Adsense Ads, Filter or Not?

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Adsense Ads, Filter or Not?

We knew that Google Adsense publishers have the option to filter unwanted ads (Read more on Filtering Ads) to be displayed on their websites. Google tell us that ads filtering may hurt the adsense income, but some publishers say ads filtering will increase pay per click. So, filter or not? I share my personal experience with you.

Filter
Like the other bloggers, I get a lot irrelevant ads (”blog” ads) on this site. I started to filter the ads. The eCPM boosted. I was overjoyed. The list was growing very fast.

Do not filter
However, though it was a long list of filtered ads but the revenue did not increase. One day, I decided to start all over again. I DELETED the whole list! To my surprise, the revenue increased in the next day, though the irrelevant ads were back!

Filter, again
I am greedy. Yesterday I read a forum thread that we SHOULD filter ads in order to increase (even more) revenue.

By keeping scrapers off, my EPC has risen sixfold over the last two months since I have been blocking some of the stupid placements and all made for adsense sites. Bottom line income is up by 30% plus and rising.

That’s interesting.

I tried it on my site. I added few ads, which always appear on my site, into my adsense ads filter list. Now, I get 80% increase on eCPM for the day, compare to the previous average eCPM. Wow!

Note: One day data cannot be trusted. There may have other factors affecting the revenue of the day.

So, Filter or Not Filter?

I say filter, but only filter low paying ads. How do we know which ads is low paying? Google does not let us know, of course. AdullahFarouk wrote a simple tip to filter low paying ads in a DigitalPoint forum thread.

…try to spot the obvious spam/made-for-adsense sites? It is a safe bet that these are the ones who would pay the least

Yes, there are a lot made-for-adsense sites that target to high paying keywords and use Adwords to attract visitors… then click on their high paying ads. This kind of websites will NOT pay high. Filter them.

Watch the Ads

I often look back my old posts and spot the adsense ads that ALWAYS show up but not relevant to the content. I will visit the ads sites (not click on the ads, of course) and determine the websites quality. If they are cheap made sites, I will filter them.

Keep the Ads Fresh

I will get boring if always see the same adsense ads. Therefore, I will filter some of them to free up the ads space for other ads. This will keep the ads fresh for regular visitors and gives chance to potential high paying ads. Occasionally, I will remove the Adsense filter list to refresh the adsense ads for the site.

My two cents

These are my personal experience. They may incorrect. They may not work for you. But, I think they work for me. No harm to try the tips. Simply revert the changes if they do not work for you (make sure you backup your filter list first before remove them).

Please let me know if the tips work for you. Or, if you have other tips on adsense filtering, please share with us.

adsense, tips, advertising

kahsoon
"to filter or not to filter" the answer is depends on your blog. Every blog works differently. For example my blog, i filtered alot of blog related ads and the ads space become quite empty, when i removed the whole filter list and all of the sudden my CTR increased because there are more ads to let people click it. I think anyone who want to filter ads should read this
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/09/preventing-...

Jacky
That's really good news for you. I have not put up any ads yet... no point lar since the blog is still very new.

Any advise for a beginner like me?

LcF
Jacky: first, increase traffic.

SapiensBryan
Personally, I think the 80% increase on CPM is nothing to be so surprise. Moreover it is just based on one day record.

david_uk spoken on a record of the last 2 months, which perhaps consisted of consistency of the CPM. increment. One day record is not reliable, IMHO.

LcF
SapiensBryan: yes, I have pointed out that the data is not reliable to be trusted. :)

Jimmy
but isn't it against the TOS to filter out advertisers like that. it's purpose (filters) is just to remove competitor (to your website product or service) ads if there is any.

anyway i don't want to filter any ads out on my own sites.

LcF
Jimmy: no, it does not against Adsense TOS. you may confirm with google.

angsuman
I have observed better rate with filtering. However I do not filter to increase my revenue. I just don't want to direct my visitors to "for AdSense only" sites. It leaves them with a bad taste and potentially casts my site in a bad light too as they are directed from here.

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