Adsense ad placement

1. 71

   Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

   I am still getting full-width Google ads in the middle of my pages, messing up the layout.
   
   The impact of this is that it looks like the Hub is only a few paragraphs long, and readers are unlikely to scroll down far enough to find the full-width ad and the text below it.
   
   This can't be good for Adsense revenues, which isn't good for Hubpages.
   
   I don't care particularly about the small amount of ad revenue, and would happily turn the ads off on all my Hubs except the ones with an affiliate link - or even get rid of the affiliate links so I can get rid of the ads.
   
   I haven't yet, because I want to do my bit to contribute to the upkeep of the servers, etc.
   
   Paul, Paul, or Jason, is there any way you could turn off just those full-width ones? Or make them wrap with the text?
   
   Thanks,
   
   Jenny

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2. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Speaking for myself - my CTR has basically tripled over the last week, so I am a happy bunny

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   1. 71

      Inspirepubposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      My CTR on Hubpages is around about but not exactly because of the Terms of Service 0.71%, and I have made a grand total of $2.92 out of 1800 impressions in my Hubpages career so far. I'm not planning to run away to Bermuda just yet!
      
      I'm sure it could be better if people could see more than just a couple of paragraphs of text - currently they can't about one time in four that they come to my pages ... which means I'm racking up impressions for ads lower on the page that never get seen ...
      
      Jenny

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   2. 77

      Lissieposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      
      I think I have a marked improvement too - though one of my flagship hubs has still not been indexed by google after 18 days -dont know whats going on there

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   3. 83

      Whitney05posted 16 years agoin reply to this

      Me too! I've been meaning to post a thread about how I'm digging the new add placements. I'm loving the increased clicks that I've been getting.
      
      Jenny, we used to get ugly adds after the first block of text, they were vertical buttons that left a huge white space on the right side. I'm glad those are gone. I don't think the hortizontal banner ads are any worse than those. At least they blend in better. If you don't like them just set the option to medium or low, like Mark suggested.

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   4. 60

      rameshposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      yeah my ctr has also seen a big jump for the last few days..i think the new ad placements are the reason of this..i read on some adsense forums that the wide rectangle ad blending with the text is one of the best performing positions for any article..

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3. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Paul suggested in another thread dropping the ad level if you are not happy with the look - try medium or low and see how they look. One of these will ditch the ads that break the text up.

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4. 71

   Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

   Yes, I could do that, if I marked them as non-commercial.
   
   I'm just not sure what the protocol is on that - I mean, some are obviously just for fun, but others - for example if there's an affiliate link in a Hub, not to clickbank, but just to another site, and I am not the affiliate, is it still "commercial"?
   
   What about if I link to sites, no affiliate link, but one of the sites I link to is my blog? Is it then a commercial Hub?
   
   I am just about to publish one about my charity book project - is that non-commercial because the beneficiary is a charity, or commercial because the end objective is that 12 months from now we sell a lot of books?
   
   I don't want to overstep the mark, so I have erred on the side of caution and pretty much left them all as "commercial", except for the one about The Alice Project.
   
   Jenny

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   1. 66

      Mishaposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      Based on my experience, hub is considered commercial if you have at least one link to another site, no matter what site and what kind of link. Cloakers count, too.

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      1. STAFF

         pauldeedsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

         Some links may be all right, but in general this is correct.  If there is any hint of some ulterior motive behind a particular link (SEO, affiliate, promotion, etc), we consider the hub to be commercial.  We're not going to ban anyone for one or two violations if the hub is in a gray area (we'll just check commercial for you and send you an email), but we do appreciate voluntary compliance.
         
         If you play around with the capsule layouts a bit, you should be able to get the ads positioned in a reasonable way without breaking things up too much.  With the high setting we inject a half width ad floated to the right in the first textual capsule of sufficient length (below any other half width capsules on the right), and then we'll put a full width capsule somewhere below that in between other capsules.
         
         If you're hub isn't commercial, you can use the "low" ad level.  At the low setting we won't intermix any ads with your capsules (you'll just get a footer and a sidebar ad).
         
         I'm glad to see people are seeing higher click through rates and making more money.  That was the intention.

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         1. 71

            Inspirepubposted 16 years agoin reply to this

            Sometimes that half width ad goes into the second capsule, pulling the second text capsule down the page past five photos to align with it.
            
            Would it be possible to always place it in the first text capsule, under the aligned right capsules? That would solve about 1/4 to 1/3 of the problems I see, and should result in the capsule sitting exactly where you intend anyway.
            
            I know this is trickier, but would it be possible to make the double width capsule always sit ABOVE the first right-aligned capsule in a right-aligned group? The first one in a group always aligns horizontally with text, so a double-width ad above that would not cause layout problems at all.
            
            I will keep my ad settings on "high", play around some more with layout, and I will grin and bear it in the meanwhile.
            
            As I said, I want to do my bit to support the running expenses. And I'm glad the changes are making everyone more money.
            
            Jenny
            
            P.S. Paul, if the "commercial" links on a Hub are to raise money for charity, is it OK to lower the ads? Or is that still considered "commercial" enough to require the high ad setting?

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            1. STAFF

               pauldeedsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

               Can you give me some example of the problematic layouts?  It's much easier to see them, than to try and put them into words.
               
               Right now, the half width ad will be floated in the first text capsule that has 400 characters of text in it.  If there are other capsules already floated in that text capsule we require 300 extra characters of text for each, and the ad will go below the other floated capsules.  This heuristic worked pretty well in most of the samples that we looked at, but certainly isn't perfect.  For instance if you floated a really tall narrow image it might leave some white space.  As we have time we'll probably refine this a bit by coming up with more accurate estimates for the vertical height of each type of capsule.
               
               
               
               In theory that would be ok, as long as it wasn't excessive (as in 20 hubs all with no ads, all linking to the same charity).  But, with several different people here tasked with monitoring hubs it can be hard to make exceptions.  We don't have time to fully explore all the links on a hub to determine if they are for charities.    So all I can say is that it depends.  Give it a try for the ones where the ads are really screwing you up if you like -- worst case they'll be switched back to commercial.

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5. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Jenny - I think you can still change the level of ads to low or medium - why don't you try one and see what happens?

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6. 54

   rajasekharanposted 16 years ago

   I think it has got a lot to do with your content.
   
   Write your content with some commercial angle. That will trigger some interesting ads.
   
   Make it worthwhile for those advertisers to get visits from your hub page. That is how your content and headlines should be.

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7. 67

   relacheposted 16 years ago

   Jenny, perhaps you'd be happier picking a different ad setting for your Hubs.  The placement and layout changes with the high, medium and low settings.

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8. 91

   gamergirlposted 16 years ago

   I've made a couple dollars in the last two weeks.  I'm happy!

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9. 71

   Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

   I have posted some screen grabs as
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/Bent-Hub
   
   showing the problem with the right-aligned ads.
   
   I'll take it down once you've had a chance to look at it.
   
   Jenny

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10. STAFF

    pauldeedsposted 16 years ago

    Ok, I see what's happening.  I think you can avoid this by making sure that the total height of the floated right capsules is less than that of the capsule that they are "floated in".   For instance in that example hub I think you have two text capsules that are full width.   In the first there are several floated right capsules that are taller than the text in it.  Without the ads the text  from the second capsule is sucked up, but with the ads it is blocked.
    
    So there are two possible ways you could address this as things are now: 1) combine the text from the two full width capsules into one capsule, or 2) move some of the floated capsules down so they float in the second text capsule instead of the first.
    
    We'll see if we can come up with a smarter ad injector, but it may take a little while.  In the mean time, let me know if either of my suggested solutions helps.

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11. 71

    Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

    Thanks for looking at that, Paul.
    
    I have migrated more and more toward floating all the right-aligned capsules in the top text capsule because otherwise there are awkward white spaces scattered all through left column of the Hub. If you put all the floating capsules at the top, the text flows perfectly down the left without leaving gaps.
    
    I know that making a really, really long text capsule on the left will solve my problem - but within a single capsule I can only use Heading 2.
    
    If I want a Heading 1 it has to be in a capsule title.
    
    Can we maybe have Heading 1 as an option within a capsule? Then I can put multiple subsections in one capsule.
    
    No biggie, just a thought ...
    
    Jenny

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12. 71

    Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

    I take it back - Heading 2 looks just like the capsule titles.
    
    I'm off to pack all my text into as few capsules as possible ....
    
    Jenny

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    1. 77

       Lissieposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       
       Correct - the 2 of them create identical html so the the only reason to start another capsule is to use it to control  other capsules floating beside it!

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13. 0

    daflaposted 16 years ago

    I'm happy for those of you who are benefitting from this new ad placement, but I'm not one of you.  I'm getting more traffic, more page views, and much less revenue.  My revenue had decreased about 300% since the change, and it was just getting to a decent level.  I'm not happy at all with the changes.  I think what's happening is that HubPages ads are getting all the clicks, not mine, because I'm getting clicks, but sometimes no revenue at all.  I certainly don't mind supporting the site, but if this doesn't change soon, I'll have to rethink my participation here.  Not that I ever was a heavy hitter, but I did like it here.

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