Search Network VS Content Network

[Nuttakorn]

I am going to compare the conversion rates between Search Site only and Content Only. Do you know which one the conversion rates is greater? I have got many traffic from Content Network but I think some are click fraud due to it shows on adsense website, some owner of website might click their ads for getting some penny. Do you have any idea if we would use it together and avoid the click fraud? From my opinion, for search network would have less click fraud because it is running my Google website and official partner not adsense user.

[europeforvisitors]

I am going to compare the conversion rates between Search Site only and Content Only. Do you know which one the conversion rates is greater?

Some say search, some say content. Instead of guessing, why not test?

I have got many traffic from Content Network but I think some are click fraud due to it shows on adsense website, some owner of website might click their ads for getting some penny. Do you have any idea if we would use it together and avoid the click fraud? From my opinion, for search network would have less click fraud because it is running my Google website and official partner not adsense user.

Not all click fraud is caused by dishonest publishers. "Competitor click fraud" is also a possibility, and it's likely to be more of a problem on AdWords than on AdSense simply because the ads are easier to find.

Again, why make guesses or assumptions when it's so easy to test?

[petra]

Turning content off completely is not a good idea instead you should try and find out which content sites are sending you dud traffic and put them on your banned list.

[spaceylacie]

Google refunds Adwords advertisers for any fraudulent clicks. They seem to be very of top of this, kicking out publishers left and right.. for any type of click fraud.

[Nuttakorn]

I cannot use Site Target right now because Google haven't go public on that beta yet. Is that possible to set only website for adsense which would show my ads at this time? When I turn on the Content Network, I have got more visitors but some visitor just click as they surf the website not just they are looking for as in the search engine.

[elsewhen]

Nuttakorn... i am not sure that i understand completely, but until sitematch is released, these are your only choices:

1. only tick content checkbox: your ads will appear on content network (adsense) and on google.com

2. only tick the search checkbox: your ads will appear on google's search partners and on google.com

3. tick both checkboxes: your ads will appear on the content network, search partners and google.com

4. UNtick both checkboxes: your ads will appear on google.com only.

if you keep your eye on these forums, i am sure there will be a very lively discussion once sitematch is released... until then, your only matching options are the four choices above.

also note, that you can EXCLUDE websites from your campaigns by using the "campaign negative sites" feature.

hope this answered your question.

[Nuttakorn]

I think it would different meaning of site targeting and site match. For site match, Google has already existed in this technology but site targeting, they haven't released yet.

You can check the information as following.

[services.google.com...]

[fom2001uk]

Well I can say without any doubt whatsoever that search is working way better than content. That's for an ecommerce site, but ity's based on 2 years of google ads campaign data.

One thing I have noticed is that there are lot more ad impressions on the Content network now than a year ago. The split is about 50-50 now between search and content, as far as the impressions go.

However, I'm seeing huge differences in CTRs. Even 12-18 months ago, the CTR for search was 2 0r 3 times the CTR for Content, but in the last 6 months (about 10 campaigns) I'm seeing CTR for search 7 or 8 times higher than CTR for Content!

I'm about to switch to "Search only" for the next few campaigns and I'll be monitoring the results. I'd be surprised if the low CTR on the Content network was just down to a few duff sites.

My gut feeling is that there's a lot more adsense spam out there now and that's affecting the CTR for the content network.

[DavidDeprice]

As a rule, search is much better. You absolutely have to turn off content, it's a must, don't listen to what people say. If you want to test content, run a separate content only campaign. Since content is almost always worse converter (with a few notable exceptions like self-help, motivational speaking, etc.) you don't need to pay the same for content you pay for search.

[vvsarah]

I agree about the content being worse. When we had both content and search selected, our daily budget was going mostly to content clicks, but the conversion rate was nill.

SMK

[ownerrim]

"As a rule, search is much better."

As a rule, I am sure this is true, due to the poor quality of many adsense carrying sites.

But...let's say there was a content site about (I'll make one up) esophageal treatment. And the site was thoroughly researched, very well-written, and had hundreds and hundreds of articles about "esophageal treatment options". Let's further say that the site had many many links, lots of pagerank, was well optimized, and drew the lion's share of users. Such a site would draw a very specific audience interested in-----can you guess?----esophageal treatment. And I think conversions would do well.

So, in other words, I think content CAN convert very well compared to search. The problem is: most adsense sites are low quality.

[DavidDeprice]

The absolute stupidest thing you can try to do is work hard on trying to make context traffic convert.
As a rule, context traffic DOES NOT convert. There are exceptions (few) when it does convert. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's context.
Look at it from the search point of few. We know that some key phrases convert. And others don't.
Let's say "blue widget" (search) does not convert very well. But "blue widget, free shipping" does (no brainer). You can spend all your time on optimizing your landing page trying to make "blue widget" convert and it simply won't. I have a friend who bids on terms like
"Bahamas cruise honemoon vacation" or "Honeymoon in Hawaii", because if the search contains term "honeymoon" it converts like crazy. I don't need to explain why, do I?
Now, the reason context does not convert is because people don't search, they just click out of curiousity.
The only exception when people have great success with traffic from AdSense is when the niche consists of people hungry for products. Like parrots, for example. People will spend shi*tload of cash on their parrots, so they'll fork up 60 bucks for an e-book that will teach to speech-train their parrots (just made up this term).
But for 95% of marketers context ads are absolutely worthless.

[seaboy]

Well, just to throw a wrench in the works, I'm going against the grain.

I manage an account for a realtor, and the conversions (in this case measured by requests for more information, ie leads) are *way* higher for content over search.

Similar numbers of clicks for each, but content is converting at around 25% (!), vs 3-4% for search traffic.

I'm not at all sure why, but that's what I'm seeing at least.

[sailorjwd]

I've been measuring it for a good six months.

In my case search is about 20-30% better converting.

However, I get 3x more visitors from content.

Please note: There is a ton of fraud in the search network... I have posted here about dynamically generated adwords links that end up looking like regular html. I find dozens of search sites I'd like to block.

Since the release of negative sites I have been able to weed out the bad content sites to a large degree. Along with smarter use of negative campaign wide keywords.

Lately content has been catching up to search for me.. I now leave content on all the time unless I see an impression attack.

[Tropical Island]

We have some AdGroups where content converts better than search.

As long as you keep the pricing low and keep an eye on it it can be profitable.