Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What does anyone think about this? Keeping multiple copies of your site. One copy has one adblock, the second copy has two adblocks, and the third copy has three adblocks. The thought is to rotate the copies on your server depending on how your epc is doing at the moment. If EPC is doing well, keep the one adblock copy online. If it dips, upload the 2 or 3 adblock version to makeup in clicks what you lose in epc.
Bad idea? Good idea?
I've never served Google Adsense through phpadsnew but I believe some people have. I use it for my in house ad campaigns and it's great. You can get an ad campaign going site wide within minutes. The only other advice I would give is to think hard about how to section the site (for example making sure that zones that might have adsense on them are not placed on any pages that might violate adsense TOS).
Can't diversify on this one site since it is so narrowly focused.
More content has increased total revenue but with increasingly diminishing returns.
I may try rotation as an experiment this summer to see how it does.
Been toying with this idea as well. But I'm concerned about diluting the value of the first site. Still, might try this an option as well if I can find a way to offer similar-theme, but distinctly different (and user-valuable) information on the second site.
More content has increased total revenue but with increasingly diminishing returns.
That really does seem to be a common theme: more doesn't get you much more. I had the same problem so I've started exploring new sites.
Do you love conspiracy theories? One just occurred to me, and it makes total sense. As I said, reading these forums for years gives me some perspective in replies (even if this is only my second).
What google themselves has said over the years, is basicly "Content is king, develop sites for humans, not search engines." They never said add more sites, add more pages, keep adding new content, etc. Not at least, directly.
1) Since everyone here simply keeps saying "add content" "diversify" etc, rather than really attacking the problem (which is lack of information from google), especially when things start to go bad, and
2) google has a shortage of publishing outlets, and
3) if panicing the publishers here and "encourging them" to add more content, add more sites, etc increases the number of places google ads can be shown,
4) google has a vested interest in cutting EPC or whatever panics the webmasters here into increasing the number of pages, sites, and page views.
If EPC remained high, and total income was good and stable, there would be no "panic" to add more sites, and content, and google would not have room to grow -- at your expense.
If this forum pushes (and it does) to "add more content" when things go wrong, or bad, it only tangentially hits the problem -- but more importantly, it keeps you from having the time to look at what the real problem is -- lack of information and tools from google for publishers.
If you have a 100 page site, and 1000 visitors, and your money starts to drop, you now add 150 pages, and still have your 1000 visitors, now clicking on 50% more content, so it dilutes *YOUR* efforts, but google has displayed 50% more ads.
If your clicks go up, your money doesn't, because the "conversion rate" or whatever funky algorithm google is applying to your site knows that of those 1000 people, they are still only going to get a 2% conversion, despite the extra clicks.
Remember that 38 year cookie?
So, you've expanded google's base, at your expense (unless you really, really *needed* those extra pages -- all 50 of them), when what you should have had -- was information on why your visitors were not interested, why your targeting was down (keywords?) and why your income dropped.
The publishers are not *enemies*, and good advertiser/publisher relationships can make a lot of money (eg: the popularity of "sponsoring" events, programs, or other things).
Why Internet advertising has always taken the publisher as the enemy of the advertisier is beyond me... unless it's like what some people have reported with the new stats. Advertisers are directly contacting the better sites, for "best placements" directly. Maybe google is afraid that if the publishers had the same tools, they'd know how to market and seek out publishers, bypassing google -- and, that really the publishers have the power here. Advertisers can AGREE TO pay google all they want, but without sites to visit, or publish ads on, google can't do anything to get that money.
Publishers have a lot of power, as a group, even if they don't wield the cash. Without them google has no venue for generating their cash.
Everyone looks at who is SPENDING the money, and takes the people it's going to for granted. But, people have to have a PRODUCT (of any kind) to spend on.
What google *had* was an almost perfect system, *if* they had treated the publishers fairly. Many publishers would *not* deal with advertisers directly, because of the hastle. Google can provide good targeting, one-time ad insertion code (have you dealt with affiliates before!), and low-(VERY)-low maintennance. *BUT* what they have *not* provided, is stability, information, and tools that *any* publisher should reasonably expect -- eg: how much an ad spot in my publication (website) is worth on the open market, and what types of advertisers would be most interested (eg: demographics).
It goes back to the consipiracy theory. It's easier to get publishers to scurry around like rats, making more sites, adding more content, expanding their ad base (for free),than it is to provide information to let publishers compete.
Rather than "blocking" sites, advertisers should be demanding that publishers know THEIR ADS perform better, and that pages that talk about x, y or z attract the customers they want.
It's not a negative, or adversarial relationship.
In print, it's cordial, and the advertising reps bend over backwards for *both* the publshers and advertisers to make it work.
Why is on-line so different?
Pugdog, this is quite logical and I will print and frame this post of yours. What you've cited is sound military strategy, something along the lines of Psyops.
Whether this is a strategy or not is debatable. But the effect is certainly visible:
1. Publishers keep hearing over and over that they should keep increasing content, even if the returns keep diminishing.
2. Even if publisher's returns diminish, google's NEVER does.
3. An environment that FOSTERS constant panic-mode
(no one can deny that one. the adsense forum is panic-central) is an environment that keeps pawns offtrack and always searching for answers when in fact the answers will never be known since the answer holder ain't talking ever.
I take back what I said earlier: this is beginning to sound very machiavellian and diabolical. Do no evil? Ha ha. DO EVIL.
pugdog, I hope we don't find out later that you are a google employee engaged in a misinformation campaign.
[edited by: ownerrim at 7:46 pm (utc) on May 12, 2005]
Why Internet advertising has always taken the publisher as the enemy of the advertisier is beyond me...
Simple: There are a lot more scam artists and low-quality publications on the Internet, because:
- The cost of entry is low.
- Publisher accountability is virtually non-existent.
- Crooked publishers are often beyond the reach of the law.
Fact is, advertisers have good reason to be leery of publishers, because quality advertising venues are more likely to be the exception than the rule.
As for your conspiracy scenario about Google wanting publishers to crank out more pages so it can display more ads and earn more profit while the publishers are running in place, that might be believable if Google's quarterly financial reports showed a big erosion in the percentage payout to revenue partners (which hasn't been the case).
yeah, but what revenue portion of the partners payout do we (small to medium publishers) represent? I wouldn't be surprised if it pales compared to the premium publishers. Money talks, little guys walk.
"Fact is, advertisers have good reason to be leery of publishers, because quality advertising venues are more likely to be the exception than the rule."
YES, but fault for this lies solely at the feet of google
Publishers have a lot of power, as a group, even if they don't wield the cash. Without them google has no venue for generating their cash.
No we don't. Because we are a fragmented group with diverse interests. No single publisher holds enough power to sway anyone. If I give you grief about advertising on my site, you can go to a dozen sites just like it. There are very few sites that are truly unique as to be unreplaceable on the web.
If I take a principled stand against Google's lack of disclosure, a dozen other publishers will fill my void. Period. And all in all, I sure won't take a stand because I am very satisfied with Google (even with the lack of disclosure and all).
Given that Google has a near monopoly on the contextual advertising market for small publishers(there are no other major players yet), the way to deal with Google is exactly as ownerrim suggests: find ways to strategize against the ebb and flow of smart pricing and other factors. We want two things: high earnings and stability in earnings (well perhaps a third would be ads that don't damage our website reputation).
The only thing that will influence Google's treatment of current publishers is competition from a major competitor. Perhaps, google should be listening as it seems (if you believe this forum)the conditions are ripe for a mass defection (not from me however because I think Google has been a great service).
[edited by: creepychris at 7:57 pm (utc) on May 12, 2005]
But if you are creating content specifically for Adsense, then you won't find value in it if your Adsense revenue dips and falls.
One important thing: why are you creating your content? If you are creating your content for your users, then you won't hesitate to add more pages so to give your users more information and you make your website more valuable to your users.
Exactly. Many of us had sites before AdSense came along, and our sites would continue to exist if AdSense went away.
yeah, but what revenue portion of the partners payout do we (small to medium publishers) represent? I wouldn't be surprised if it pales compared to the premium publishers. Money talks, little guys walk.
Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised if Prince Charles took part in homosexual hanky-panky at boarding school. But I can't prove it, I have absolutely no evidence to support my suspicions, and I wouldn't go around making alleging it on public forums.
YES, but fault for this lies solely at the feet of google
Scammers and other scumbags were profiting from the Internet long before AdSense was invented. Google didn't do the Web (or its own search engine) any favors by launching AdSense with lax admission standards and controls, but it isn't Google's fault that many Web publishers will happily cheat advertisers or that advertisers are leery of online media.
Google certainly deserves criticism for welcoming every scraper and his brother to the AdSense network, but it can't be blamed for advertisers' attitudes in those dark, cold, and hungry days ("always") before AdSense came along. :-)
Google didn't do the Web (or its own search engine) any favors by launching AdSense with lax admission standards and controls, but it isn't Google's fault that many Web publishers will happily cheat advertisers or that advertisers are leery of online media.
Those points are totally connected. Web publishers have the ability to cheat advertisers via Adsense because of the lax admission standards and "controls" exercised by Google.
They seem perfectly able to not allow Adsense on porn, smokes and casinos, so they can use the control when they wish.
The Adsense team appeared to lose their collective sanity when they said that only the first site needs to be approved -- I wonder which bean-counter came up with that cost-cutting suggestion?
Consider the following questions:
1) Will banning scrapers effect our (Google's) bottom line? yes/no
2) Will manually approving each and every website effect our (Google's) bottom line? yes/no
3) Will publishing details of the content network effect our (Google's) bottom line? yes/no
4) Will allowing Adwords advertisers to cull as much of the content network as they wish effect our (Google's) bottom line? yes/no
That answering yes to all of those questions would improve the sitaution for legitimate publishers I think is without question. That it would also significantly add to Google's costs is also without question.
If the content network was truly a quality network would tools like smart pricing really be needed? Would the dials on that little black box (I wonder what they call it) need to be quite so savagely spun each day? Would we see the daily considerable changes in income?
I don't know the answers to those questions-- I'm but a mere content provider in a small backwater of the world. I added Adsense as it was a nice, pretty easy way to monetise some of my content without having to chase advertisers myself. I didn't expect I'd be spending quite as much time as I do (primarily on this excellent board) trying to figure out why I earn what, when, impacted by whom for what reason.
end rant -- time for breakfast.
If the content network was truly a quality network would tools like smart pricing really be needed?
Probably, because clicks from different types of pages probably convert at different rates. For example, an image gallery with photos of New York probably won't convert as well as a travel-planning page titled "Where to Stay in New York," because people who look at photos aren't necessarily in a buying mood (they may be kids doing school reports) while people who are planning a trip are actively researching ways to spend their money.
