AdSense Font Size Mania

I've reverted to "default," and I'm getting three medium-font ads per 300 x 250 ad unit. The text looks good on a 20-inch, 1600 x 1200 monitor but a little too big on a 17-inch, 1024 x 768 display. I'm not going to obsess about it; presumably Google did some research before deciding to change the default size from "small" to "medium." (It's too early to make an informed judgment about the impact of the change on CTR, but my gut feeling, based on the numbers that I've seen so far, is "not much.")

My stats are out of sight compared to what they were before I increased the fonts to "large." I'm getting a much improved CTR and eCPM. Of course, there was only room for upward improvement!

My stats continue to do very well with the new font size of medium. I have not tried large yet. Will probably test large next week.

Ever since the addition of new font options (which allow for the type of aesthetic control which I find critical, even if inherently subjective) the CTR and eCPM has returned to the levels across sites not seen since a year ago. But it has only been five days, and I prefer to see patterns play out over months and years.

Changed to MEDIUM fonts this morning.

Traffic is in line with the rest of the month

About a 4% increase in CTR today (Actually best day so far this month).

Will be averaging the last two months (by week) and report back after my findings.

I am mainly using 728x90 across the top under menu above the fold and one at the end of content and also some 338x60's here and there. They showed up nicely in about 5 minutes and look way better without being OVERLY intrusive to my content.

All 728x90's went to showing 3 ads vs.4 and so did my 336x80's

Great work Google! Whether this upward trending for me sticks atleast it's good to mix things up a bit to divert from staleness.

Well with all these positive reports the AdSense bean counters must be very chuffed.

I increased the font size late Monday evening and yesterday I experienced a small increase in CTR but, more importantly, an increase in eCPM. Of course it's far too early to get excited but it did make me smile.

I still haven't reached the levels of pre April 1st. They are getting better but still not reaching my baseline, let alone smashing it like I used to.

My increases have maintained, but on Sunday, my biggest day of the week, the CTR and ECPM was still good but my impressions were down.

I changed all my sites to large font mid day on June 18th.

Since then my CTR and ECPM has increased 25-30%. Impressions have dropped a little though, so earnings are higher but not as high as they would be if impressions were the same.

Either way, I'm thankful that this has helped earnings. Again, I don't know if this will last but it's been 6.5 days sow far.

I have now been running them for 5 days..just don't see any change in trend at all.. :(

For me since saturday, a little lower impressions, but higher CTR and CPM. I had some €/clicks that I did not have them since months ago.

My question now if Google is paying diffently whether the click cames from a larger font or not. It looks like it. IMHO

I changed several things at once, and it's my peak time anyway, so I can't tell. But they certainly stick out more.

Switched over default to medium 2 days ago. CTR up, CPM up, page impressions down 15%. Hmm...

Oh how I love Google, why cant you just do what people want, what your publishers want, the ones that make you money remember? Instead you continue giving with one hand and taking with the other. Always a headache with you.

In the past, google has automatically changed font size. Small font displayed 4 ads, medium 3, large 2 and extra large 1 on the more standard ad blocks. That to me, makes perfect sense, bigger font, less ads in order to fill the box nicely. Who wants a load of dead white space right?

So, when font sizes come out i think i speak for most when they thought this is how things would be, yet, i get 4 ads on small, 2 ads on medium and 2 on large, where is the 3 on medium gone?

Also, as I run two blocks you allow me to change the first, but the second remains on small/4 ads no matter what, you block any changes. Then there is your constant overriding on some other blocks where you change both size and font to anything you choose.

It's my site and i know how I want the ads to look, stop controlling me. Seriously sort it out, you're becoming a laughing stock. You can even get some simple fonts right and this control you seem to insist on having over how MY site looks is getting out of hand.

Even you example picture of how things should look shows 4 ads of all different font sizes in one block, yet we both know you only get 4 ads on small font, you cant even get your examples right, how misleading can you be, it's sloppy.

People only stay with you because you pay slightly better than the competition, which is nothing to be proud of is it.

The advertisers are the ones that make them money too, and they don't do what we want either.

People only stay with you because you pay slightly better than the competition, which is nothing to be proud of is it.

There's no "proud" in business, just like there's no crying in baseball.

They're not controlling how your site looks, they're controlling how their ads look. If you don't like the look, you know what the alternatives are.

I will keep saying it over and over until it sinks in to people - AdSense is what it is, not what YOU think it should be. Control is what you give up, in exchange for not having to go find advertisers and sell your site to them, in exchange for letting Google find the best matches an algorithm can manage for your site, in exchange for the ease of just plopping some code on a page. THAT's the system that is available to you. You knew it going in (or at least you should have) so it's pointless to rail about it now. Constructive criticism, of course. Suggestions for features - absolutely. Pointless rants? Waste of time. It's an imperfect system, but it's still better than most, if not all, of the others (otherwise we wouldn't see so many people ready to jump off a building when something goes wrong)

I understand that Google holds the cards, it's their network bla bla, don't like it don't use it.

So why give me a bunch of nobs to twiddle if the end result is the same, that is the complaint here, don't give me options if they don't work and big G is just going to override them.

People only stay with you because you pay slightly better than the competition, which is nothing to be proud of is it.

Have you considered why AdSense is able to pay more than the competition does? Could it be because, after six years and untold quantities of data to analyze, Google has a better idea of what works or doesn't work in the "Ads by Google" box than its competitors or publishers do?

Again, not sure on your point, I'm not saying they dont know what's best, but, i have been given options yet they do not work, Google overrides them. So, what is the point of announcing new features, if these features do not exist?

I'm not saying they dont know what's best, but, i have been given options yet they do not work, Google overrides them.

I can think of two possible reasons why a publisher's font choice might be overridden:

1) The publisher's font choice doesn't work in a specific situation (such as the size of the ad unit); and/or...

2) The "font settings" feature is new, and it may be a while before all bugs have been identified and fixed.

This just burns my biscuits!

I have my default set to arial, medium and I just saw an ad unit with Times New Roman. Now that's just plain wrong! I selected arial and arial is all I ever want to see.

Why even bother giving me a choice if something else is going to appear? What a waste.

Why not keep your biscuits from buring by sticking to "default" across the board until the bugs have been worked out? "Leading edge" is nicknamed "bleeding edge" for a reason.

Selecting font size might be new but actual font isn't, months ago we got that option and it still doesnt work, they also chopped around long before we could change it.

Control is what you give up

We can change the color of each element, the font faces, font sizes, and other features. That doesn't look like Google wants us to give up control. They know very well that only humans, publishers, can adapt the look of the ads in a tasteful way to match their sites. A fully automated system often produces ridiculous and tasteless look. It's the human touch, human control, that can make things much better. Google knows this very well.

They're not controlling how your site looks

Of course they are controlling how your site looks. Not completely, but partially. The ads are integral parts of the site and by changing how the ads look, they also change how the site looks.

Adsense works as designed. It may not be as you or I would want it to work in a ideal world. But it works as most of us expect 95% of the time.

The other 5% is optimization testing. Which I don't mind one bit if it helps them help me make more money than any other ad network out there.

Something is wrong here. I'm using the 728x90 Leaderboard, it's set to Verdana and Medium size, but it's still small same as before (it's showing 4 ads). Is there a way to make it 3 ads and Medium font?

Well, a few days down the line with a mixture of medium and large fonts, absolutely no difference at all in my income.

Two things are striking:

1) Google changed its systemwide default setting on every single ad served without as much as an email note to every publisher, even though it could cause income to drop (as reported here). Not even a notice to watch your stats carefully because of the changes.

2) Google didn't think of larger fonts in ads, one of the most basic ad issues, until 2009. It never occurred to one of their employees, let alone the top executive of Adsense, that larger fonts could increase revenue by 30% in the last six years. WHAT A CONCEPT!

How much has this minor oversight cost the company? $500,000,000?

ROTFLMAO! What a bunch of hacks at the Plex. It's so hard to think outside the Ad box. What special out-of-orbit innovation will grace us mere mortals in 2015?

p/g

) Google changed its systemwide default setting on every single ad served without as much as an email note to every publisher, even though it could cause income to drop (as reported here). Not even a notice to watch your stats carefully because of the changes.

To tell you the truth, it's not a big issue for me. If one expects effective communication from large online companies, one is simply going to be disappointed. And, I'm not sure what use that information would be, even if I had it?

2) Google didn't think of larger fonts in ads, one of the most basic ad issues, until 2009. It never occurred to one of their employees, let alone the top executive of Adsense, that larger fonts could increase revenue by 30% in the last six years. WHAT A CONCEPT!

How much has this minor oversight cost the company? $500,000,000?

Well, uh, not exactly. It's NOT larger fonts per se that affects earnings but the unique, new "look" that helps overcome ad blindness. So, in fact, the effect is almost certainly going to wear off as users "get used" to larger fonts or even smaller fonts.

Anyway, the issue hasn't been font size, but allowing web site publishers to choose fonts. In essence it's a visual branding issue, and not a question of google not "thinking of it".

Major companies with brands and established visual identities take them extremely seriously, since, over the long haul, the branding yields billions of dollars, even if you do not take the issue seriously.

Google didn't think of larger fonts in ads, one of the most basic ad issues, until 2009.

Have you considered the more likely possibility that Google didn't see any need for a larger default font until recently?

Over the years, computer screen resolutions have increased and more people have begun using relatively high-resolution displays on laptops and--more recently--on netbooks with small screens. Google's default AdSense font worked perfectly well a few years ago, but now it's 2009, most people aren't using 800 x 600 on 15-inch (or 1024 x 768 on 17-inch) monitors, and a change in the default font makes sense. (Coincidentally, I changed the fonts in my own site's menus a month or two ago to keep up with screen evolution, so I'm not surprised that Google has reached the same conclusion about readability that I did.)

I set my Google adsense ads to Medium few days ago. However, until now, the font size of my Leaderboard (728x90) and wide skyscraper (160x600) still didn't change. Why is that?

Is this new feature not yet widely implemented to all account?