Google Adsense best practices

[piyush]

Dear Friends,

We are running a website and have done 3.3 million google adsense impressions but have only managed to to generate about 2000 clicks. I think this is extremely poor what do you say? Are there any best practices that we should follow? Please let me know if you feel that there are some best practices for Google Adsense.

Thanks a lot for your help

[JuniorOptimizer]

That is awful. How many of the ads are targeted?

[diamondgrl]

uh, yeah. really really really really bad. sounds like most of those page views are from dedicated users to your site and they really don't want to leave.

[piyush]

Yeah I agree, thats what I thought. Basically I see 3 reasons for it.

1. Visitors stay on our site for extremely long periods of time.
2. There are lot of repeat visitors.
3. Till now, at most there have been 10 different google ads on the site.

The google ads are all in line with the context.

What can I do to improve?

Thanks a lot for your help

[ogletree]

The better your site is the worse AS will do. The more worthless the site the better AS will do. If somebody comes looking for some information and you provide it then they just close IE. You will get clicks just not very many. Forums are the worst. It's quite simple really. The ads are about the same subject that your site is about so there is no chance there is some real interesting off topic ad like a paid ad would be.

What I would do is put some affiliate ads up that pay better.

[elguapo]

The better your site is the worse AS will do. The more worthless the site the better AS will do.

Ouch! That hurts. I can't agree that my >5% CTR on one of my sites mean that I am getting a high CTR because the site is crap.

It may mean that the visitors the site is attracting are actually looking for something -- so I provide content while the ads provide the resources my audience needs. Perfect fit!

[EVOrange]

The best bet then is to put the ads where the visitors are when they finish with your site.
Whatever page is the "exit" page when they leave will probably be the optimal place for Adsense. Those page on my site are ctr 9%.

EVO

[ogletree]

I was not saying your site was worthless I was saying you could make your site more worthless and get even better than you are now.

[howiejs]

What industry is the site in?

Is it a forum?

How many pages have Adsense on them that generated the 3M+ impressions?

[ownerrim]

exactly how worthless can you make a page without google sending you an email re: the page's suitability for the program?

[ogletree]

You would be amazed. Just don't repeat kw's too much that is about the only rule.

[Outdoor]

This thread is getting too humourous. Build crappy site and do well with adsense! Lots of exclamation points.

Perhaps they can find a speaker at Las Vegas to help guide us.

[ownerrim]

Ogletree,

re: repeating keywords, how much is too much?

I have a few pages where the keyword repeats about 50 times, but accounts for only 16% keyword density. how do you think that flies with them?

[diamondgrl]

Outdoor,

Welcome to the world of spamming and anything goes. Why have ethics if you can make money other ways?

[ogletree]

I think it has to do more with repeating kw's next to each other just for the sake of repeating kw's. We got an email about it fixed the problems and they said we fixed it. The only problem was I don't know what they wanted fixing. I fixed a lot of things some may not have needed fixing. I know for a fact they don't want a word repeated over and over again . I think what you are doing is fine. Either way it is no big deal they will just warn you and you can fix it. There are too possibilities. I had one page with several misspellings of the same word and I had AS on several of my sitemap pages that were just tons of links that had a lot of the same words in them. I removed both.

[ownerrim]

what if you were doing a directory, say about flea markets and it looked something like this:

flea markets in anderson, south carolina

John's Tent sale
2112 albatross lane
anderson, sc 45555

flea markets in florence, south carolina

Flea mall usa
2334 singer st

...you get the picture. here you have many repetitions of the keywords, flea market, but the purpose is, allegedly, a directory. now, let's say you don't have anyone in the directory yet, because you have only just started it. then it just looks like:

flea markets in bridgeton, massachusetts

flea marktets in darden, massacusetts

flea markets in efflington, massachusetts

flea markets in fordlane, massachusetts

yadda yadda.

this wouldn't be something they would object to, would they? i mean this is how it would look until you actually got people signed up in the directory (assuming you charged admission)

[Macro]

See what this thread has decended to!

And to think it started off with a title of "Google Adsense best practices".

That's a deceptive title anyway (even if it may have been unintentionally so at the time).

Any chance of a mod now changing the title to: "Worst spammy practices that still get you paid without getting you thrown out"?

<sigh>

[elguapo]

Macro ... maybe still best practices (of the worst kind :o).

Afterall, in message #3 of this forum [webmasterworld.com...] the poster was already saying they are already in mid-6 figures as of July and are on target to break 7 figures. With the techniques this poster is advocating in this forum, I can only draw one conclusion: spam works.

[ownerrim]

what's spammy about a directory page like that? if you start a directory on, say, flea markets, this is how the page will look until you actually begin to fill it up, particularly if you are charging admission to the directory for those who wish to be listed. i don't see how this differs from any other kind of print directory, such as a phone book.

[ownerrim]

also, really think about it. if a searcher is looking for flea markets in south carolina (people do, crazy as it sounds), then giving them a directory page by state for all flea markets found in the state---is simply giving them what they want: a convenient listing. and in this instance, adsense ads for flea markets are turning up on a very search relevant page.

the only issue seems to be repetition of the keywords flea and market. but that's what the page is about. flea market listings. as long as the keyword density isn't ridiculous, what's the problem. And...with more listings of flea markets added to the page over time, the density for those keywords actually goes down.

I don't see the problem. And I don't think it is spamming. Spamming would be simple repetition of the keyword many times FOR NO APPARENT PURPOSE.

[gopi]

Ownerrin , what you suggested is used by many whose sole aim is to generate geo traffic and monetize it with adsense ....The directory style is just a mask to appear legetimate (say to escape a AS quality check!) and in many cases the url submission form will not even work :)

[alika]

A person complained in this forum once protesting that Google closed his account due to content reasons. He said that he has a very clean site with no fraudulent clicks. And that G approved their site a year ago. But now G terminated their account.

I got hold of this person's website and saw it was a financial directory -- created in a way that ownerrim wanted. It looked sophisticated with first class web design. Call it a directory, or call it a scraper site, but apparently G is now taking a second look at these sites and judging some, if not all of them to be unsuitable for Adsense.

When you create a directory site, be sure that there is content OTHER than the directory. Just to be on the safe side.

[Macro]

apparently G is now taking a second look at these sites and judging some, if not all of them to be unsuitable for Adsense

Not a day too soon!

With the techniques this poster is advocating in this forum, I can only draw one conclusion: spam works

So does bank robbery. And selling your grandmother ;)

[ken_b]

let's say you don't have anyone in the directory yet, because you have only just started it. then it just looks like:

I'd say seed the page with some listings before putting it online.

[ownerrim]

"I'd say seed the page with some listings before putting it online"

Or maybe put it online but just leave adsense off entirely until the directory begins to get some legitimate listings.

[piyush]

What industry is the site in?
Is it a forum?

How many pages have Adsense on them that generated the 3M+ impressions?

====

This site is a sports website.
It does have a forum though its not really used so often.
Almost all the pages have adsense, however 90% of the impression are generated by one page only.

[gopi]

Piyush ,From your nick i guess you are from India and your sports site will more likely be cricket :)

Did you tried partnering with any of the betting sites and offer some special deal for your users?

[HitProf]

piyush,

I have a similar problem, also on a sports website: most impressions are on 2 pages and they have almost 0 click throughs. The other pages are doing fine. Try to fix it by putting AS somewhere in the text and try to lead your customers to other pages within your site. Now that you can have multipel ad units you could try one near the top, one halfway and one near the bottom.

And I agree with ogletree: the best pages perform the worst, especially if they have outgoing links like the 2 I mention.

[ownerrim]

seems to be true. my second MOST viewed page, which offers very helpful advice on a particular topic, is also one of my least performing.

But, somehow, there has to be a balance between profitability and quality. I suspect that ogletree's "worst" pages are still pretty decent, by objective standards.

[dmedia]

Something to keep in mind when contemplating the creation of "spammy seedy directory pages with no real content that happen to perform great in the SERPs" .. search engines make it relatively easy for the public (or competitors) to file spam reports .. Joe sixpack surfer who is trying to locate his widgets might be peeved enough at your shady page .. to file an official complaint .. the wider your wings, the farther you spread your seed(y) pages .. the greater the risk of being a swatted fly on the radar screen headed for a manual removal.

Even if your site is a beta under development with best intentions to fill out the content "eventually" .. the sufer is king to the responsible SEs .. (rightfully so)

Never mind why I might have insight into this (sigh)