

Glad I could be of assistance. May your bank account overflow.

FarmBoy

[thegreatpretender]

It's telling me to put more block on my pages, on the contrary, my earnings went up when i pulled other adsense units on each of my pages and left just one block, but that was more than a year ago. Would putting some unit back again make a difference? I'll try it and let you know the result.

[Scurramunga]

pretender,
I think that you will find that not much as changed in that regard, as I have experimented periodically without any gains. I would however welcome the opportunity to read any of the feedback you might have on your experiences.

<added>
I think That the reccomendations in question will only further dim advertisers' opinions of the content network. Imagine if all publishers carried the maximum number of adblocks and adlink boxes peppered in MFA's.

[edited by: Scurramunga at 1:33 am (utc) on April 4, 2007]

[workingNOMAD]

Another one with too many filtered ads. In actual fact the only site I filter is a well known auction site!

[inactivist]

I got one too. Said: You may be filtering ads that monetize well on your site..

Suggested fix:
"Keep your filter list small" [google.com]

Is your account filter list working a little too well? Consider reducing the number of filtered ads.(snip)

Bottom line, they want me to cut the # of filter entries - or target them better. BUT: these filter entries are there because really lame (off-topic: ringtones, etc!) ads on too many pages. I don't care how well they pay, putting ringtones ads on a page about motorcycles is really freakin' stupid! (and my sites are not spammy, have high-quality content, and google's bots know very well what these pages are about, but still, they stuff ringtone ads on just about every page..)

I could go on...

I will prune the blocklist a bit, but I'll keep on blocking the ringtones and "win a free motorcycle jacket" ads...

[Scurramunga]

I would keep all the off topic ads off , ESPECIALLY the deliberate off topic ads. Are they not a cheap way for advertisers to spam?

[inactivist]

I would keep all the off topic ads off , ESPECIALLY the deliberate off topic ads. Are they not a cheap way for advertisers to spam?

I hear that! I reset my filter list periodically, because a lot of the entries are due to a new-ish site that is attracting the ringtoners and other bottom-feeders. My sites are stable once again, so it's time to reset all but the most obnoxious advertisers and re-evaluate the current crop of junk ads... :(

Perhaps we need to issue an 'AdSense Publisher MFA and Off-topic Advertiser Optimization Report" and send it to Google once a month? We could put together a top ten list of ways the AdSense team can help publishers deal with all these lame ads?

I'd start with:

1. Provide a keywords blacklist - ads targeted at this list should NEVER appear on my site[s], thank you very much!
   
2. Provide blocklist capabilities per-domain so we can tune the filter to the specific site (yes, some of us publishers do have multiple sites, don't we?)
   

[eljefe3]

Spam if you ask me. I didn't ask for the worthless tip of removing MFA arbitrage ads.

Tell me something I don't know such as how I can get all MFA's off my site and keep them off, how I can get out of being smartpriced, how I cna increase the number of MFA's added to my filter etc.

[trinorthlighting]

Same tip, filtering too many ads, lets see...

The only sites I filter are competitors and MFA's

[maxgoldie]

Wouldn't it be nice if the report read:

"We see that you are not filtering mfa.parkeddomain.com. Perhaps filtering this site might increase your earnings and provide your users with more relevant ads."