Posted on Thursday 21st of September 2006 at 05:31 in Web Development

Sacraficing design for the sake of Adsense placement

Why is every webmaster deturmined to be a slave to their advertisements? Why have I seen so many sites ruined by the developer insisting on placing their adsense in the most invasive position to ensure the best possible impression:click ratio?

Adsense IS a brilliant thing, it allows regular webmasters to have some level of contextual advertising on their site with the bare minimum of hassle. You register, they give you code to put in your site - job done, any clicks on those adverts are cash into your pocket. But how much money can you realistically make from Adsense? My current adsense placement is what I would consider logical - when the user is done reading the article, they are faced with adverts - it doesn't interfere with the flow or structure of the site, and the ads are not on the homepage. So I wonder why people are destroying perfectly handsome sites with epically invasive banners?

How much money can you make from Adsense? If you believe everything you read, there are users who make $20,000 a month purely from people clicking their ads - but i'll believe that when I see it with my own eyes. Realistically, you can make $20-50 a month with moderate levels of traffic - which, while a nice bonus is unlikely to buy you a Porsche. However, it may fund your hosting so don't get me wrong, Adsense is a brilliant tool for re-kindling an interest in how much traffic you receive.

When looking at the Adsense placement diagram (left), Seopher.com implements the baseline orange placement. Realistically, if you implement one of the central positions, you are destroying the flow of your pages for the sake of a few extra dollars a month.

Webmasters, don't be a slave to your adsense; if you have substancial amounts of traffic you can probably get on a higher paying advertising scheme.

It's also worth noting that uber-invasive placements may destroy your aesthetics so much that users no longer visit your site - which is clearly the opposite of your intentions.

Do you really think that having your adverts between your navigation and your content is the *best* place for it? Or is it purely relying on accidental clicks due to it's awkward location? I think it depends on what you value most, a decent browsing experience for the user or an extra few dollars each month; personally, I would rather be true to my original designs and ensure that the advertisements are an extra to the site, not the structure the site is adapted around.

 

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