Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Two contradicting theories. HELP ME!
Hope i get a good answer because I am making very less money(about $30-40) and I need some way to increase my earnings.
High quality content on your site and increased traffic should increase your earnings.
[edited by: MyNewPC at 6:20 pm (utc) on April 13, 2008]
While filtering is a quick and easy way to prevent unwanted ads from being displayed, keep in mind that filtering decreases the number of ads that can appear, thereby decreasing your potential earnings as well.
[google.com...]
keep in mind that filtering decreases the number of ads that can appear, thereby decreasing your potential earnings as well.
It's not as simple as that.
IMO it depends on a number of factors.
Your Niche
The Geographic region where ads are being displayed
The ratio of quaility ads to junk
Just to name a few.
I find that filtering helps.
Good luck.
It's not as simple as that.
It is. Regardless of the factors you list, when you add a site to filter list you are removing it and replacing it with another advertiser who is bidding less than the advertiser you removed. Regardless of geo region, ratio of quality to junk, etc.
It is. Regardless of the factors you listWell maybe for you it is.
when you add a site to filter list you are removing it and replacing it with another advertiser who is bidding less than the advertiser you removed
I disagree.
In my case most Junk sites pay peanuts (1 to 10) cents displacing advertisers who pay upwards of 30 cents. They pay peanuts because of their deceiving ad copy which boosts their ctr and hence their position over the entire content network. Whenever I remove "allthebestwigetdeals.biz" and their ilk I find the more expensive and credible payers returning.
[edited by: Scurramunga at 1:44 am (utc) on April 14, 2008]
Yes, I know that I'm potentially hurting my revenue by doing this. In the short term. But, over the long term, I am convinced that publishers keeping poor quality advertisers off their sites helps protect reader click-through percentages, which helps promote higher revenue.
I put scam sites and the MFAs that continue to appear on my site in the filter (many junk sites don't continue to appear, so it's worth waiting), so that my visitors don't associate my site with them. That, IMO, is a more important reason to block such sites.
I remove advertisers because I want my visitors to see the ads on my site as high-quality content.
That goes without saying.
Yes, I know that I'm potentially hurting my revenue by doing this. In the short term.
How is it hurting your revenue if you are replacing the 2cent clicks paid by garbitagers with higher paying clicks? Adwords is NOT purely based on a free market model. There is much intervention giving bottom feeders potential advantage.
These bottom feeders IMO make no difference to baseline bids with their pityful offerings because they are riding on ctr.
...so that my visitors don't associate my site with them. That, IMO, is a more important reason to block such sites.
Agree. The prospect of having junk sites displayed on my website causes me to cringe with embarrassment.
I think you'd be better off spending the time figuring out why you content, or site, attracts the MFA type ads and changing that is so it no longer attracts those ads.
It's not always as simple as that.
For example: My website content attracts $3 ads and $2 ads, $1 ads and so on. It also attracts MFAS, allbeit very few when viewed in western countries. My content is of a high quality and I partly know this because I am ranking well in the SERPS and have been for years. I run only one adblock at the moment. So what would a webmasster in my position change to stop attracting MFAS?
It is as simple as that. Changing your niche and/or increasing your traffic will probably do more for helping you make more than $30 per day/week/month than filling your filter with 200 MFAs.
At $30/day/week/month it's not MFA's driving your earnings down. It's painfully obvious you are in a crappy niche. Open your eyes. Take an honest look at the situation. Take a hint. Move on and find a better niche.
This is the most honest,helpful, productive and sincere advice anyone can give you.
Good luck.
[edited by: martinibuster at 3:16 am (utc) on April 14, 2008]
Changing your niche and increasing your traffic will probably do more for helping you make more than $30 per day/month than filling up your filter with 200 MFAs.
Maybe for the OP, but not for someone in my situation. So lets not confuse newbies.
I am making more than $30 and besides I didn't build my website around my ads. My site is an e-commerce site so the traffic converts well for me and for Google. Anyone else in this situation would probably stand their ground rather than submit.
[edited by: Scurramunga at 3:19 am (utc) on April 14, 2008]
For example: My website content attracts $3 ads and $2 ads, $1 ads and so on.
Those EPCs are typical for low traffic and highly niche topics. The tighter the niche (and costlier the product) the higher the earnings per click. However this is at the cost of low traffic so it balances out that there aren't enough advertisers and traffic to make satisfying earnings. I say this from experience, I've been there and I did that.
So what do you do if your traffic is low, and despite high EPC's you're not earning a satisfactory amount? Change your niche, or rather, go broader in the topic. So instead of blue widgets, cover widgets.
But if you're locked in and don't have the opportunity to broaden your topic then your issue is not MFAs it's your inability, for whatever reason, to make the needed changes to improve.
Good luck.
[edited by: martinibuster at 4:03 am (utc) on April 14, 2008]
So what do you do if your traffic is low, and despite high EPC's you're not earning a satisfactory amount? Change your niche, or rather, go broader in the topic. So instead of blue widgets, cover widgets.
You do make a good point, however I am not entirely dissatisfied with my earnings, I just want to maintain them at a level which I deem reasonable.
My site is an e-commerce site so the traffic converts well for me and for Google.
I don't see why an ecommerce site would run AdSense in the first place as it opens up your site to competitors and MFA's and other things that may reflect poorly upon your business.
Anyway, Martini is right about the types of ads running may be related to your niche and I would even suspect that since you're an ecommerce site it's possible that your competitors have blocked running their ads on your site.
The only way to tell for sure is look at other sites in your niche that run AdSense and see if they have MFAs as well.
[edited by: incrediBILL at 9:44 pm (utc) on April 14, 2008]
When I see MFAs in the ad preview screen I will usually NOT filter them as long as I don't see them actually appearing on our sites...
1. You are mistakenly assuming those sites are not showing up on your site. Just because you don't see them does not mean they are not showing up for everyone else.
2. The preview tool does not give publishers the full scope of advertisers showing ads on your site. It only gives you a sample.
3. There are vastly different ads being shown to people in other parts of your state/province, as well as in other parts of your country. You will never be able to filter the MFAs you are unaware of.
4. Just as you can't cure emphysema by taking cough drops, real change in earnings will only come about when you address the root cause of the problem, not the symptoms of it.
I don't see why an ecommerce site would run AdSense in the first place as it opens up your site to competitors and MFA's and other things that may reflect poorly upon your business....I would even suspect that since you're an ecommerce site it's possible that your competitors have blocked running their ads on your site.
I run ads for two reasons. Firstly some of the ads offer complemetry products to my product and secondly the ads may often offer a viable (cheaper) mass produced alternative to my (custom made) product rather than directly compete with it.
The visitor who clicks on my ads is the exactly type of visitor I would have lost anyway in pre Adsense days due to price constraints. Yet the product that they settle on still commands a reasonable Adwords bidding price.
The only way to tell for sure is look at other sites in your niche that run AdSense and see if they have MFAs as well.
I have conducted extensive testing here and it seems that Google is serving me the best content network ads that I can hope for. The problem with the MFA is that they (increasingly) pretend to offer a real product, often at a greatly discounted price just to gain an advantage.
Unfortunately this is true. In fact many times the ones which DO show up on the site are not even on the tool so it makes it harder to see where it is going. In the last week alone I reported 3 which went to entirely different sites than shown in the URL on the screem, which is a TOS violation I believe. In fact ONE of the ones I reported was somehow redirecting to a site which was already on our filter, which I thought G as supposed to catch! Many other times, in our case, the tool errors-out and shows nothing but an 'e'.
So why don't you filter the advertisers shown on the tool that you don't see when you view your site? Must be a damn good reason, I'm anxious to hear it. Or is this something you just figured out and are going to start filtering those sites from now on?
Mike, I don't appreciate your implying that anyone who disagrees with you might be an MFA'er. It's offensive and contrary to the spirit of discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The preview tool does not give publishers the full scope of advertisers showing ads on your site. It only gives you a sample.
There is an online tool called "googlock" which I find more useful than the Adsense Preview Tool.
However if you want a fuller picture it might also be an idea to view pages from proxy servers located in various geographic locations.
There is an online tool called "googlock"
What does "check and block" mean? Obviously that site can't control which ads are blocked on a particular site.
The text " check and block:" doesn't seem to have any particular function, however there is a save button which could possibly post information on selected sites back to the server.
I find it caches the selected ads nicely and it's a simple matter of deleting the list when need to start afresh.
The tools to do this lack considerably:
I thought I basically explained this in my earlier post, but here is the expanded version. There are a number of other reasons, but in most simple terms, firstly there's only so much room (200?) in the filter. If I blocked them ALL, there wouldn't be enough room. This way I reserve the few slots available to shave off those who I KNOW for certain are breaking through the cream (advertisers) at the bidding top (because I have actually SEEN them appear). I also check Google search just to see if, maybe they actually ARE high payers for that particular keyword (We presumably really can't tell which ads are paying more than others on our page, but we can be pretty sure Google places the highest payers at the top of THIER search results pretty much in order). The way I read GAds description, the preview tool shows ads which have a potential to appear on the page, not that they necessarily ever WILL, especially if they aren't willing to pay enough to get there. I've noticed that those at the top of the list do tend to be shown more than those lower, when limited ad space is available (we usually don't place more than 4 indiv. ads per page) thus if the MFAs don't appeear in the top 8 or so, I assume they are forming a support basis for the other bids and leave them alone unless I actually see them.
Secondly, if they help support or buoy the price that others have to pay to get on my page, without getting shown themselves, all the better. Kinda like unpaid shills at an auction. If, for instance, all else being equal (which we all know is not the case, but just assume for the purpose of this example,) there is only ONE GOOD bidder for your page, after you eliminate ALL the riffraff bids then the single GOOD bidder will only have to pay the minimum bid. So in other words I am saying the riffraff have their place and use in the system to publishers (as perhaps G realizes), I just don't want them showing up on my pages unless they are truly competing fairly with other bidders and paying comparable rates.
Ultimately it should be the other legit ADVERTISERS complaining to G that MFA'ers are artificially increasing their bid prices. On the other hand there maybe should be some publishers happy to have them around if there are no other Adwords advertisers for their niche.
>Mike, I don't appreciate your implying that anyone who disagrees with you might be an MFA'er.
I didn't say ANYONE was or wasn't, for any reason, although it IS certainly a possibility. Nor did I say that it was necessarily bad to be one, simply that IF a poster was so involved they would definitely have a vested-interest motive to say NOT to filter them at all. Don't you agree? I am NOT one, considering our sites were around years before Google itself existed. So ARE YOU an MFA'er or Arbitrager or not?
You are doing it again, assuming that they are not being shown. They ARE being shown, you just don't see them. There are hundreds of ads shown on your site you are not aware of. You will never be aware of all the ads being shown on your site.
Do you ever wonder why new MFAs keep coming after you filled your filter? Reason: they're not new, they're just the ones you never saw.
>>>So ARE YOU an MFA'er or Arbitrager or not?
Mike, Senator Joseph McCarthy is dead. The world has moved on. Let's not resurrect his finger wagging tactics here, ok? Ideas are measured according to how well they stand scrutiny. Resorting to finger wagging doesn't help your argument. Did it ever occur to you that some people are advancing what they view as more logical and reasoned ideas in order to help people get to a better result?
My previous posts in this thread show how removing MFAs are a poor solution to a greater problem that is not addressed by filling up the filter. The point of the posts are to help people achieve their goals for better earnings.
Judging by the complaints about fleas, it's obvious that filling the filter does not work, just as cough drops don't cure emphysema. Some may argue they need a bigger filter but I think that's just tossing a bigger cough drop down the hatch. What needs to be addressed is the underlying problem, not the symptom of the problem. The ideas I'm advancing are real solutions to help people out.
