Check your logs, you will be surprised!
been seeing adsense on some really interesting sites hosted at such places.
Shak
also popups are not againse adsense tos unless they interfere with adsense ads or are placed in such a manor that accidental clicking of adsense ads is likely. I'm not sure if this is the case with angelfire.
AdSense appears on thousands of crummy sites. That's part of the reason it has such a bad reputation with advertisers.
That's part of the reason it has such a bad reputation with advertisers.
Didn't know it's reputation had dropped that much - and compared to any other program its quality is still the best.
The surprising thing to my mind is that they would have signed a deal with a free hosting provider like angelfire - what's in it for Google? Surely the negatives of being on ameture free sites outweigh the pros?
The surprising thing to my mind is that they would have signed a deal with a free hosting provider like angelfire - what's in it for Google? Surely the negatives of being on ameture free sites outweigh the pros?
No more than the negatives of being on DomainPark or gmail pages.
If adsense were serious about stupid sites they would start a program where you could not get clicks over a certain ammount without a serious review of your site.
Not really - both DomainPark and Gmail are "controlled" enviroments. With Angelfire they have thousands of people showcasing their sites with no quality control, displaying Adsense ads above heaven only knows what content.
Since when are e-mail messages a "controlled environment"? As for parked domains, they're garbage--pure and simple.
Getting back to Angelfire, I wonder if the quality of traffic from such sites is really any worse than from some high-traffic/low-conversion premium partners. I've seen several posts on this forum about a mapping site and a weather site that delivered substantial amounts of traffic with zero conversions. In any case, Joe and Jane Amateur aren't getting much traffic on their lawn-mowing diary or their album of wedding photos. The number of worthless clicks from such sites is probably far lower than the number of worthless referrals from a general-interest portal or news site with 20,000,000+ impressions per day.
It would be nice if advertisers had the ability to be selective about the sites where their ads appeared, but at least "smart pricing" should help to reduce the pain of low-quality clicks.
For what it's worth, the revenues that AdSense is generating (and the longevity of many advertisers) make it pretty clear that some businesses are doing well with content ads. As I've said before, an advertiser who bids on "Vistula River cruises" probably doesn't get a lot of junk traffic, while the advertiser who bids on "lingerie," "nipple rings," or "Britney Spears" may get a lot of curiosity-seekers from sites that reach a general audience.
The owners of these personal sites are not permitted to run AdSense themselves, but it is the hosting company running them site-wide on all all sites they host for free.
poke around the web - and check out the results...
news story on national debt = get out of debt quick
george bush falls off the wagon (er.. bike) = visit texas!
the power of adwords is self-prequalification.
when someone searches for "widget prices" - the user is screaming "I want to buy some widgets!" - reading a news story or website that mentions widgets ain't the same thing. the resulting click isn't worth a little less - it's usually worth a lot less.
I've had some sales via content targeting - but never an actual profit. it's only going to get worse with g-mail...
even when content targeting is on a good site - the targeting itself is pretty lame.
poke around the web - and check out the results...news story on national debt = get out of debt quick
george bush falls off the wagon (er.. bike) = visit texas!
You're looking at the wrong sites. On the big news/entertainment sites, there's a lot of waste circulation not only because of mistargeting, but also--and more importantly--because the audience may not be interested in what's being advertised. The real strength of "content ads" is on niche sites where targeting is likely to be better and readers are likely to be interested in what's being advertised.
Let's say you're the owner of a cruise travel agency:
- If your cruise ad shows up in an article about Tom Cruise in the entertainment section of a newspaper site, it won't get many clicks (or at least you hope it won't). Traffic quality: F.
- If your cruise ad shows up in an article on cruising in the travel section of a newspaper site, it's likely to draw more clicks, and the readers will be at least curious about what you're selling. Traffic quality: C.
- If, on the other hand, your cruise ad shows up in an article on a travel site devoted to cruising (or to a region where cruising is popular), you'll have the double benefit of a correctly targeted ad and an audience that has a demonstrated interest in what you're selling. Traffic rating: A or, at worst, B.
It would be nice if Google let advertisers block out sites that consistently deliver low-quality traffic, but whether such traffic is a problem may depend to a large degree on what you're advertising. An ad for bar equipment in an article on Arlington National Cemetery that mentions the playing of "Taps" probably won't get many clicks; an ad for nude photos in a WASHINGTON POST news story about public nudity may get thousands of clicks from horny curiosity-seekers.
The real strength of "content ads" is on niche sites where targeting is likely to be better and readers are likely to be interested in what's being advertised.
I recently crossed into AdSense, and have kept a targeting log for individual pages and site themes. The websites are tightly themed around one topic, however, each of those topics has quite a variety of subgroups.
After the first week, where addmittedly, the targeting was quite average, I'm seeing some fairly good targeting.
One page about widgets, for the widget software page, I'm seeing 'widget software ads' about 80% of the time. Yet on the widget services page, I'm seeing 'widget services' ads about 90% of the time.
Overall, I'd classify the targeting for these sites as excellent 65%, good 20%, average 10% of the time. The other 5%, I wonder what the algo bug is.
There are many AdSense pages where there are a lot of impressions and no clicks (I've probably read 10k CNN pages and not clicked an ad once), yet on niche sites, I'm starting to agree that they can deliver good conversions.
The problem, of course, is you can't choose where you want to appear. Allowing publishers to block sites where their ads appear would be a great step in the right direction.
The problem, of course, is you can't choose where you want to appear. Allowing publishers to block sites where their ads appear would be a great step in the right direction.
very interesting point, and 1 that AWA will no doubt raise
Shak
