Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Then came smartpricing, and like most webmasters I saw a drop. This slide continued for a couple of months, but I made one further major change that arrested the fall, and has turned the trend line on the chart in a positive upward direction. This change was over a month ago.
The change was to add any scraper sites and made for adsense sites that I saw on the site to the block list. My list isn't large - probably 30 sites, but it's enough to ensure I have well targetted ads the vast majority of the time.
The initial result of this change was to have the clicks/ctr drop by half. However, the epc was over double. The result was a 20% increase in earnings.
The longer term effect on seeing only relevant, quality adverts on the site is that smartpricing *seems* to have upped my site in it's rankings of providors of quality traffic that converts, hence I'm seeing a further increase in epc.
I know that some will say that the changes are probably due to external factors. I've been with adsense since Jan '04 so I am aware that what you earn often has no elation to what you do, and the externals are beyond your control. However, the externals cause short term blips - not sustained improvement.
As for the rest, I doubt if they would necessarily appear on everyone's sites. They were scrapers roughly targetted at the very general area my site is in, and probably wouldn't show on someone else's site. My advice would be to look at what ads appear on your site, and block the ones you actually see appearing that are scrapers/made for adsense. That way you get a much more appropriate block list.
The reason they get selected is because they have a high CTR, and the adsense algorythm decides that despite having a low epc, the high ctr will earn you more than a high paying ad with low ctr. The algo isn't perfect, and I've found that blocking them leaves space on my site for higher bidding advertisers that actually *do* have a good ctr.
As the algorythm is always learning, I'd say that it has worked out that ads targetted to my tight niche perform very well, and is automatically picking them. I don't often see scrapers/mfa sites now.
Explain this please, what is a scraper site?
Did you take some eBay like sites and blocked them? Or you are saing not to block them?
Thank you.
The real cause of the problem was scrapers/made for adsense (MFA) sites.
Scrapers are automatically generated pages that have content stolen (scraped) from other sites and adsense blocks. Made for adsense are typically sites that have little or no content, but have adsense blocks.
The sites I typically block are directories that are in the format of a search engine results page. They can either be automatically generated, or done manually. The manual ones do at least make the effort to have some content, even though it's often just keywords slung into a couple of sentences.
One typical site consisted of a solitary adsense button in the centre of a totally white page above the fold, with a few keywords buried deep beneath the fold. Yes, I did report it and yes, it's still online.
Basically, unless the site is selling a product or service, I usually block them. If they are just after my traffic so that they can then get clicks from the same advertisers that I see on my site, they have to go.
This is very helpful, the question is then, how do you identify the scrapper sites?
You can't click on ads, how do you ID them? What is the most effective way of IDing them?
thank you
If the ad is showing in the preview tool, firstly click on the advertisers site and look at it. You are allowed to do this - it's the purpose of the tool.
If you decide that the advertiser is one you don't want then click the check box above it and then click the show url's button. Then you can add that url to the blocklist. If the url is www.scraperjoe.com/crap/crap.htm, then you might be best to add scraperjoe.com to your block list.
If the site in NOT shown on the adsense previw tool, then right click on the ad, and click copy shortcut. Paste that into a new browser window and before you click the button remove all the crap to leave just the url of the advertisers page.
A word of caution is that doing this may well decrease your income. You have to monitor the effect of changes closely. What I've found is that blocking scrapers/mfa sites ONLY works the best. My site is "Male widgets" but adsense targets a lot of "female widget" adverts. I don't block them as despite the irrelevance to my topic, blocking them decreased my income.
In which categories the scrapper ads seem to be the most?
Scrapers often act like a search engine results page, look at your site content then go and steal something relevant. Whatever your site category, there will be scrapers operating.
the recently announced new feature, of maximizing the number of ads that are displayed, should certainly take care of this issue. those ads that do not contribute to the bottom line will simply not be displayed - so google is taking care of this for you.
if you are right, then it means that google's algorithm is not nearly optimized, and i find this hard to believe. not that google can do no wrong, but google would be losing a huge amount of money if your assumption is right.
By targetting poorly paying ads from scrapers/mfa sites with an (apparently) high ctr over advertisers actually trying to sell products and services to a specific niche AND WILLING TO PAY FOR IT (but with an aparrently low ctr) is what actually happens. Yes, they are probably losing money by their poor targetting.
Remember that I'm NOT banning adverts other than scrapers and made for adsense sites.
I do not claim that this works for everybody - it probably won't. I'm sure that in a lot of cases Google's algorythm does work. However, like all technology it is bound to have flaws. I believe the targetting bot doesn't work that effectively in tight niches.
In my individual case, I am in an extremely tight niche. My site has been online for over 5 years and always appears in the top 3 sites on any search engine for a relevant search. My site traffic is mostly people with a serious interest in the topic - not casual visitors who just dropped in by accident. I don't believe my visitors came to my site via a relevant search query simply to see ebay advertising new and used dead popes. I know my web traffic much better than they know themselves! Therefore I want some input into what ads are targetted.
I believe that if you have a very tight niche, adsense targetting needs to place more relevant ads than the splatter-gun effect that targetting often comes up with. There is no shortage of genuine advertisers. All I'm doing is to assist the bot in targetting relevant ads. This has (in my case) paid of hansomely.
As for the new feature, that has generated mixed feelings. I personally don't trust the bot not to decide that a scraper isn't the best bet and exclude all the high paying ads in it's favour. At least I currently have a 1 in 4 chance of displaying decent, high paying, relevant ads without the new feature!
david, i am skeptical about the idea that filtering advertiseers can lead to more earnings. if you are right, then it means that google's algorithm is not nearly optimized, and i find this hard to believe. not that google can do no wrong, but google would be losing a huge amount of money if your assumption is right.
Imagine a person looks for blue widgets.
He comes on a website with a 300x250 ad block
Bid on blue widgets - Ebay direct
Cheap blue widgets - leading to a page full of AdSense ads
Cheaper blue widgets - leading to a collection of affliant links
Cheapest blue widgets - affliant redirecting to Ebay
He will click 2 or 3 times and after this give up to click anymore.
But after banning all scrapers
Individual configured blue widgets
200 blue widgets, immedeately available
Used blue widgste
Important to know about blue widgets
He will click much more, because every ad has a real value for him.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing.
It is nice conclusion but I would wait couple month with it.
Exactly the same story on over 1 year experience -
27 cents EPC in the beginning (average)
dropped 5 times and now Adbrite even works better.
Everything I did - is just running on place.
Increasing visitors, escaping Google sandbox,
much better site - income about the same during last 5 month. Epc sliding - it is just ridiculous.
Can't swithch to Yahoo - I'm not US resident.
Imagine a person looks for blue widgets.He comes on a website with a 300x250 ad block
Bid on blue widgets - Ebay direct
Cheap blue widgets - leading to a page full of AdSense ads
Cheaper blue widgets - leading to a collection of affliant links
Cheapest blue widgets - affliant redirecting to Ebay
Exactly - thanks for putting this so well! The point I decided to block them was when I had a run of my lowest days for months. My site is about male blue widgets, and the main ad block that earns me nearly 80% of my adsense income ran something like this:-
information on male blue widgets (directory-like scraper)
cheap male blue widgets (dealtime ad - nothing to do with site topic)
female blue widgets (made for adsense directory)
male blue widgets (actual real advertiser)
The ads are showing but the adsense tool is not
i was suprised how many adds im showing to my users, that are crappy sites with just affaliate links and adsense all over.
i dont want to have my user's wasting their time with that junk, and it also lowers the image of my website if im linking to these junk sites.
thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Now hopefully, my earnings won't decrease ;)
Then to my surprise and great joy, my earnings gradually started to rise again, and now I make more from the same amount of traffic on those same pages. One really low-performing ad channel in particular now makes 5 times what it used to make!
So one sdhould block:
- Ads that are obviously not at all relevant to one's site visitors (example: travel to CountryX ads being shown to users in countryX!)
- Ads that link to low-quality sites, generally. Scrapers, built-for-adsense, products or even services you just wouldn't recommend to your users.
I believe one should leave:
- Ads from big-name advertisers. Yes, this includes Ebay - one should only could remove the specific meningless Ebay ads and leave the rest.
The immediate effect would be drastically lower earnings. However, on the long run, earnings will reach a higher peak as Google finds better ads to take the place of these low-quality ones.
So I completely agree with david_uk, though right now I'm still waiting to see what level my daily earnings will reach!
Ads that are obviously not at all relevant to one's site visitors (example: travel to CountryX ads being shown to users in countryX!)
Not sure about this. Buoyed up by my original success, I then started blocking irrelevant ads as well. At that point my income started to slide again. My best success is by blocking ONLY crappy scrapers and made for adsense. I leave irrelevant (but genuine) ones there. Sticking rigidly to this let my earnings rise again.
Yes, this includes Ebay - one should only could remove the specific meningless Ebay ads and leave the rest.
As a rule I'd agree, but in the case of ebay it is not ebay that are doing the advertising - it's their affilliates. I doubt if ebay themselves would have stupid adverts for things like used condoms and Buckingham Palace available in different colours. Why they allow their affilliates to do it is a complete mystery!
The problem with blocking individual ebay affilliate ads is that there are just so many of them. This would fill your blocklist up in days. I'd suggest that a better approach would be to decide if the ebay ads are overall an asset to your site, or likely to earn you money. If the answer is yes, allow the lot, if the answer is no then block the lot.
Sense_able, click someplace on the page other than the ad. (I was doing the same thing LOL)
Thank you so much. I have never been able to get the thing working but it works great now... I never thought for one moment it was my error (smile)
The problem with blocking individual ebay affilliate ads is that there are just so many of them. This would fill your blocklist up in days. I'd suggest that a better approach would be to decide if the ebay ads are overall an asset to your site, or likely to earn you money. If the answer is yes, allow the lot, if the answer is no then block the lot.
David_uk
When it comes to blocking ebay, the actual url that the ad gives is a huge great long thing relating to the affiliate. I want to get rid of the ebay all together, Will putting ebay.con or ebay.con.uk actually stop the ads as it is not the real url
(Great thread btw)
