Success adding More Adsense units

Can adding more Adsense units bring greater return?

[bouncybunny]

There is a lot of talk on here about not putting too many Adense ad units in a page - perhaps just one per page. Reasons vary from not looking too 'spammy', to getting a better overall return.

Yet we are allowed to put up to three ad units on each page. Has anyone ever thrown caution to the wind and done this with success? I know it seems a strange question but I can't remember anyone saying this is a good idea on these forums.

[cien]

I've tested more and less ads on my pages and I haven't ever noticed higher cost per click, just the same average. I think is a myth or how it used to be the case years ago, per some comments I have read before.

[martinibuster]

I haven't experimented in maybe six months. In the last experiment the size, amount of ads, and color combos were critical factors in this specific experiment with a single ad area. The difference was noticeable.

I believe it's possible that more ad units do not necessarily lead to more earnings. However, there are different kinds of ad units that may work better depending on where they are placed.

For instance, the bottom of the page is where people end up after they have consumed your content. A prominent ad unit or adlink unit may give them additional (consumer) content to consume.

The bottom of the page is also where someone who didn't find the content they were looking for end up at. That content may be consumer content and an ad/adlink unit may give them the satisfaction they are seeking.

[edited by: martinibuster at 6:07 am (utc) on Jul 17, 2010]

[jetteroheller]

During the years, more and more AdSense units.

2005: AdLink and 300x250 left in navigation

2006: 336x280 below content added
2007: AdLink below content added
2009: AdLink between description and contend added

Before a new design is added to all my sites, it's tested at more and more sites until proven good.

[astrobiologist]

In my case, it's a question of how much content I have on a page. My site is basically a big sci-tech encyclopedia. I have an ad block above the content on all pages. On pages where there's a lot of content -- text and images -- and you have to scroll down to see it all, I sometimes include a second or even a third ad block. They're not embedded but stand on their own, like breaks between paragraphs. I think of them as being analogous to the commercial breaks in a TV show. The longer the show, the more commercials the viewer has to watch to pay for what he/she is getting.

I've recently included ads on some pages of my site that are heavily visited but result in less-targeted ads, such as my home page (which has regular-changing news items). I'd previously worried that ads on low CTR-pages might have a negative smart-pricing effect on the site as a whole. But this hasn't proved to be the case with my site and I'm happy to be earning some extra dollars from these pages.

I'd suggest that whatever you do, you do gradually. Google seems to have flags in place that can cause earnings dips if you make major site-wide changes too quickly.