Google AdSense "Ad Balance" Gives Publishers Greater Control Over Ads

Now with collapsing unfilled units

[engine]

Google AdSense "Ad Balance" new feature will help publishers by giving more control to improve the ads users see, and how those changes affect your earnings.
If you had "show fewer ads" enabled you'll be automatically moved to "Ad Balance."
Additionally, Google will begin automatically collapsing unfilled ad units. "Ad Balance" will enable this feature automatically.

[adsense.googleblog.com...]

[NickMNS]

Google will begin automatically collapsing unfilled ad units. "Ad Balance" will enable this feature automatically.

I noticed this yesterday, and was a little puzzled. But this explains it. There will be a lot of happy campers, as this was one of the major gripes we saw in the Ad-Balance thread. Good news.

[engine]

I'm just going to link to the original thread about the ad balance slider for those that may want completeness. [webmasterworld.com...]

The collapsing unfilled units is going to be interesting. I'd like to hear how it's working for publishers as it should make a big difference.

[Swanny007]

I like that they units will collapse, IMHO the other thing missing is the ability to set the percentage of ads shown based on a per-site basis. Everyone submit that feedback to Google if you want to see it ;-)

[Maleda]

I agree Swanny007, this is something that I would like to see implemented and I've fed this back.... time will tell!

[NickMNS]

@Maleda this has been implemented, I think it maybe rolling out slowly. The linked article says over the next few weeks. But i have noticed it on some ads on my site.

[keyplyr]

I actually stopped using the ad-balancer. It created too many empty ad units, even when it displayed 100% revenue.

When I slid the slider back all the way to the right 100/100 (the default) those empty ad spaces filled back in immediately.

I guess it depends on your page layout; whether empty spaces look OK or not.

[Peter_S]

I guess it depends on your page layout; whether empty spaces look OK or not.

From what I am understanding, now, Google is collapsing empty space.

By the way, I finally started using it last week. And so far so good. At another topic, I read recommendation to leave a margin of 10% above the recommended threshold. So Adsense claimed that I can achieve 100% earning with a fill rate of 52%. So I set it to 62%. And my earning is up by 25%, may be it's coincidence, but at least it doesn't seem (so far) to have a negative impact. I noticed that it prevents ads from the same advertisers to fill two slots, which I find better. I am using the backup ads to display self promotional content (list of popular topics, etc...)

[Maleda]

@NickMNS where does it say in the linked article? I can see the bit about collapsing units but nothing about being able to apply the Ad Balancer on a per site basis?

[keyplyr]

From what I am understanding, now, Google is collapsing empty space

Not from what I'm seeing.

Even if that was happening, it wouldn't account for the spacing we all put around the ads per Google's requirement.

[engine]

keyplyr, it says about collapsing the space being rolled out over the next few weeks, so you may not yet be seeing it. My guess is Google are rolling it out slowly and measuring the effect. If there are problems they can tweak it and then continue the roll out.

[keyplyr]

Good to know, thanks engine. This is good news actually. If this is the case, and they keep it that way, I'll need to change my CSS to accommodate (now that I'm able to read the article.)

[NickMNS]

I am seeing it on some ad spaces. But get this, on the same page with the same ad units, some are collapsing and some are not?

[moTi]

Even if that was happening, it wouldn't account for the spacing we all put around the ads per Google's requirement.

yep. that makes it useless for me.

in case of an empty adsense unit, i let it link to a html page that contains a javascript that closes the surrounding div. works ok.

only problem with collapsing units: they collapse not before the javascript is called. so you have this annoying jump in your content display shortly after page load.
same but other way around with units that pop up only after an ad has loaded.

well, seems to be the drawback of asynchronous scripts, since adsense ads take longer to load than the rest of my page.

[denisl]

The collapsing of empty ads is of course good news even if not the perfect answer.

It may encourage me to put more ads on the page but be more agressive with the ad balance.