Having adsense in forum doesn't do well?

adsense, forum

[wands]

Im thinking about building a forum on the topic of movies.

And i did some research on the profitability of having adsense in forums. Most people said that forums don't do well with adsense.

Anyone here begs to differ? I would like a different opinion.

[vik_c]

This is a much discussed subject around here. Just do a search for the threads.

[WiseWebDude]

Adsense usually sees around a 1% click-through rate for most forums from all that I can ascertain. It's best to look at other means to monetize forums...at least until you get MAJOR traffic anyway. That is MHO on the matter.

[atreides9999]

Forums do not do so well.

One reason is that there are often repeat visitors who have seen the ads before.

Ads, can be harder to place in forums. They also annoy regular users.

For me, I've found that less ads on forums is better. just make sure its easy for users to get to the main part of the site, and they can click them there. (If forums is your main site then Im not sure what to do.) I just use forums as a trafic catcher, as they help retain visitors.

[WiseWebDude]

One thing you want to do for SURE is remove Adsense for members that are signed in. This will decrease the impressions and help you in the long run. The simple fact is, regular members won't click on the ads.

[LifeinAsia]

Anyone here begs to differ?

I don't beg to differ, but our sites often have the forums as one of the best sections for AdSense. We have niche sites that don't have a lot of advertisers, and the forums open up some more common topics, so that is probably part of the issue.

However, I do agree that forums don't do well in general.

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 3:39 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2007]

[LBmtb]

Make sure you drive new traffic, (i.e. search engine traffic) to your forums. As was said, regular forum visitors develop ad blindness. Visitors are MUCH more likely to click on ads than regular users.

[edited by: LBmtb at 1:01 am (utc) on Aug. 4, 2007]

[martinibuster]

Make sure you drive new traffic...Visitors are MUCH more likely to click on ads than regular users.

Excellent point. I agree 100% :)
The way to do that is to make sure your forum is well optimized so that it ranks well. I receive well above five percent, and sometimes above ten percent, click through rates using the following techniques. The effort has at least three components.

1. Optimization
Remove all links to superfluous pages. You want crawlers to dig straight to your content, not to user profiles and other non-content related pages. Alter the forum code so that the thread title becomes the page title. The usual SEO tips apply here in terms of making static easily crawled pages.

2. Moderation
Have your moderators change all non-descriptive titles. Newbie here, Noob needs help, What is this?, etc. are examples of bad thread titles. The title must reflect what the discussion is about. This will not only encourage more discussion, but will cause your thread pages to rank well for the discussion, pulling in more new visitors.

3. Point links to the individual forum category pages, as well as to select forum posts.