Alternating AdSense Ads

Two ad layouts, never at the same time

[dataguy]

With all the buzz about placing ads in the midst of page content, today I thought I'd start A/B testing different AdSense layouts by alternating the format that the visitors see.

There will never be two AdSense ads displayed at the same time, the two formats will be a Wide Skyscraper on the upper left of the page, or a Medium Rectangle on the center of the page, mixed in with the content.

Now that I have the coding completed I have that eerie feeling like there might be something that I'm doing that is disallowed in the TOS, though I can't find anything.

Am I doing anything that might not be allowed by Google?

[diamondgrl]

As long as you only have one on a page at any one time, it should be fine from my reading of the TOS.

[asp4bunnies]

Just be forewarned that smart pricing may hit you hard.

I'm assuming what will happen is not only that people will become more aware of your ad, but that they will click on it by accident mistaking it for part of your content since they're used to thinking the ads are on the side. In which case they'll hit the back button fairly quickly and smart pricing will take a bite out of you.

[diamondgrl]

asp4bunnies,

what is smart pricing, if i may be so ignorant to ask?

[rbacal]

I think you might end up with way more PSA'S, if it's the case that each time you change ad formats, the page is re-spidered.

Anybody know?

[jonathanleger]

The page is not respidered when you change formats, at least in my experience.

[dataguy]

It doesn't appear that any of the pages that I'm running the alternating ads on have been re-spidered since I've started this test. My EPC is going up, but it's too soon to check the channels...

[Stark]

I've been doing this for weeks on one site, half the time I present a skyscraper, and the other half of the time a banner.

I have not had any apparent problems with PSAs or indeed anything. What it does do is allow me to accurately determine which format works best for my site and soon I will just use that format.

Of course, what I don't know yet is whether simply alternating between the two is increasing the ctr due to catching the attention of users more often.