Good navigation masks bad ad sense?

losing potentional click throughs?

[annej]

I have two sites on the same general topic. One is a small informal site and I just have a link back to the topics content page and home page from each article. Two links.

The other is more formal and I have each article in a given section listed and linked in the left column. 5-15 links on each article page. It makes it easy for visitors to go on to another article on the same general topic without having to go back to the contents page.

I find that the informal site is getting almost double the click through rate as the more formal one with the good side column navigation. Everything else is so similar, length of articles and such. The only thing I can think of is that visitors are following a link to another page in the site. But you would think they would still be as likely to there way out on an AdWords link.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this. Have they noticed similar results? Would it be worth limiting my cross linking?

[btas2]

The more confusing navigation is, the more likely someone is to click on an adsense link than a site link.

On a small site this may increase revenue since there are few pages anyway. On a large site it may just drive users away before they've navigated into the site, so you may lose revenue.

[no9t9]

i think you have misinterpreted what was written. he has the OPPOSITE problem that you are describing.

the small site is less confusing and is getting higher CTR. while the "cluttered" site is getting lower CTR.

[annej]

It would have helped if I hadn't made the typo in the title

It's supposed to say

Good navigation (makes) bad ad sense? If a mod see this can you fix it?

The page with good clear and extensive navigation is not doing as well.