Do you block any categories or ad networks?

[csdude55]

For about half of the day, my CPC was suddenly 40% higher than usual! And that led to my revenue being MUCH higher than usual! But then after 4pm it crashed, so that by the end of the day everything was same ol' :-/

But that led me to looking at ways to increase my CPC, and of course the most common suggestion I'm finding is to eliminate low paying bidders.

I'm currently looking at Blocking Controls > General categories and Blocking Controls > Sensitive categories. How would you determine when it's time to block one?

I'm also looking at Reports > Ad networks, and in the last 30 days I see several with very, very low CPC and "Google Adwords" is 5th from the bottom (but with the most clicks, so it's by far the highest revenue). Should I block any ad network that has a CPC lower than Adwords?

Or is there another way to look at it in order to increase overall CPC?

[CommandDork]

I have never found any benefit to blocking any category in Adsense - so I dont do it.

Every time I've tried though, I always end up regretting it due to lower revenue. I figure it's best to let Adsense have access to everything it can to maximize my revenue and all the eyes hitting my sites.

[ember]

Every time I block anything, I end up unblocking it because revenue drops. Google wants to make money as much as I do, so I just let everything run and let them figure out the best ad combos, etc. to achieve our mutual goal. Although I hate to admit it, they are smarter than I am.

[csdude55]

I'm not sure that I feel that way anymore, @ember. Sometimes (oftentimes?), I think that Google is sabotaging me for reasons known only to them.

I know that, historically, when you no longer trust your partner then it's time to move on. But when no other option has risen, I'm really not sure what choice I really have other than to take the crumbs I'm being given. "Thank you, Google, may I have another?"

[ember]

I agree that it's not like the old days when we were earning more, had more control over ads (remember when we could choose text vs. image, colors, etc.), attended local Adsense meetings, etc. But nothing stays the same.

I don't know why Google would sabotage any of us; as a whole, we bring in significant revenue for them. With some exceptions, we're all so small individually that none of us is worth that kind of attention. I know how you feel, but for most of us, Google is still the best game in town. And if we didn't have anything to compare it to, like what it was 10 years ago, we'd probably think things were pretty good now since we're essentially being paid just to create content.

[LucasPerez]

I block ads, not categories, or advertisers, but yes, the blocking of bad ads such as: "downloads", "activate", "start here"...etc are deceptions, scams.
When I block them, my CPC goes up, I even have a list of ads that I look for and block every two days, it works for me.