AdSense is telling me to move my AS ad units

[Kay]

Has anyone else received something like this? I don't know if it's personal or an automated thing to everyone.

I received an email (about one site which does fairly well on AS) and it's telling me that if I shift the AS units to a different position on the site, then I could make about 80% more money. It wasn't even very polite. It sounded more like an order - "Move your Adsense units". If they'd made it a bit more personal, perhaps by saying that they'd looked at the site and had identified a way I could do better with it, I guess I'd have been more receptive. But an order from on high like that? Hmm. I'll probably do it, though.

[cash ninja]

Was it worded like this:

"
Overcome user ad-blindness with better ad placements


A general principle for ad placements says that you should place your ad units high up on the page so your users will see them easily. However, ad units placed at the absolute top of the page (before any content) tend to suffer from user ad-blindness and on average show a 61% lower CTR than ads below the header and closer to the content.

If you have an ad unit at the very top of the page, you should test whether moving the ad unit closer to the rest of your content, yet still above the fold, improves the ad performance."

I got an email like that from them back in July but I didn't do a great deal with it because I'm not keen on having in content ads on the main site where I've got adsense. I know it would improve click through rates but it doesn't fit with how I want to run the site.
I might try developing more of an mfa somewhere else and give it a shot there.

[Kay]

It wasn't really like that. It was specifically about one site, but it still looked as though it had been machine-generated rather than personal. It named the site and gave figures for its above the fold RPM and below the fold RPM. Then it said that if we moved the ad unit from below to above the fold, we could earn 80% more.

The problem is that if we did it, there would be no room left for any content above the fold!

And this is from the people who are telling us they don't favour sites with too many adverts and not enough good content.

[tke71709]

It wasn't really like that. It was specifically about one site, but it still looked as though it had been machine-generated rather than personal. It named the site and gave figures for its above the fold RPM and below the fold RPM. Then it said that if we moved the ad unit from below to above the fold, we could earn 80% more.

The problem is that if we did it, there would be no room left for any content above the fold!

And this is from the people who are telling us they don't favour sites with too many adverts and not enough good content.

The problem is that Google has different departments working at cross purposes. One section tries to keep the SERPs clean and usable while one is only interested in generating revenue for the company.

Kind of like how they will buy content sites that achieved all their rankings due to spam, and then make a show of punishing them when they are exposed and then put them right back at the top of the SERPs a few weeks later when things blow over.

[Kay]

The problem is that Google has different departments working at cross purposes. One section tries to keep the SERPs clean and usable while one is only interested in generating revenue for the company.

I think you've nailed it there, Tke. Dunno why I didn't think of that before. Gee, if you followed all the mixed messages and advice from G, you'd be running round in ever-decreasing circles. Much as I'd like 80% more income, there's no way that we can have AS taking up nearly all the space above the fold.

Another thing, their stats are a little bit suspect. Supposing the existing ad unit ATF gets xx% and the one BTF gets x%. If I shift the BTF one up next to the existing ATF one, it doesn't necessarily mean that it'll get xx% too. It might mean that the two ads units just share the same traffic. I'm not seeing the logic in their claim.

[Mikl]

Kay,

I've received three or four very similar messages over the last year. Typically, they tell me to either (i) move my ads to the top of the page; or (ii) use more rich media / graphics ads rather than text ads. As in your case, the messages always refer to a particular site.

I've learned to disregard these messages. I've done extensive testing of ad placement on the site in question, and have found that text-only ads immediately after the main content happen perform the best.

But that only applies to this particular site. Sites vary in their content, layout and audience, and no automated tool can accurately predict what will work best in any particular case.

In other words, you should do what you've always done. Make your own decisions, using your judgement and experience based on your own testing.

Mike