Competitive Ad Filter Penalty?

With every MFA batch I add, my EPC drops a notch.

[Hobbs]

In the last Google's "April 2007 Optimization Report" that most of us found in their AdSense reports page, those that block MFA received a friendly "You may be filtering ads that monetize well on your site". Which is not new coming from Google.

Now I know I only block best8crap and top9bull kind of 'sites', and for years blocking them has improved my site's performance as well as my personal satisfaction with what my visitors are exposed to.

But in the last few day I am observing an unusual anomaly:

With every MFA batch that I add, my EPC drops a notch.

I know there are other explanations too, but I'm curious if there is anyone else here blocking only MFA, nothing else is changing on their sites and observing the same.

[Powdork]

Searching G for '21_blue adsense MFA' brings me too
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Hobbs]

Thanks Powdork,
That was the eCPM thread, well worth reading too.

But it helped me find the EPC thread
a must read for everyone:
[webmasterworld.com...]

21_blue thanks again :-)

[farmboy]

And what do you know, I only see MFA on mistargeted pages, so perhaps this is the way to go from now on, should sort out many problems with one bullet, and even give earnings a quantum boost.

I'm not so sure about that theory. If I don't block them, I certainly see MFA's on very targeted pages.

I'm defining "MFA" as a page/site that contains only ads and links to other pages that have only ads and links to more pages that have only...

Also on targeted pages, I see misleading ads. I define a "misleading ad" as one that promises the visitor will find "3500 green widgets for sale" and the landing page is a consumer shopping mall site. Green widgets are a specialized industrial product and can't be found in that shopping mall.

FarmBoy

[Hobbs]

True, you can see them on targeted pages too.
MFA by definition are bottom feeders, so get yourself off the bottom, I wish I could make both 2_blue threads mentioned above sticky, would solve many people's problems or at least get them going on a solid plan towards shaking off the flees and improving earnings, please read the threads if you haven't done already.

[farmboy]

MFA by definition are bottom feeders, so get yourself off the bottom...

MFA ads on a site, therefore the site is "on the bottom."

I again disagree with the theory.

FarmBoy

[Hobbs]

Why?

According to 21_blue (among other things), if your eCPM or EPC is beyond their shooting range you should spare yourself the need to block them, what's wrong with that?

[farmboy]

Why?
According to 21_blue (among other things), if your eCPM or EPC is beyond their shooting range you should spare yourself the need to block them, what's wrong with that?

There are several reasons why.

For example, consider the "bottom feeder" theory. Let's say I open up my filter and release the dregs to roam my sites.

There are pages on my sites where the content attracts a variety of advertisers wanting to sell a particular line of business products to my visitors. I can load up one of the pages with three skyscrapers, as a test, and immediately Google will display every space filled with unique on-target ads.

Then I can remove the three skyscrapers and put up only one banner ad, which displays 2 advertisements. If I leave things alone and visit my page from time to time, I can consistently see MFA ads in one of the two spaces.

FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Let's take this a bit further.

1. Suppose I alter every page on which I display AdSense and at the maximum, I make room for two ads on each page. Not two ad units maximum - two ads maximum - banners, half banners, buttons, etc.

Can I expect, without any doubt, an increase in epc over time, all else remaining constant?

2. Suppose every publisher changed to this type layout, what would happen to MFA's?

3. Suppose a significant number of publishers adopted this layout style, what would happen to MFA's?

FarmBoy

[Hobbs]

Hi farmboy, I am not sure I fully understand you, the above mentioned methods is for people seeing MFA on their pages, if you don't then you do not need to apply any of it

I can load up one of the pages with three skyscrapers, as a test, and immediately Google will display every space filled with unique on-target ads.
Then I can remove the three skyscrapers and put up only one banner ad, which displays 2 advertisements. If I leave things alone and visit my page from time to time, I can consistently see MFA ads in one of the two spaces

You then would be the exception, in all my tests and others reported the same as well, the more ad space you provide on a page, the more likely you are to see MFA or mistargeted ads, if you do everything to perfection, your site content is well tuned, your traffic is eager to click and buy, your niche is advertisers rich, why would you need to test anyone's theory on blocking MFA, just keep building more content.

Can I expect, without any doubt, an increase in epc over time, all else remaining constant?

Not even Google can confirm anything "without any doubt" , the wise thing to do is to take all advice with a grain of salt, test what you think can improve your earnings, and make your own conclusions according to what works on your site, there is not AdSense magic bullet that works for everyone.

what would happen to MFA's?

Hopefully if we all are able to make it hard for MFA to make a living off the content network (yeah right), they would all go back to selling drugs and money laundering in the offline world and get caught :-)

On a serious note, if MFA cannot afford to be on your pages, they will seek other keywords or sites where they will afford to exist at a lower CPC, there will always be mistargeted ad pace, MFA is not niche or site specific, they are network inefficiency specific, they adapt and continue to exist till Google decides they are not profitable to have anymore.

[farmboy]

Hi farmboy, I am not sure I fully understand you, the above mentioned methods is for people seeing MFA on their pages, if you don't then you do not need to apply any of it

...You then would be the exception...

Maybe I didn't explain well, but you do seem to have missed my point entirely.

I know there are plenty of ads available for a page. But, if I limit the page to having room for just two ads (not two ad units), MFA's still seem to capture one of those two spots (assuming they aren't in my filter).

That seems to be at odds with the theory of MFA's being bottom feeders.

FarmBoy

[Hobbs]

if I limit the page to having room for just two ads (not two ad units), MFA's still seem to capture one of those two spots

Glad you explained, it looks like you do need to boost your site's epc and ecpm in this case, read the threads again and do some testing, it does not specify reducing ad space as the only solution.

Probably you already know that AdSense places an ad not based on the highest CPC alone, but on the perceived total earnings it will generate, meaning a lower bottom feeder ad will still show if it is perceived to be clicked many more times generating a higher total earnings for you and Google, when you boost your site's epc many MFA clicks would not be able to compete against other relevant higher paying advertisers, it's a threshold one needs to cross. Some of us will never be able to due to lack of advertisers or niche low bids.
These are all theories anyway with a bit of speculation like everything else in AdSense, if you got time, experiment.