Multiple Adsense Units?

[northshore]

Hi,
I know the TOS says you are allowed 3 ad units plus one search on a page. But i am unclear and i don't want to break any TOS rules because i fear the almighty & ever powerful google.. Anyway i have a forum and i have one 468x60 banner on the top & one 468x60 banner at the bottom (both text units) - and on multiple occasions both banners display duplicate ads.. Is this against the TOS?

[david_uk]

Google serve the ads, so how they can say that serving duplicate ads is a webmaster's fault is beyond me!

I would say that having multiple blocks often leads to lower payout than having one block on a page. Many people have seen an increase in ctr and earnings by junking the second and third banner.

[mattmartin]

I think when they say not to display duplicate ads, they mean don't have ebay (for example) affiliate banners on your site, because ebay's ads will probably be displayed by adsense as well. You could block ebay ads from being displayed though if you wanted to keep your banners instead, but you have to choose one or the other.

[beggers]

...and on multiple occasions both banners display duplicate ads

I'd say that's an ad management issue on Google's end. You have no control of which ads are displayed.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Northshore brings up a good question. As you mention, you can have as many as 3 ad units plus one search on a page. However, for the benefit of your users and to help ensure the long-term viability of the program, we want ask publishers to present as much of a variety of relevant ads as possible.

To accomplish this just make sure that on any given page, the ad code for each of your AdSense ad units is pasted into same frame. As long as each of your ad units is pasted into the same frame, our technology should automatically detect the multiple ad units and serve different ads to each.

-ASA

[Jon_King]

>>to help ensure the long-term viability of the program

Man, that's a bit scary. If you leave it up to scammers not putting one AS block in a frame and one outside, we're in trouble.

This is a great program for many advertisers and publishers; jeeze I wish it was policed more thoroughly to ensure the long-term viability.

[miracle]

I added a 720x90 banner and 1 AdLink on my forums. So, I will get earn less?

[jurii]

our technology should automatically detect the multiple ad units and serve different ads to each

But it doesn't always. If it's against the ToS what can I do to avoid this (except removing one ad unit)?

[northshore]

Indeed ASA is correct - the reason my forum is serving duplicate ads is that one ad unit is in an iframe (because i am rotating it with private image ads). I have decided to remove the iframe and hopefully the ads will serve correctly - although i was running only 1 google ad unit at the bottom and the addition of the extra ad unit on top has just slightly increased the CTR so i may just scrap the extra ad unit and run just the one.

[MichaelCrawford]

I don't think what you describe is against the TOS, but try using a separate channel for each ad for a few days to see which of them really pays.

In general, when experimenting with ad placement, use channels for each variation to see which gets the best results.

[YesMom]

As long as each of your ad units is pasted into the same frame, our technology should automatically detect the multiple ad units and serve different ads to each.

ASA --

Every piece of each page of my sites is made up of server side includes. So, when I have more than one unit, they are always delivered in separate SSIs.

I occaisionally see a duplicate ad. Is it the same concept as frames here?

[lammert]

Every piece of each page of my sites is made up of server side includes. So, when I have more than one unit, they are always delivered in separate SSIs.

I occaisionally see a duplicate ad. Is it the same concept as frames here?

Server side includes are parsed at the server level and the client (browser or google Mediabot) only sees the resulting HTML file, not the separate SSI modules. So your case is not comparable with frames.

The Google algorithm to prevent duplicate ads is not foolproof. If it happens many times that an ad appears in two ad blocks simultaneously--as with one of my sites some months ago--you can try to make a screenshot of the page and send it to AdSense support together with information like the IP address you used to view the page, time etc. After I sent some screenshots to AdSense support they were able to find the problem (at their side) and since then duplicate ads disappeared.