Over 28% CTR !!!

[Moriones]

Hi.

This website is using a page layout that is giving me over --.--% CTR for at least the last 4 months.

You can take a look at:

http://www.discover-all-the.info/about-forex-trading/online-forex-trading.htm

Yours in profits.

Francisco

[SolarFlare]

Hi.

This website is using a page layout that is giving me over 28% CTR for at least the last 4 months.


Yeah, well, there's nothing else to click on, so you might as well click an ad. To me, not very useful as a surfer

[Bend0r]

Hmm - Nothing else to click on? Very good - There's a lesson there I would say, maybe it's a bit extreme having no other links whatsoever, but a reduction in the amount of choices to link out of a page definitely seems to be a bonus in the case of adsense. ;)

[SolarFlare]

Again - newbie, not expert, but I'm sure it's against the Adsense TOS. I've seen that mentioned.

[Sbabb]

As far as I know, it's not against the TOS. The page contains an article with useful information, so it isn't a "created only for AdSense" page by Google's definition. You don't need outbound links from a page to make Google happy. Some people intentionally minimize their outbound links if they're obsessed with Google page rank.

Is that actually a WordPress blog, or are you just importing a WordPress stylesheet into a XHTML page?


Scott

[tALEz]

Nice blending I must say.
But can anyone confirm whether that's against Google's TOS?
Joel?

[anks106]

Nice blending I must say.
But can anyone confirm whether that's against Google's TOS?
Joel?


https://www.google.com/support/adsense/

[adsense3]

Moriones-

can you tell me how long it took to get your ctr to that point

[golden14]

Sbabb,
Sorry to inform you quoting your CTR is against the TOS. And as you've given your website address someone could get you banned for quoting it. There are some malicious people out there so be carefull. They only take your account away just the once!

[Sbabb]

Ahhh, I see. I thought the TOS statement was in regards to the site design, not the mention of the CTR. My comment was on his site design (it's not my site) being within the TOS.

I've seen CTR mentioned as "over 28%" and "in the 5-8% range" and things like that without the mention of an exact CTR. I figured that people weren't mentioning the exact numbers ("over 28%" could be 28.1% or it could be 92%) to comply with the TOS. I've seen these types of CTR descriptions in a lot of places.

Scott

[Moriones]

Hi.

I have been using this format with big success and my CTR has improve now with small and subtle changes.

http://www.discover-all-the.info/about-forex-trading/online-forex-trading.htm

As you can see I use the following techniques.


I use no borders
All the links are in blue color
I use a leaderboard beneath some theme related images
The second ad block is the usual large rectangle
Recently, I added an adlinks block for those who reach the end of the webpage
Probably, the most important factor here is that I don't give to my visitors any other option than click or go out.


I hope this can be useful for you.

Yours in profits.

Francisco Moriones

[Why Travel Lite]

Ya got to admit Monories is making a compeling argument for this type of page.

When you study the page its obvious how the CTR would be fairly high.

[Why Travel Lite]

Just wondering... Im assuming you use a number of different sub domains in your website. How do you get on having the different sites split up so much.

- You have no site map i can find.
- No navigation (I know thats one reason why your CTR is quite high.

Do you treat all your sub domains as individual web pages in their own right, gaining PR individualy and marketing each on as a separate entity?

If so i realy like that idea. Not keen on the total lack of navigation or a Sitemap or the lack of a Corporate identity or branding but i realy like the way you do things.

I can see myself using a couple of your ideas... With a couple of my own ideas ha ha!

Thats my 2 cents/pence!!!:o

[greatmich]

Hi.

This website is using a page layout that is giving me over --.--% CTR for at least the last 4 months.

You can take a look at:

http://www.discover-all-the.info/about-forex-trading/online-forex-trading.htm

Yours in profits.

Francisco

I have just done the same. I have a fishing report and based on where they fish I will add additional links to pages that have nothing but information on a boat launch and google ads. I started two days ago and my CTR is 5 times what it was. I have tons of pages where I am only going to give that option.

This page has content no rules broken on lack of content. I love it, simple, and no way out.

[Chris]

28% click... but 72% get away even with seemingly no other option but to click... the user will always opt for the "X" before a link they are not interested in and normally they won't just close that page - they will close your site because they know its not the information source they were after, and that's not even considering smart pricing (though even the worst paying ads in some industries pay very well).

It's one thing to get a 28% CTR but at the end of the day it is still a numbers game that matters more about traffic than it does about CTR - especially if you are in it to play this game long term.

[successcoach]

I am a newbie at this and wanting to branch out into Adsense. I have been
going through Joel's book.

This page mentioned here seems to have a clean layout.

My question is how are other's on this thread doing on CTR and more
importantly traffic. I see many of you have sigs with AdSense sites.
Share how you are doing?

also, how long does it take after you setup your site to start making
money?

Another point that confuses me is how are you able to have
multiple sites on one account.

Thanks for any help you can give. I want to make a success of this.

Sincerely,

Joseph

[mgrcentral]

As soon as a Google human sees your site you will have your account closed. Your page is very obviously 'built for adsense'....

Add in some alternate affiliate links - links to content on your own site and ensure you have a contact form or email on the site so your Google reviewer can send you a test email to check if this is a real content site....

[Chuck Brown]

Agreed...this is a "Made for Adsense" site, plain and simple.

There's next to no value to the site visitor.

I'd hardly consider a 28% CTR something to brag about.

Whatever happened to the idea of providing value?

c-

[Chris]

Whatever happened to the idea of providing value?It got lost in the desire for money...

I also agree with what you said about 28% not being THAT great. There are loads of people out there with 20%+ CTR on sites that are actually useful and encourage return visitors. If you write a well written article on a good niche topic with well positions Google Ads you can easily get 10% - 15% as well provide a useful source of information for your users, and it is LONG TERM.

[Sbabb]

I have to disagree with mgrcentral and Chuck.

There are thousands (millions?) of "portal" sites out there that are clearly created specifically for AdSense. Their "content" is all search engine scrapings. Google removes those sites from their search results when they find them, but they do not cancel the AdSense accounts of the people who own those sites.

I cannot find anywhere in the AdSense policies or T&C's that says you must have outbound links on your page. The one line in the policies that says "No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant" appears to be a vague catch-all for anything Google wants to kill without having to cite any specific violation. They could easily argue that ANY page with AdSense on it was "built for AdSense."

The article on the site is a basic introduction to Forex trading for newbies. That's content. The fact that it's not perfect English grammar doesn't make the content any less useful. The fact that there are no outbound links doesn't make that content any less useful. Is a magazine article useless if it doesn't have a bibliography?

I suspect that Google will love these pages (after all, this is how THEY make money, too) but why not run it by them to make sure. They won't cancel your account for asking.


Scott

[Chuck Brown]

Scott,

I never mentioned outbound links. I don't think that's a critical factor...although I think, if one is wise, one must also see the value in providing access to other quality resources.

The amount of content on the page couldn't even be compared with a Forex definition page on Wikipedia...thus, it has NO REASON to exist...except the greed of the person creating it....trying to get something for virtually nothing.

At some point, we must stop justifying this stuff and call a spade a spade.

Who cares whether Google would cancel the account of the account-holder? The point is: It's more clutter that makes everyone's life more cumbersome...and has Google tying up tons of resources trying to filter it out...why is why I think they are currently the third most accurate search engine, despite doing twice the traffic as Yahoo and 3 times as much as MSN.

As far as duplicate content goes, I don't believe one can call it a case to say that big authority sites like Yahoo and MSN are not penalized, and therefore there is no duplicate content penalty. The penalty is assessed against those post it later. Yahoo and MSN may not be first in line (many times the articles are sources from Reuters, for example), but they are certainly the first biggest place of their appearance. And as authority sites, they are immune to this filtering anyway. I still believe that reproducing articles from other sites (including article sites) is a fool's errand. Adding some on as an additional related resource is one thing...but making them your primary content...nah, it's a waste.

Just my two cents' worth.

c-

[Sbabb]

I know you fight the good fight, Chuck, and I certainly respect that. It's a losing battle, though. I'll play devil's advocate for a minute here.

The internet isn't a "only great writers need apply" place. His article may be less informative than Wikipedia, but most net surfers don't know what Wikipedia is. And if he writes a better article than what Wikipedia has, does that mean that Wikipedia should remove their now-inferior content?

Duplication of content is how all news outlets work. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, etc. all use syndicated services and all put out the same stories. They still all have a reason to exist, despite the fact that they're duplicating each other's content. And if duplicate content is bad on the internet, then should we keep the Yahoo directory or the dmoz directory or some other directory and shut down all the others? For that matter, aren't those directories just duplicating the links and descriptions of the sites they list?

Is it a useful service to collect articles written by other people on a particular subject from the various article directories and aggregate them all in a web site dedicated to that subject? It certainly saves people from the hassle of trying to find all of those articles all over the place, if they even know that article directories exist.

We are fairly savvy web surfers. We know about Wikipedia and article directories and RSS feeds. The vast majority of people on the internet don't. I don't know much about forex trading, but I do know what cash value, liquidity, and currency instruments are. Maybe the Wikipedia entry is better for me than this article. On the other hand, if those terms make someone's eyes glaze over, then maybe that article is better for them.

Fox News is too "tabloid" for me and CNN Headline News is too "attention deficit." I prefer regular CNN or ABC News (though I once worked for a different network's news service.) But there are people who prefer the ones I don't like as much. Some like all of them. I watch the local news for weather, but I also watch the Weather Channel sometimes. Having the same content in different locations and formats is useful.

I do agree that it would be nice if we could flush the garbage off the internet, but it's not even a democracy out here, it's pretty much anarchy. You provide good content, Chuck, no question. Some others don't. I admire your advocacy of quality content, but I wouldn't make it into a full-time crusade. That would be a waste of your time. Better to accept the beast as it is and work within the framework we're given. Writing excellent content is your forte. I try to do the same, but I'm not averse to creating article collections, either. I have a couple of kids to put through college, so I need the money (either that or a spectacular recovery for a couple of stocks on NASDAQ.) I would try to use decent quality articles for article collections, though, and write some content of my own. That's just my particular taste, though.


Scott

[Sbabb]

After all that ranting I forgot to mention that Yahoo is currently my least favorite of the top 3. That's mainly because (today) if you search MSN for "gas mileage" you find me on the first page and if you search Google for it you find me on the second page but if you search Yahoo, you don't find me anywhere in the first couple of hundred listings. There are plenty of spammy garbage pages there, though. I'm baffled as to why they think a site full of original articles about getting better gas mileage shouldn't be above the garbage sites. Most likely because I haven't studied what I need to SEO for Yahoo, but still...


Scott (whining again)

[successcoach]

You mention your rankings for your site.

What is the web address of your site so we can know what
we are looking for?

[Sbabb]

My site? Sorry, I thought I mentioned it but I must have forgotten.

It's www.gas-mileage-tips.com

I'm using a WordPress blog for content management. I played with my templates a little yesterday and my CTR jumped today. I've had one-day CTR jumps before, though, so I'll wait for a week or two before I decide that what I've done has improved things. I'm hoping that the fixed page title tag will also help me in the search engines. Previously the title tag changed with each new post.


Scott

[successcoach]

Thanks. I checked it out.

Looks like you are on the second page of MSN instead of the first.
Same with Google.

What kind of revenue are bringing in from this one site?

Thanks,

Joseph

[Sbabb]

Yup, looks like I dropped in MSN. The high gas prices are probably prompting a lot of people to put up new sites. Mine has been around for awhile.

I'm not complaining, though. OK, maybe a little.

Last month I averaged between $1.00 and $1.50 a day on that site (he said vaguely, trying to comply with the AdSense TOS.)

So far this month my average daily income from that site is more than $3.00.

I really should work on getting more inbound links, I suppose. Life has been keeping me too busy.


Scott

[Chuck Brown]

Actually, Scott...it's not a full-time crusade for me...and it's not even all I talk about on here.

I don't have time for a full-time crusade on anything. I'm too busy trying to build and maintain good sites.

However, crap is crap. I'm not pointing fingers your way, as I haven't seen any of your sites, that I can recall.

The web needs to be a better place, not just a fuller place. A site that provides almost no value provides almost no value.

For me, there is simply a higher principle involved here. I was raised to believe that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing right...not just worth doing within the rules.

I don't know what happens with the future of contextual advertising...but I have to believe that, eventually, only crappier ad programs will allow their ads to be displayed on these low-value sites.

You have to make your own decisions, as do I. I simply choose to build for value, and for the long-term...and I do what I can to encourage others to think more deeply about their own personal approach. That's my personal contribution.

Thanks for your thoughts.

c-

[Sbabb]

This morning I'm down on the third page at MSN.

Looks like "gas mileage" has become a popular subject for the "portal" builders. Several of the new sites that have pushed me down are useless scraper sites with little or no content. They're garbage, but they make money for a few weeks until they get delisted.

Some people are happy having to constantly build new zero-content portal sites to replace old ones that get delisted. That's not for me, though.


Scott

[Reprobate]

They could easily argue that ANY page with AdSense on it was "built for AdSense."
They could, but what if a site has been up for 5 years without any adsense or other advertising?

That's an off-topic comment not related to the subject of this thread.

[dirtyc]

Looks like "gas mileage" has become a popular subject for the "portal" builders. Several of the new sites that have pushed me down are useless scraper sites with little or no content. They're garbage, but they make money for a few weeks until they get delisted.


How do these sites get higher up in the SERPs than yours? If Google shuts one of these guys down, do they still get paid? I know that Google only pays once a month so if a site got shut down in two weeks are they under any obligation to pay the "portal" owners?

[Sbabb]

Google Search Engine and Google AdSense are two separate things.

Google doesn't shut the sites down, they just delist them from the search engine. They want nice, clean search engine listings without portal cruft.

AdSense clicks on those sites are still paid. Google would probably be thrilled to have portal sites at the top of the other search engines pulling traffic and getting clicks (remember, Google makes money on AdSense) without having they dirtying up the Google search results.

These sites get higher up the SERPs than me by optimizing for perfect keyword density without caring if the pages are readable by humans and by using automated tools to get thousands of inbound links.

Portal site builders actually WANT useless, unreadable sites that make visitors say "UGH!" and look for something to click on to get out of there as quickly as possible. That "something to click on" is usually AdSense. They don't want people sticking around to read articles, they want them to show up and click AdSense as quickly as possible.

It's not necessarily a bad deal for the AdWords advertiser, though. If someone searches for "pickled garlic" and they go to an ugly portal site, then immediately click on an ad to get out of that site, they're still interested in "pickled garlic" and the ad is probably relevant to that topic. The visitor has just made a small detour on the way. I suppose it could be argued that the portal site actually increases traffic to the advertiser's site because it effectively moves the advertiser's site into the main search results of whatever search engines list the portal (by way of the portal, of course) instead of having it be over in the right-hand AdSense column on Google alone.

Regardless, the portal site die-hards are constantly building new ones to replace old ones that get delisted. Some of them make a lot of money, but they're slaves to the constant need for new sites. That's not appealing to me.