[webmasterworld.com...]
Just wondering if any of you have more advice for publishers?
Every time I read the AdSense forums, I'm glad I don't run any expensive campaigns on the content network. Every time I run across crappy AdSense pages, I'm glad I don't run any expensive campaigns on the content network. It's not worth the effort for me at the moment to make sure my expensive ads only run on quality pages in the content network.
Forget scraper sites, forget sites that ask you to click on their ads. We all know about those and they're frustrating enough in their own right. A similar problem are sites that try to optimize their ad potential by modifying their text to attract high price ads. If you do this, you're designing for AdSense. That's not to say you can't put together quality content in hopes it will attract higher price and quality ads. That's a win/win situation. If you have quality content for the type of visitors that are inclined to buy a product for which I have an ad, then I want my ads running on your site and I want your visitors to click my ad.
If you've cobbled together some information, written some quick and dirty content, sprinkled keywords around your blog or text, inserted the ads in the middle of the article so your bored visitors will click anything to get off that useless page, then I don't want my ads anywhere near those sites.
My ads are for specific products, and I want people to click on my ads who are actively considering that product. Using search results pages with intelligent negative keyword selection, I can do my best to put my ads in front of eyeballs for people who are actively interested in what I'm selling. I don't feel confident that I can control that with the content network (and yes I'm aware of the crappy premium partners in the search network). I don't have a bottomless supply of money, so I put it where I'm most confident it will be effective.
