Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It's been kind of fun, especially whacking the freebie-this.com's and shop-that.com's, or hammering the "Buy <fill-in-the-blank> at ..." ads.
But after all that effort, I am not yet seeing any positive effect on my Adsense earnings.
Aside from obvious uses like blocking competitors' ads (I don't really have competitors per se) or offensive ads (e.g., pornographic or politically incorrect), is playing this whack-a-mole financially productive in the long run?
I have been considering checking this daily for a while, then after things settle down, once or twice a week after that.
In your experience, is this URL filtering worth pursuing diligently? Ocasionally? At all?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ads I whack, by the mere fact that they appear, originate from high bidders. So by removing them, I bring to the fore lower-bid ads, with a lower payout. I lose.
On the other hand, by removing irrelevant and even offensive ads, I make my visitors happy. They are not offended, irritated, or amused by the crud. When more pertinent ads appear, they are (presumably) grateful for the info, are (at least in theory) less likely to tune out the ads, are more likely to click (and maybe even purchase), my CTR goes up. I win.
Is the tradeoff worth it (from my perspective as an Adsense publisher)?
Are there other considerations I should be aware of?
Thanks for any replies.
Some people did some fairly extensive experimenting.
Personally, I limit the sites I put in the filter to a couple of direct competitors and a handful of advertisers I've learned about who are shady (or worse).
--One site offering a "product" often associated with adware/spyware.
--Three opinion/survey sites, whose ad headlines were borderline offensive.
The filters removed (hence the following are again allowed) were for:
--Get-rich(-quick) ads.
--Totally off-topic ads.
--Ads that *some* of my site visitors *might* find (in some cases, very) offensive.
--"Buy <fill-in-the-blank> at" or "Find <fill-in-the-blank> at" ads.
--Freebie-this.com or Gift-that.com ads.
--Generic shopping ads from big-name Internet marketers (use your imagination).
--Somewhat off-topic ads not closely matching my site's theme.
Anticipating the problem of eventually exhausting the 200 filter slots, fortunately I had kept notes about each URL filter and stored those notes in a spreadsheet. (I had anticipated going in the opposite direction, filling in all 200 slots, then having to make choices about which to drop from the list in order to make room for the new entries.) In the spreadsheet, I ranked the URLs according to this scheme, from 5-least acceptable to 1-marginally acceptable:
5 offensive
4 totally off-topic
3 findit, getit, freebie, lowprice, shop, search, gift, etc.
2 somewhat off-topic, or on-topic but inappropriate in some ways
1 slightly off-topic (note: I had recorded no 1s yet)
After sorting by rank, it was easy to identify the 5s. These I have left in the filter list.
I am prepared to add back the 4s--maybe. I will keep on the lookout for new 5s.
But what effect will all of this have on my bottom line? Difficult to impossible to say. One thing I'm discovering about all of this micro-managing is that controlled experiments are next to impossible in this medium. You simply can't observe ceteris paribus (other things being equal). The best you can do in many situations is to follow your instincts, as it is all too easy having faulty reasoning lead you down the wrong path.
Ah, wisdom. This Forum, and the passage of time, are making me wiser. Just can't happen fast enough!
First, they generally add nothing to the user experience.
Second, their strategy is presumably to get as much traffic as possible from high-value subject areas with minimal bids.
Third, they run numerous ads covering many specific topics. When one of these sites moves into my general subject area, I start seeing their ads in many areas of my website.
Fortunately there is no shortage of potential sponsors on my site, so I don't see any real downside to removing these advertisers.
[webmasterworld.com...]
That is the ultimate best #1 possible URL Filter you could ever ask for (if only we could use it as others are already doing without violating the G TOS).
Are you kidding? I'm a master at multi-tasking, typically with ten or more browswer sessions, several systems (both Linux and Windows), a dozen or so terminals, ... all open at once.
Oh, and one browser session specifically devoted to Webmaster World. :-)
Depends on the site.
I think when the average visitor visits more than 5 pages, filtering URLs is an advantage.
When the average visitor visits less than 5 pages, it does not matter
Interesting opinion. Would you mind explaining why you believe that? I can make some guesses but I'd rather hear your reasons.
--For one of my sites, its primary purposes is to promote a cause, only secondarily to make money. Aggressively filtering out the Adsense crud and perhaps making less money might be more important than making marginally more money and perhaps leaving a bad impression, thereby hurting the cause.
--If site visitors are irked by the Adsense crud, will they be less likely to click on your other banner ads? Will they be more likely to tune out all ads in general?
So much to weigh in the balance...
He clicks on the first ad and comes to Ebay
He tries an other add and comes again to Ebay
He gives it a last chance and comes to 5 Overture paid search etries
Only 3 clicks
With a good cleaned up ad space, the same visitor would have maybe clicked on 6 ads
I traced a great e-bay ad on one of our sites and he was actually selling a very relevant widget product. I mentioned this to one of my wholesale customers and he said "Do you know those are your widgets?"
So, here I am with my own sites promoting international wholesale widgets with an e-bay retail shop promoting my widgets!
Thank you:-)
