Google search box : cheap and tacky.

Very low eCPM, I ended up removing it.

[fischermx]

Hi,

I added a google adsense search box to my site a week ago, with the hope of help those people who didn't find anything in my site that liked them and still making a few cents.
The problem was what a few "cents"!
See, while my overall site eCPM is arround $30.00, the eCPM on the search box was never further than $6.00-$9.00!
I analyzed the queries by my user and they are really very much like my content, so, I guess those had to get very similar ads, so I have no idea why it could have such low eCPM.
With all this, today I looked my site and the google search box appeared a bit too much tacky to be there, and make my site look amateurish, so I removed it.

[zing]

One cent's better than no cent. I think if Google Search's useful for your users and if you can change something of its figure, it's ok for you. At least, it would make you reach 100 a bit faster.

[wanderingmind]

tacky - yes, i second that. bad ecpm too.

[Iguana]

I dream of eCPMs like $6-$9! However you should expect much lower clicks per thousand impressions because most people will be clicking on the search results brought up.

I do agree that the search box looks tacky, and I haven't used it because of that (and also it's too big to fit into my site design)

[mzanzig]

I tried the search box some time ago, and I found that the lack of control over the appearance of the SERPs did not work out too well. Like fischermx, I found the results page looking too tacky/cheap, and I removed the search box for exactly this reason.

Maybe ASA could try to talk the product managers into providing a much more customizable SERPs page? That would be great.

[TheDonster]

I agree Google could definitely upgrade the search services it offers to publishers. I previously used free find but they only provide you with the search engine and they keep the advertising revenues. Free find allowed more custom features and the best feature was the ability to call up the spider to refresh your site whenever you wanted. Google's search features do not fully index the title pages when it starts getting deep down into the site and these results certainly look amateurish on your results page. Just this week, I had revenues of over $4.00 per day from Google's search for content. It is definitely an area Google could and should expand because the potential for increasing revenues is definitely there. Google recently predicted a slowdown in revenues in their latest SEC filing and I hope this will generate the will to introduce new features in the search functions. The premium publishers already have this option so hopefully it will trickle down to the little guys.

[Ankhenaton]

Google search is better than my mysql based one.

I also thinking of an extra Nutch based solution which could then feature my adsense pub.

It really depends on your site, but I think it is good to keep visitors when you default to searching your own site first.

[guru5571]

I use Google Search on my site, and I think it looks good. Not tacky at all. It gets a good CTR, although not much use. The SERPs could probably use a few more ways to be customised. As for the search box itself. How many ways can you customise a text field? They allow you to shorten or lengthen it, so what's the problem?

[Eltiti]

I've tried it, but I wasn't happy with the "look" or the revenues, so I've removed it again. Not sure if I would call it "tacky", though.

How many ways can you customise a text field?

You'd be amazed by what you can do w/ CSS... ;-)

[spaceylacie]

I don't like the way the search box looks. My color scheme does not match black, white, or gray. Why can't we pick a color for the search box, that's my question. Also, why can't they allow us to make it more narrow? If I could put search my site below the search the web check box, that would make it narrow enough for me. With them next to each other, the search box doesn't fit in the place I want to put it.

I hope a Google rep stops by this thread to read our complaints.

[fischermx]

Respecting the eCPM, just to clarify about the impression, the thing is that my clicks on my site have an average of $0.30, ranging from $0.10 to $1.80, but the clicks on the search box never ever go far $0.05! how can it be, I'm sure the search box should show very similar advertisers.

[webpro00801]

Google does not pay the same rev share on the search box - I know I read this once somewhere. Personally we have very good results with the search - the eCPM is near $17 this month and has been much higher in the past.

[guru5571]

How many ways can you customise a text field?

You'd be amazed by what you can do w/ CSS... ;-)

Got me! OK, I won't argue with that.

[europeforvisitors]

I have no idea why it could have such low eCPM.

I've had the opposite experience, with very high EPC, CTR, and eCPM for search.

OTOH, I've never had much internal search traffic on my site (even when I had a search box right in the user's face). Still, since I need to provide internal search for the readers who want it, I might as well use a search tool that consumes no bandwidth, has an interface that's familiar to my readers, and generates revenue.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Hi all -

I am watching this thread and I'll pass your feedback on AdSense for search along to the product team.

Cheers,

ASA

[mrtwister]

Are we allowed to put this search engine box in its own page? So if they clicked from my home page for "search engine".. they can just see that?

This may help avoid ruining my sites nice look but I didn't know if this was allowed or not..

[bstring]

<Are we allowed to put this search engine box in its own page? So if they clicked from my home page for "search engine".. they can just see that?
This may help avoid ruining my sites nice look but I didn't know if this was allowed or not.. >

I am also curious about this..

[gfujioka]

I tested the search box and yanked it a week later for the exact same reasons as the first poster.

[Ankhenaton]

USD 86,59 this month from search I didn't have before.

I think you have to think about your user. Is there enough content on your site to make it useful, if not ditch it as it will just lead people to your competition if they are better and you need more time to grow.

[jhood]

I would like very much to use the the search box, partly because I'm now paying roughly $6,000 per year to a third-party search service. Admittedly, they produce a great-looking results page but hey, as has been said before, looks aren't everything.

I also find the Google Search box very clunky. It's just plain too big. All we need is a little tiny box and a little tiny Google logo next to it, no more than 120 or so wide.

I run Google Search on some smaller sites and, although it only pays pennies, that's because those sites don't get much traffic. Can't blame Google for that. If Google gave us a nice little box like the one the Washington Post uses, I'd make a few hundred dollars more per day, save $6,000 a year and generally not be as grouchy as folks tell me I am.

[javahava]

better than a logo next to the search box, would be a logo (in lightened color) right within the search box (already seen this for a few large sites, with yahoo). saves space and looks much more elegant.

[camper]

Would be nice if there was an option to do it without the Google gif and without that ugly search button. Just a customizable rectangle (with/without shadow, user-definable outline & background colors, and fonts) with a couple of radio buttons and text that says Google Search and maybe "type query, hit enter." I had it that way on my site for a while but eventually got rid of it after re-reading the TOS. As is, it's klunky looking and hard to blend with bg colors due to the limited color selection for the Google logo background.

[incrediBILL]

Not sure if I would call it "tacky", though.

How about fugly then?

I couldn't blend it into the site well and it didn't really fit anywhere I had available so I assumed Google really didn't want me to use it and tossed it before it every got published to the web site.

[mzanzig]

Since ASA offered to relay things into Product Management, I would like to use this opportunity to voice my wishes. :-)

I would like to use the Adsense search as a site tool that generates revenue and not as revenue generator that comes disguised as site tool. I guess there must be a good share of site owners who think the same.

In general, I do not have a problem with the search box. Well, it should be customizable in terms of text box length and options presented. Also, the branding guidelines could be more flexible (as some have said before in this thread).

My major concern is the SERPs look. My requirements here:

- Seamless look & feel for the SERPs It should carry colors, branding, and -possibly- navigational items of my site. As I said, this should be a tool for my visitors to find stuff on my site using state-of-the-art technology (which the Google brand stands for).

- Customizable placement and types of ads, very much like Adsense is today. Maybe also coming in various templates. I, for example, hate the fact that the first five results are ads from external sites (which is what makes the tool so 'tacky'). That's too much, making it useless for my visitors.

- Search results fully restrictable to just my site, with an optional additional button on the SERPs "search all Google for this term". I want to keep visitors on my site, or see them leaving through an ad on the SERPs. I don't want to see the visitors leaving to an external site through a non-paying link in the search results.

With these changes, Google becomes a valuable tool for the site and earns me money with my preferred contextual ad program, so it's a win-win situation for me. Today, I see more disadvantages than benefits and don't use it.

[level80]

- Search results fully restrictable to just my site

They already are:-

Go to Adsense for Search
Scroll down to select a search box and pick Google SiteSearch instead of Google Search and you'll see the results are restricted to your site.

[level80]

Well, it should be customizable in terms of text box length and options presented.

It's that too, haven't you noticed the "Length of text box" that you can set to a specific number of characters?

[michaelbs]

I think users of adsense for search would also value a spelling correction facility, an image search link and it would be great to have more customization of the search page as a publisher.

We currently send 2000 queries a day to our adsense for search page generating on average revenue $18 per day.

Thanks for listening Adsense Advisor!

[fischermx]

Not sure if I would call it "tacky", though.

Sure!, definitely, I have not find a proper translation for the spanish word "naco", somehow is "tacky", but not always apply. Just disguting,due the lack of more customization, made me put that adjetive.

[mzanzig]

level80:

Following your message, I re-visited the Adsense search feature as suggested, and I stick to my original statement. Yes, the search feature can be restriced to my site, but I can not get rid of the "search the Web" feature.

In the first step, I do not want to offer such a search option to my users. At first they shall ONLY search my site. Can't be done today without modifying the code (which is not allowed per TOS). If no results show up, I want to be able to set "offer Web search if no results" to yes or no for the SERPs. (This is a new feature.)

Ah. and regarding the length of the text box - I stand corrected. This is indeed something that worked before. ;-)

[europeforvisitors]

Following your message, I re-visited the Adsense search feature as suggested, and I stick to my original statement. Yes, the search feature can be restriced to my site, but I can not get rid of the "search the Web" feature.

Stands to reason. WWW stands for "World Wide Web," not "Mysite Web." Unlike many owners of commercial sites, Google understands and respects that most fundamental principle of the Web.