Google Ads

[Wassercrats]

I just found out that my webpage is listed in the first page, 10th position of Google results for the search term "political offices" (quotes included). I think I heard that clicks on Google AdSense ads that appear on pages with a higher SERP for the ad's targeted keywords pay more per click. Any idea what a click on an ad on my "political offices" page would win me?

My best guess is that I'll get a .5-1% click through rate, and from what little I read about what ads on pages of certain SERPs get, I'm guessing that a click on a well targeted ad placed on my Political Offices page would earn me about 25 cents, but these are basically wild guesses and I'm looking for other opinions.

[georgeek]

Any idea what a click on an ad on my "political offices" page would win me?I think your guess is as good as any because it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy.

If you set up a AdWords account and see what you would pay for targeting "political offices" then take fifty percent of that it's another guess at what you will be paid.

The bottom line is that Google does not disclose it's payout algorithm (quite rightly) and that makes meaningful calculations like these impossible.

For some references on the speculation that payout is related to positioning see here (http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/adwords-adsense-diagram.htm).

- George

[Wassercrats]

I came across that page earlier, but didn't pay much attention until now. I'll just fix up my website with emphasis on the page that gets all the "political offices" hits and try AdSense.

[georgeek]

I took a very quick look at your website and it could do with some old fashioned SEO. Also the caption to the main home page photo is incorrect. It should read something like this "President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, and Premier Josef Stalin (the Big Three), February, 1945 in Yalta, where plans were made for Europe’s postwar reorganization after the defeat of Germany.

- George

[Wassercrats]

I could fix up the meta data, but I don't want to change the content much. I'll deal with SEO after I add the content it needs and implement my new design for the pages that the center links point to.

I see all the correct captions. :umm:

oh...didn't check the mouseover text yet...
Still no problem :dunno:

[Wassercrats]

OH....you italicized what's inaccurate... I'll look into that. I copied the captions mainly word for word several years ago.

...**** ieSpell!

[Wassercrats]

I think you're right.

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/World/YaltaConf.CP.html
The conference at Yalta held in the Crimea on February 4-11, 1945 brought together the Big Three Allied leaders. During this conference, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt discussed Europe’s postwar reorganization. The main purpose of Yalta was the re-establishment of the nations conquered and destroyed by Germany.

...Nope, now it looks like you were wrong...or maybe it's more accurate to say that both you and the caption are correct. Plans for Hitler's defeat and post-war plans were made at Yalta.:

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/044/beichmanside.html
This was the military situation as Yalta opened: General Eisenhower had under his command four million men in 85 divisions, and they were nowhere near Berlin. The Red Army, embanked on the Oder River and awaiting Stalin’s order to begin the final assault on Berlin, had three times as many men and divisions: 12 million soldiers in 300 divisions.

[Rich]

Your page position has no impact on the amount paid per click. The amount you are paid per click is based on the amount that is charged to the advertiser for the click. There are several factors that impact this fee but primarily are based on the "value" of the search term (how competitive the bids are for the term) and the actual click-through rate the advertisor achieves for the click.

[Wassercrats]

There would still be correlation between the SERP and the amount paid per ad click because Google and/or the advertiser would probably check the position of the webpage before determining the cost per click for a particular page. I know I would.

Unfortunately, I have over 200 public domain pages that receive light traffic, and I heard that pages with low CTRs earn less per click. I'm afraid that my popular pages on the same website would suffer because of the less popular ones. I heard it advised to pull the ads off of the less popular pages in some cases.

[georgeek]

Your page position has no impact on the amount paid per click.I am agnostic on this point but I would like to see the evidence on which you base this assumption please.

- George

[ubu]

my webpage is listed in the first page, 10th position of Google results

ya See.... Just talking about your page has moved you up to 9th position!

Jamie

[Wassercrats]

And I didn't even link to it. I heard about positions changing from day to day. I'll probably be checking it every day for a while when I start making money from it, assuming it's more than a couple of dollars per month.

[Wassercrats]

I just decided I should get rid of the /links directory and move those pages to the www directory since they'll only be about 16 of them, so they'll have cleaner URLs. I'm not looking forward to the PR hit, but just as I don't want to load the pages with keywords just for SEO, I'm willing to take the hit in the short run for better URLs.

[Rich]

I can't give you the evidence because the Google Adsense contract does not allow sharing this type of data. But, I can tell you that this is true from personal experience with my websites. I have been in position #1 and in position #200 and can tell you that it made little, if any difference.

If you really think about it this would make sense. Why would it make sense for an advertiser to be charged more for a click-through based on where YOUR page ranked in the search engines. Whether you are listed 1st or last, the only way someone could have clicked on the adverstiser's ad is if they first actually visited your web site--and there are thousands of ways to get to a website besides the google search engine.

<edit>
There is one very important fact that WILL impact your payments and that is YOUR site's click-through rate. For example, if an advertiser's ad appears 100 times on my site and 100 times on your site and my site only got 1/100 clicks and yours got 80/100 I'm pretty sure your per-click rate would be much higher than mine.
</edit>

[Wassercrats]

Why would it make sense for an advertiser to be charged more for a click-through based on where YOUR page ranked in the search engines.I'm not sure how bidding or any of this stuff works (not even about the knowable stuff), but if I were an advertiser, I might assume that pages appearing higher in the results are more likely to be what the searcher wants and the searcher's click on an ad on one of those pages would be more likely to produce a sale than another person's click.

[Andilinks]

I recently experienced a wide swing in SERPS due to a mysterious Google instability and a corresponding swing in pageviews, impressions, clicks and revenue. I cannot share the numbers for the same reason given by Rich, but I can share my observation that the correspondence was linear. In other words, supporting Rich's assertion.

I also agree that Google is not quite so Google-centric (yet anyway) to think that it is the only way that people arrive at web pages.

Andi

[Wassercrats]

Another thing I've been wondering about is whether I'll be penalized for viewing my own web pages over and over, which I do when I edit them with CNC. Am I going to have to cut down on that?

[Andilinks]

Another thing I've been wondering about is whether I'll be penalized for viewing my own web pages over and overI don't think it matters. Google does caution against clicking on your own Adsense ads (duh) but says nothing about excessive visiting your own page. These questions would probably be better directed to Google, they will answer them more authoritatively.

Andi

[georgeek]

I can tell you that this is true from personal experience with my websites. I have been in position #1 and in position #200 and can tell you that it made little, if any difference.I don't think this observation tells us anything about the Google payout algorithm (or Google's smart pricing system for that matter) because if there is a serps factor it may well have been masked by all the other variables. The same goes for those that would claim the opposite e.g. The better their site ranks for it's main keywords the higher the AdSense per click payout. The jury is still out imo.

If you really think about it this would make sense. Why would it make sense for an advertiser to be charged more for a click-through based on where YOUR page ranked in the search engines.Possibly because Google's natural rankings are based on relevancy and the fact that the page ranks high for that keyword makes the visitors on that site more valuable to the AdWords advertiser. There is a precedent as Google pays a higher percentage to AdSense premium service partners for example.

<edit>There is one very important fact that WILL impact your payments and that is YOUR site's click-through rate. For example, if an advertiser's ad appears 100 times on my site and 100 times on your site and my site only got 1/100 clicks and yours got 80/100 I'm pretty sure your per-click rate would be much higher than mine.</edit>Of course, agree 100%.

I am still agnostic on the existence of a serps factor in the payout algo but it's an academic point and I don't think anyone should loose any sleep over it....

- George

[Wassercrats]

Ok, maybe the SERP doesn't matter much by itself, but I think if you properly factor in the total number of results and the number of sponsored links on the results page, that will tell you something.

For "political offices" there are 50,800 results and only one sponsored link. Someone with enough experience with AdSense might be able to estimate what a click on an ad on my Political Offices page would be worth with that information.

The one sponsored link says that there's not much demand for ads on pages with such keywords, so the few people wanting ads on such pages are more likely to be able to get one of the top 9 websites for those keywords (bad for me).

The more results, the more popular the term is and the more advertisers there would be who have a related ad, and the more money I would make.

[Andilinks]

...and the more money I would make.

So just sign up for the program and place a few ads. Trying to figure out their algorithm is a fool's mission because even if you succeeded it would change without notice.

Speculating at the level you are without even any concrete results will not gain you anything but a headache. If you at least have a few ads placed you could extrapolate from your results.

Dropping the Adsense program is even easier than signing up, you have little to lose.

Andi

[Wassercrats]

I know... I won't waste too much time speculating. I'm too busy trying to figure out the best shade of grey for my new design.

[johnfl68]

Post Removed - Sorry my bad - I didn't notice the thread was about Ad Sence, not Ad Words, as they both have simular workings.

John

[georgeek]

Google Ads and Search Positions have no correlation whatsoever.....John this thread is not about AdWords but about AdSense and the Google payment algorithm to publishers.

- George

[Wassercrats]

I might have confused things when I mentioned "number of sponsored links on the results page." I guess those are AdWords. My theory is that the more AdWords there are for a term, the more money you could make with AdSense if your page ranks high for that term.

[krisleech]

I though the price per click was fixed and did not alter with PR / SERP's results. I have both adwords and adsense. With adwords I choose how much i wish to pay per click and from my experience so far it has remained fixed unless i change what i am willing to pay.
My clicks on adsense are not very high. I do get quite a lot of page views over my various sites but few clicks to the ads.

[Wassercrats]

From what I've heard, I'd consider "few clicks to the ads" to be under 1%. If you have at least a 1% CTR, I wouldn't be surprised, and .5% isn't uncommon.