More uglyness results in more income

But what do you prefer? Professional look or more income?

[silverbytes]

Based on recent tests of my own (and I'm not saying this is universal true) my sites with more ads (lots of ads) result in better income than those same sites with less ads but a more professional look.

So a cleanest page with few ads looks better, but a crowded page full of ads results in more income to me.

Perhaps you noticed same thing in your own case, what did you choose?

[FourDegreez]

I haven't tried to use excessive amounts of ads, because I think it is ultimately self-defeating. 1) higher risk of smart-pricing, 2) proliferation of sites of this nature compel web surfers to install ad-blocking software, 3) fosters a "spammy" image for the AdSense program, and 4) people won't regard your site highly (fewer return visitors, fewer unrequested links, etc).

Just for an example on one of these points: I've gotten a handful of really great links in the last year (news site, high-traffic blog, etc) that I am certain I wouldn't have gotten if my site had the more spammy, ad-filled appearance that some of my competitors have. These links brought in a ton of traffic that surely resulted in higher earnings than if I had gone the spammy route and not gotten the links.

[europeforvisitors]

I'm with FourDegreez. If you're serious about a career as a Web publisher, you've got to look at the big picture over the long term.

[Skeptic]

Its quite the conundrum.

I was just searching for a news topic a little while ago - and the supposed "professional" news sources I find seem to get choked up with more and more ads all the time (not necessarily all Adsense). It gets to be quite annoying just trying to find "information" and I have a genuine understanding how the average web surfer could get frustrated as well.

On the other hand, I want to make money too. So what is a webmaster to do?

[DamonHD]

Find the right balance for your audience: part of the art of business, IMHO.

Rgds

Damon

[ftwb05]

If you do it right you can have quite a few ads and not look too spammy.

I'm talking about blending adsense (but not enough for accidental clicks....), and affiliate text ads that are part of the body, but will attract surfers that are ready to buy.

Don't get too distracted with monetising your site until it is really established, Concentrate on content. Excellent content. And visitor interaction. But that's a different thread ;-)

[andrewshim]

imho 2 things happen in a (crowded) ugly page :

- visitor feels overwhelmed by the page, doesn't distinguish between ads and content and just clicks away

- visitor keeps coming back to the page to click on more links because it's so crowded he's forgotten which ones he's clicked before. And since the ads keep changing, he's more likely to click on the same ad block again, thinking it's new content.

I don't "blend" anymore other than making the links have a standard color. In fact, I do the opposite... my ads ALL use borders and look like boxes, but people still click on them. Relevance I suppose.

[dollarshort]

In the long term it can hurt your site as less people link to it and your rankings may drop.

[iwannano1]

I prefer simplicity and fast loading site with 2 or max 3 ad unit if there are 300 or more words per page

[potentialgeek]

really great links in the last year . . . that I am certain I wouldn't have gotten if my site had the more spammy, ad-filled appearance.

I don't link to sites filled with ads or Made For Ads sites. Same goes for sites with popup ads. You are not going to get a link from me!

I recommend in the early days of new sites to avoid any ads ... just so can increase your chances of getting dmoz'd and linked.

Adsense click beggars, get a life! lol.

p/g

[europeforvisitors]

>>I don't link to sites filled with ads or Made For Ads sites. Same goes for sites with popup ads. You are not going to get a link from me!<<

Same here. In my sector (travel), there's an endless supply of "destination guides" that use lightweight editorial content as filler for template-based ad pages. These days, I sometimes find myself deleting links to sites that once were useful but have fallen victim to their owners' naked greed. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the difference between a site that runs ads to exist and a site that exists to run ads.

[skweb]

Yes, having ads on top and with nil or lousy content you can get a lot of hits but the visitor will never come back and you will never get links from people who loved the article. I think if you want to build a solid websites then professional approach is the best. I have also found that you make more money that way.