Blocking Networks (Big Obnoxious Green Button Ads)

[arista]

I know that this has come up before, but I'll ask again. Is it unwise to block networks that mostly use the big green button ads? Or, is it better to keep cleaning out those ads instead of blocking the networks? As others have said, it takes a fair amount of time to clean out those ads. I unblocked a bunch of networks last week as an experiment, and my site was once again taken over by big green button ads. Do people click those? They can't be worth much. So now I'm cleaning and cleaning, again, to rid my site of those. It's never ending. I've been doing this for 11 years used to make a great living. I'm still hanging in there though....hopeful...

[trebuchet]

I've blocked and unblocked them all at various times over the past 3-4 and noticed no discernable difference to revenue. I suspect they are just filler stock that generates a fraction of a penny if clicked. So for that reason, I've got them blocked (would rather not show an ad than low-quality junk that's not going to earn its keep). I suspect the ad balance function also keeps 'em out.

[arista]

Thanks. That's helpful. Maybe I'm imagining it, but my revenue seems to drop when my pages become filled with them. And a few dollars matters to me at this point. But it's such a pain to block the ads that I'd rather block the network. I appreciate the observation.

[NickMNS]

I suspect they are just filler stock that generates a fraction of a penny if clicked.

I mostly agree with this. The best way to block this type of cruft is using the ad-balancer. It is not 100% effective but it reduces the number of impressions to a minimum. I typically get about a dozen impressions a day from these ads, which is nothing. I block these remaining ads in Ad-Review.

Also, in my experience most of these ads come from Adwordsm and blocking accounts is pointless because the spammers use churn accounts and domains.

[arista]

Great. I haven't used ad-balancer yet. What do you use as your fill rate? For some reason, I've been afraid that I'll lose revenue using it, but maybe that's the way to go. And yes, I think you're right about churning accounts and domains. It's not worth the blocking.

[NickMNS]

I set mine such that the revenue is 99%, or 100% just at the point where 99% switches to 100%, this typically works out to about 70% of impressions.

Just one note, the ad-balancer works best when you have wide distribution of ads providing varying revenues. What I mean is that if all your ads pay high revenue or low revenue then the ad-balancer may not perform well. There are two ways to see this, first and simplest, is to use the slider and see what % of impressions need to be blocked to change the revenue. If you reduce the number of impressions where you are only showing 25% of all impressions and you are still getting 99% of your revenue, then that is a sign that the ad-balancer may not perform well. The other way is to check the the revenue profile report, if the curve is basically flat with no slope then ad-balancer is not for you. If it has a nice slope then it should perform as expected.

When I say not perform well, what I mean is that either it will need to block way too many ads. Or, since it works based strictly on price, it will block many legitimate ads that don't pay more than the spammy ads, while allowing many spammy ads through.

[Pixby8]

Always, always block them. I don't actually block the ads specifically, however. And that's because they'll stay on my blocked page FOREVER. I want them to go away in a month when there are no more impressions based on them. So, instead, I mark them as reviewed after I block that entire account, and then block the base URL too, like "pdfconvertorfile.io" or whatever nonsense it is. They're all sham ads, dedicated to trying to get people to install browser add-ons that, in turn, show ads themselves. For the life of me, I can't understand why Google allows them in the first place. About a year ago, I THINK Google stopped allowing the green buttons to say "Download" on them. My guess is because that's majorly deceptive. Now, they have to say "Start Now" or "Open PDF," etc. So, I think Google has taken some steps to limit this ugliness. But, really... anything from "Mindspark Interactive" should be banned forever. They're so deceptive, and just poorly designed. You'd think whomever is running that sham organization would hire a designer to at least make the ads look better. Then maybe not so many publishers will block them. The problem is that Mindspark is CONSTANTLY registering new domains and creating additional adsense accounts to combat people blocking them. It's a freaking mess. Always has been.

Also, make sure you are not allowing ads in the "Downloadable Utilities" category at all. It's in the "sensitive categories" section. Block that category entirely and you will find you get A LOT less of these kinds of ads.

As for results, I have not noticed blocking them having any affect on my revenue at all. So, it is totally worth blocking them. You don't want to piss off your visitors with such ugliness. Not only that, but because the green buttons fool people into clicking on them by mistake, if you allow them, they will end up accounting for a large percentage of your clawback at the end of the month. In other words, when people click on something, realize it was a mistake, and immediately correct, Google will often perceive that behavior as invalid. You don't want that.

Final thought... I do see some big name media companies and other publishers who allow these types of ads, however. But, this is because they take an entirely "hands off" approach to adsense ads. They let flow whatever comes their way, I suspect, rather than attempt to curate ads like we smaller publishers do.

[arista]

Nick and Pixby, both of you have been so helpful. I will play around with ad balancer and find the sensitive category of "Downloadable Utilities". What if I have a decent percentage of revenue coming from "Downloadable Utilities?" I haven't checked yet, but I'd be hesitant to block the category. I do think that I have Mindspark Interactive blocked. I'll double check. The reason this all came up for me, again, is that I was blocking lots of networks and my revenue was dropping. I'm not sure if it's related, but I'm trying to figure that out. But since I've unblocked the networks, my revenue hasn't improved so it's probably something else. As you all know, it's a new normal out here. I used to make quite a bit with adsense, and now it's dropped to a point where I can't survive on it alone. I'm still working hard, though, to keep something going as my website is my baby, and I've put so many years into it at this point! Thanks again!

[trebuchet]

Worth noting that I've had 'Downloadable Utilities' blocked for years and yet some of them slip through, so I suspect they're entered into Adwords under other categories. Perhaps the best way to find them is in Ad Review (or Blocking or whatever it's called now) by entering "download" or "pdf" in the search field.

[NickMNS]

The fundamental problem with "Ad-Review" is that it is reactive you can only block what appears. You eventually block future impressions but the ad must appear to be able to know what to block. Given, that the domains, accounts, and ads are continuously changing it makes nearly impossible to control with Ad-Review.

This is where I have a big problem with AdSense, it would be relatively simple considering the state of AI/ML for AdSense to create filters that could block these ads as it all very similar. But clearly there is no willingness on their part to take such actions.

[arista]

Yes! That is true. The continuing conundrum with Adsense. I get 11% of my revenue from downloadable utilities. I have a site for parents/teachers. Interesting. I do have some clawback, but only .02-.04 %. I'm not sure if I want to block that category. I did implement an Ad Balance experiment. I'm showing 80% of ads. I'll see how that works. Not related I'm sure, but revenue is low today. How long do you think is a good time to run an experiment like this?

[NickMNS]

How are you running the experiment exactly? Did you simply set the ad-balancer or did you setup an A-B test in the experiments section of your Adsense account?

[arista]

I stopped the experiment, actually, because I'm not sure if I want to go that route. My day became stagnant...more than my usual Thursday. I'm down $10-$20 from a "normal" Thursday which isn't much but matters. At some point after I set up the experiment, my earnings stopped and didn't increase much at all. I know... I tend to panic about Adsense like many others! Unfortunately, I'm making so much less than I used to, but I'm determined to keep it going! I had set up the experiment through the experiments section of my account. I may try again. Not sure.

[NickMNS]

@arista
Using ad-balance will not increase your earnings in the short term, and may have slight negative impact. But in my opinion, the benefits are worth the costs. It will significantly reduce the number of low quality ads that appear on your website. This in turn will build trust with your users which one hopes overtime will increase traffic. It also significantly reduces the total number of ads that appear in the ad-review, thus reducing time spent reviewing and blocking thus free that time up for more productive activities.

My one question to you is are you drop in revenue exclusively the result of a drop in AdSense revenue, ie drop in RPM, or is the result of a drop in traffic or a combination of both?

[arista]

Nick, thanks for asking. I have a pretty specialized niche, and about 80% of my revenue comes from desktop. My site is popular among mental health professionals, teachers and parents. I come up number one for the most significant and important keywords, so I know that I am visible. But, like others mention, the ads are not relevant. The first 6-7 years, I made a chunk of my money from a small banner at the top of my page...a text ad that was 468x60. I never used display ads and only used contextual ads. But, I'd be sunk currently if I went in that direction! The text ads don't match well (many of the downloadable utilities), and I believe that people have banner blindness with display ads. Eleven years ago when I started my site, parents used computers mostly, but now it's mobile, and I don't get the revenue from mobile. My most productive ad is a link unit at the top of my page and that's a mixed bag, as you know! When I use a display ad up there, it doesn't look good and often ends up being a repeat of an ad lower on the page. I've accepted the "new normal" with Adsense. I work hard, and this is my only job. It was a supplemental income until my husband died a few years ago, and now it's my only income in addition to a small supplemental retirement from him, so I'm really determined to keep it going! As an example, my April Page RPM was $7.42 and CTR averaged 1.06% which is pretty low. Long answer. I think that ad blockers and less appropriate ads are the problem, honestly. I don't think that will change either. Have to adapt in some way....Thank you for checking in!

[Dimitri]

Experiments as well as A/B testing need to be done on a long period. All kind of factors can make day to day (or even week to week) comparison difficult. Even without "experimenting", you can see that Adsense incomes can fluctuate a lot, without "understandable" reasons.

As for the green button sect , at least they are easily identifiable in the ad review center :) . I block the root URL of these ads, and it's doing rather well, of-course they keep coming with new domain names all the time, but I check the ad review center twice a day, and this is fine for me (so far).

[arista]

Thanks Dimitri. You are correct! I need to test for a long period. I've run other long term experiments, and it's been helpful. I make so little money that I get worried, I guess, about decreasing my revenue even more with an experiment. Is there a reason why you block the root URL and not the network?

[Dimitri]

Is there a reason why you block the root URL and not the network?

May be because I am ignorant :) ... I am unsure what you call "network" in this case. I tried to block adverstiser's account, I tried to block individual ads, but it didn't help, and I found out that, what seems to work best is to block the root url of the ads.

Be careful, sometimes the green buttons are blue, or red .. no joke.

[arista]

Ok. That helps. I'm talking about blocking the advertiser's account. But it helps to know that blocking the root url is a good option. Yes...I have seen the blue, red and green buttons. Yikes! It's never ending!

[NickMNS]

@arista
I am sorry to hear about your husband and I certainly understand the stress that you are feeling by depending almost solely AdSense. A few things stand out about your response:

As an example, my April Page RPM was $7.42 and CTR averaged 1.06% which is pretty low.

It makes me laugh (or maybe it's cry, not sure) when I read people posting their RPM's and complaining that have dropped, and the low figure is still multiples above mine. But I certainly realize that RPM's are very niche specific, high RPM does not necessarily mean a high volume of traffic and clicks, as well as many other factors such as competition, cost of content creation maintenance etc... The point really is not the actual amount be the change in the amount.

One other thing to point out, if you are able to generate an RPM of $7.42 while you are showing many of the spammy "downloadable" ads then the ad-balancer shoud be able to be very effective at blocking them. I say this because I assume that you must have some very niche specific advertisers that are willing to pay top dollar for your ad-space. So eliminating the spammy ads from the mix will enable users to not be blinded, and potentially notice more of the high paying ads.

I have a pretty specialized niche, and about 80% of my revenue comes from desktop.

and:

parents used computers mostly, but now it's mobile, and I don't get the revenue from mobile.

Is your website responsive?

It used to be, a few years back that mobile ads paid less than desktop, but in my niche mobile pays as much if not more then desktop. But one needs to have website that is at a minimum responsive, and ideally optimized for mobile. I see over 60% of my traffic from mobile.

How much of your drop in revenue is the result in a drop in traffic?

[arista]

Nick... thank you for your interest. I do have a drop in visitors. There might be less interest in my niche or it could be a higher bounce rate. I'm not sure. I don't sell anything. I make printables for teachers, parents and mental health professionals. I also provide a lot of parenting information. All free. I rebuilt my site into a responsive format a few years ago. After the rebuild, I changed my ads. In the past, I only had text and contextual ads. I didn't have personalized ads or display ads for about 6 years. I did very well. After the rebuild, I enabled display ads and personalized ads. I definitely started to make less after the rebuild. I am still #1 for my niche in search. My site works very well on mobile now, but I don't have many ads on mobile. Due to the responsive nature of the site, some of the ads don't render well mobily so I make them invisible on mobile. In November of 2017, I put a link unit at the top, under my navigation. It did incredibly well for a couple months but then that ad stop performing as well. It's still my number one performer though. I'm wondering if my high bounce rate has to do with that ad. Maybe it leads people to the crappy link unit page, and they don't come back to my site. When I switch out that ad with a large banner, I get a lot of cruddy ads, and it makes my site look pretty raunchy. At least the link unit brings up relevant text, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm losing people because of that ad. Some folks may still think it's part of my navigation and get frustrated to find that it's not... It's a mystery to me, but I always love a challenge!