Make More Money With Less AdSense Ads
ADVERTISEMENTSAfter reading the experiment done by Jane to test the theory that having less AdSense ads on your site gets you more money, I decided it to give it a try.
I removed the link units from this blog leaving just the 336×280 ad unit below the post title and within a few days my AdSense earnings almost doubled!
I thought my earnings would return back to the usual earnings the next day but it has continued to increase so far. If this increase in my earnings continues, it could be true that having less AdSense ads on your site gets you more money.
This is how Jane explains it
The theory is that sites bid for their ads to be placed on contextually relevant web sites with the highest bidders getting the best adsense spots (the higher the better). If you only show 4 ads in 1 block, then adsense will place the highest 4 bidding advertisers in those spaces netting you the highest profit. The more ads you show, the more lower-bidding advertisers show up on your page that when those get clicked, your cpc becomes lower than it could be if they weren’t on your page to begin with.
With the removal of the link units, this blog also looks a bit cleaner and I won’t lose much visitors for low cost per click.
Try this experiment yourself for a few days and see if it helps you to increase your AdSense earnings too 
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Posted on June 20th, 2007 | Category: Make Money Online |
Rhys
June 21, 2007 at 3:48 am
That’s interesting, and certainly seems logical. I’ll think I’ll give it a go next week or something, see what happens.
Rhys
June 21, 2007 at 3:51 am
I wonder, just looking at your site now with Google “Checkout ads” running, what would it be like having 1 Text only Adsense ad, and the other two image only ads? Usually they’re untargeted, but generate quite a few clickthroughs.
Dammit John! You’ve got me ad placing now!
Torsten
June 21, 2007 at 4:04 am
I just have one ad unit now on every post, before I had one on the post and one in my sidebar. I can see, that the revenue since this change increased.
As I made this change, I also gave the link units a try. I can see by now that the CTR is much less than from the ad unit but the average CPC is more than double. I am thinking about using another link unit as it is allowed now.
kay
June 21, 2007 at 6:51 am
I’ll have a try for it! Thanks!
Shivaranjan
June 21, 2007 at 7:43 am
I will also try that out John. I have already removed one text ad from below the post. I will let you know if my earnings also increase.
AmeyJah
June 21, 2007 at 8:03 am
yeah i know this trick. i used this trick when i had lot’s of widgets on my site and no space for ad’s . so even with lesser traffic and only one Picture-ad unit i am trying to make money. it’s easy just place the ad’s where you get most of the clicks( also look for prevention of invalid clicks) and place only one appropriate ad unit and earn money. i loved this because it almost doubled my earning. thanks john for letting me know that i was correct and many of my friends are doing the same.
horisly
June 21, 2007 at 8:11 am
yes, i notice the change of my adsense paying losing as adding two additional link unit.
i think the more ads you place, users have more choice to choose to click, that lowe down the ctr.
horisly
June 21, 2007 at 8:14 am
meanwhile, although some social network tools can boost traffic or unique ips, they may reduce the cpm of ads, then cause smart price.
kuanhoong
June 21, 2007 at 8:38 am
I wonder this trick will work if your blog does not have large amount of traffic.
uway
June 21, 2007 at 8:41 am
until your site is at least 6months old your not going to see any big money out of google. i have advertised, done tricks and the best thing that has been working is patients. Im not ready to give up my day job but after a year of part time blogging i feel i will start to see some real decent money at the rate im going. i figure like this i just want to make enough to cover all my internet bills and im happy with that. Consistency is key with blogging. im just sorry i didn’t stick with it 4 years ago on blogger i would be a top ranking site by now.
Nirmal
June 21, 2007 at 9:29 am
This is really interesting stuff and seems logically correct also.
Shashank
June 21, 2007 at 9:58 am
IMHO this method will work great if your site is around 1 year old..for new sites this method will not work…
its human nature..
patience is the another name of blogging ..its like a tree u have to put in efforts to make it grow ..then one day delicious fruits started coming in …then we want to plant more trees for more fruits
Sista
June 21, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Ok, I’m going to try this and see what happens… I’ll report back in 48 hours.
David Bradley
June 21, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Okay. I am going to give it a go, I’ve only been using ad link blocks on Sciencetext recently and not really seeing any clicks at all, so I’ve taken a leaf out of your book and placed a big 336×280 right above the post just as you do, let’s see how that fares.
db
Everton Blair
June 21, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I’m pretty certain that link units aren’t factored into the adsense smart pricing formula.
Something else has changed I think John
JohnTP
June 21, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Ever since I removed my link units, my AdSense earnings have been increasing and I am excited to see how much it can increase again.
Those who try out this experiment please report back if it works for you.
Shankar Ganesh
June 21, 2007 at 5:59 pm
This works for sure. I heard about this kinda thing somewhere and I started taking of not-so-paying ad units. It works fantastic - CPC really got way better than it used to be before.
Internet Tv
June 21, 2007 at 7:54 pm
also image ads help you get alot more money since there is only one ad.
Ashwin
June 21, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I also did the same and my CPM has increased 50%!
Everton Blair
June 21, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Did you remove a link unit ashwin or a banner?
I’m pretty sure it Smart Pricing doesn’t apply to link units. If it does, then it’s probably also true that link units shouldn’t be placed above normal units….??
Manisha
June 21, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Thank you for providing us such a wonderful concept to make more money through Google Adsense
Cucirca
June 22, 2007 at 12:59 am
I’ve experimented this last week and my earning have increased considerably .
I’ve also removed the link units
Madhur Kapoor
June 22, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I am going to try it right now . Will tell you about the result .
Andy Coates
June 22, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Nice article, I’m still experimenting with placement and am guilty of having too many adverts on one page! I’m going to cut some down and try and learn a little more about the long tail keyword theory to try and get my click through rate up!
Andy
Vijay Teach Me
June 22, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hi John,
seems like a good idea atleast bloggers like me will give it a try at least once.
Vijay
Peter
June 23, 2007 at 3:07 am
Sounds logic, i will test it on one popular site that i have.
In 3 or 4 days i will tell you m8’s how it works
Cybersurge.org
June 23, 2007 at 1:22 pm
This is a pretty interesting idea and something that I will keep in mind the next time I decide to play around with my ad units
zaki
June 23, 2007 at 9:12 pm
has anyone seen increase in income by doing this way, other that JohnTP and Cucirca?
Roberta
June 23, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I think I will try the less is more approach and see what happens. I’m hoping that I will soon find what works in regard to monetization.
Ashok
June 24, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Yes, It is correct, less ad generate more money. As only high paying ads are shown.
Don
June 24, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I’ve never had much luck with link units on a site with the exception of two placements. One is at the top of the page and make them look like link navigations and the other is in a sidebar of a static page to make them look like a link list.
Other than that, they just don’t pay for me on most of my sites.
Don
Internet Tv
June 25, 2007 at 1:01 am
ive known about this secret for a while, which is why im suprised most people use alot of ads.
Shashank
June 25, 2007 at 5:43 pm
looks like i ve to try by complete removing the link ads..
great fruity discussion goin on here..
anybody tried it with low traffic..
Julian
June 25, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I think adsense is and will be always no.1 resource to make money tho.
CristianR
June 26, 2007 at 9:05 pm
well , stuffing the site with a lot of ads might seem like a good idea , someone will certainly click an ad by mistake . I guess this idea of having less ads is good only for high traffic web-sites .
Gili
June 26, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Good discussion. Gives me lot of ideas on how to monetize.
MoneyNing
June 27, 2007 at 4:27 am
Great tip! I gotta try this!
Thank you
horisly
June 27, 2007 at 7:01 am
yes, i think too many ads would decline the price.
Kingjacob
June 28, 2007 at 6:42 am
Very interesting, I never though less clicks could equal more money.
Crispy
July 3, 2007 at 1:34 am
It seems like a very good advice. I will try it too and see what will come of it.
Andreas
July 3, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I would like to ask if it is possible to place one smallest banner before the post and the other after, did you try that ever? I took big banners off my blog at all…
Rupesh Mandal
July 5, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Can you please review my blog and give some useful tips… because my earning is not so good…
thanks and regards,
Webmaster Money
July 5, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Maybe you just have more traffic. But thru is that too many adverts disturb users.
Andy Martin
July 5, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I have heard that more ads means more revenue but in your case your revenue has increased because you decreased the adsense ads.Its nice to know that placement of the ads is one the most important things while using adsense.
Saher
July 7, 2007 at 5:55 am
but did you notice that when Adsense team visits your site it recommends having a good ad inventory, once i had very less ads placed on one of my sites so…:o and most of the expert blogger do say ‘follow the team report guide lines’
Andrew Kontra
July 7, 2007 at 10:41 am
I do like adsense however find the number of clicks not worth the effort, unless you get massive traffic. It is interesting to note that this site uses contentlink network. Any one have any data on its effectiveness?
Larry
July 8, 2007 at 2:41 am
Small addition to the post,
from my own experience image ads seems much lower than text ads. Yes, it looks cleaner and why should we put those ads for low CPC.
horisly
July 8, 2007 at 8:44 am
after dropped down two useless ads units, i found that the price up.
Ram
July 8, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Oh I then ought to try it. Im new to AdSense and I just don’t know how much Im going to make by the end of this month. Thanks.
Russell Wagner
July 10, 2007 at 9:03 am
Thats interesting. I might try just leaving the banner below and deleting the others. Nice post.
Blain Reinkensmeyer
July 10, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I noticed a jump in income with this as well, I had a header 728 x 90 and a 300 x 250 running below it within the post, removed the header and now my eCPM has increase quite noticeably. Very interesting stuff.
Blain Reinkensmeyer
July 10, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Oh, one thing also to note, I have a link unit running and have not noticed a drop in total income, I thought link units do NOT affect your competitive ad placements?
Ed
July 11, 2007 at 12:27 am
I dropped a link unit from one of my more popular sites. We’ll see how it does.
Personal Blog
July 13, 2007 at 10:04 am
That just doesn’t seem possible. I’m pretty surprised that worked for you. I’m not quite sure why though. I would have though more impressions would be better.
BeachBum
July 13, 2007 at 9:46 pm
This is because you were able to get the higher paying offers to show up in a single ad unit. When there are a bunch of ad units the ads that get shown pay less as you go down the page. They may even be a eCPM limit in the algo, but who knows.
Good luck on the increase, hope things keep up for you.
BeachBum
Zul
July 15, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I will try this immediately and see the results for the next 1 or 2 days. If it works then it is a double joy as 1) we get more money and 2)I can save space for other types of adverts.
kay
July 16, 2007 at 3:09 pm
One of my friend just got a Google Adsense cheque yesterday. However, his Google Adsense account had been banned 3 weeks ago.
I wonder if the cheque he got yesterday is still available…
any idea?
kay
July 16, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Sorry, I meant is the cheque still “valid”?
Webmaster Money
July 16, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Is someone else playing with this idea?
Make Money Online Resource
July 17, 2007 at 12:26 am
Definitely, we are interested to know about whether having less Adsense will bring in more money or not. It’s seem logic so far.
SEO Web Design
July 18, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Have you ever thought that you might make more money by removing adsense altogether? Crazy thought I know, but putting adsense on your site only drives people away from your site, possibly never seeing them again. I guess if you already have a steady following you don’t care but on newer sites it might be best to grow your subscribers instead of pushing people away through adsense.
I’ve removed adsense from my blog altogether for that reason, and also because I think adsense makes sites look like crap. I’m just tired of seeing “Ads by Google” everywhere.
Justin
July 19, 2007 at 10:12 am
Great advice! Ill have to try that on my blog. Im still playing around with it to see what has the most effective results
Navjot Singh
July 21, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Seems a bit crazy idea, I will try this method on my forum. Currently my forum has already 2 ad units, 1 link unit and 1 referral unit.
I will remove link unit and 1 ad unit. Then I will observe if my earnings increase or not.
Robert Irizarry
July 24, 2007 at 1:28 am
Ok, time for me to give it a try as well. I’ve removed the left sidebar ad from the single post pages leaving a single large rectangle on the page. The left side ad wasn’t generating all that much anyway so its worth a shot.
kay
July 25, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I only have 1 side bar ads in my blog. It generates a lot of clicks but didn’t make a big money though…
Eric
July 29, 2007 at 5:01 am
It may not be as simple as reducing the number of ad units on a page - you also have to take into consideration the average traffic during the X units vs. the X-1 units. Also, the day of the week - the amount of search traffic vs. direct referral traffic (maybe someone Stumbles an article and gets extra clicks). I wouldn’t take numbers from less than a month to make a strategic move on ad units.
Study Guides
July 30, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Adsense is not the way to go anyway. Think about it, you lose a visitor for a small price. That prospect was IMO more important than to be sent away in such a way.
horisly
July 31, 2007 at 8:16 pm
looking forward to john’s back.
SEO Blog
August 1, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I have to try this one. I use link units as well as text ad units, and somehow I get more clicks and earnings from the link units atm. I’ll try this trick when I redesign my blog, which I’m working on these days.
snowfortbuilder
August 1, 2007 at 8:47 pm
If only free web hosts that force ads knew about this. some of them put so many ads on people’s pages its just annoying.
John Bennett
August 2, 2007 at 12:55 am
Figuring out the “right” amount of ads to place on your site is definitely a challenge. You want to maximize profit without turning the reader off because your site looks like spam. Mine is still a work in progress, definitely.
Blackberry Curve
August 5, 2007 at 10:18 am
Really it matters on a variety of factors. For one thing, Link Units never seem to do well, CPC is always less. By having less ads, you are creating fierce competition to allow only the highest bidders in as mentioned.
However, you are also possibly reducing your clickthrough rate. That matters on ad placement.
Ronald
August 5, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Hummm… John seems very busy at the moment…
horisly
August 6, 2007 at 10:12 pm
come to see you again.
horisly
August 6, 2007 at 10:13 pm
johntp,what’s goin on?
steel
August 9, 2007 at 12:02 pm
can you please Tell me which php page I will have to edit & paste my adsense code ? to show ADs under the title name, but it should not show ad’s on Home page.
by mean, when someone clicks on “More” link on home page of that Post & it should show ad’s only in Permenant link page of that Post… !
Blogulate
August 10, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Well what do ya know !
It really works !
Don
August 11, 2007 at 8:09 am
John has left the building! LOL
It’s not unusual for a blogger to go South. Some come back, some don’t. I bet John will come back. It’d be hard to leave a PR6 blog!
Don
Robert Irizarry
August 11, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I’ve been trying this for a few weeks now. I can’t say that I’m seeing more overall earnings although CPM is up. I’m trying to keep in mind that it’s the summer and I’ve been reading that Adsense revenue is down during the summer months.
Anyway, I’ve just taken it a step further and removed all Adsense from my front page and only show a single large rectangle ad on each post page. We’ll see how it goes…
NSpeaks
August 14, 2007 at 10:25 am
- paste ad code in single.php file.
Make money online witha 12 years old kid
August 15, 2007 at 4:04 pm
yeah i tried it too, less adsense blocks on page gives the user a kind of freedom when surfing but when you have your ads clutterd all around the pages you will find your visitors annoyed and getting away from your site.
horisly
August 15, 2007 at 7:01 pm
good point
Tupac
August 16, 2007 at 10:00 pm
That’s great news John! And your earnings doubled? That is a huge improvement.
I can’t particularly see the reason behind this, but I’ll be sure to give it a go on some of my blogs
Thanks for the information.
James Leger
August 17, 2007 at 1:34 pm
The logic makes sense. I am not up there yet when it comes to traffic but will surely try it out on some of my sites.
Bidding Directory
August 19, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I have to ask you guys something. Do you earn more, since google ads have 3 different corners?
guide2getrich
August 26, 2007 at 8:52 am
Jesus, is so simple and it works.
Ronald
August 28, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I agree with this theory, we may be gluttonous but don’t be egoist to placed an advertising at our blog
lady influence
August 29, 2007 at 3:02 pm
very good information. i will apply it on my blog and see if it works for me..im learning a lot from this blog..
Govard
August 30, 2007 at 12:58 am
Oh… how I can register in adsense?
Govard
September 2, 2007 at 3:57 am
Please… give me url of adsense
Michael
September 8, 2007 at 8:48 am
This is absolutely true. Try out the calculator in Test Link ads and it is the same. The less ads, the more they are worth.
Dan
September 18, 2007 at 6:28 am
I did it and I have to say that the clicks increased by 1000% or more. I did not have a click and when I change everything to just one in every post BOOM! the click rating goes up and the money I earn too.
kaushik
September 30, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Is this a joke? Look at this 3 days after I removed 1 ad unit from my blog
http://img154.imageshack.us/im.....nseun3.jpg
I haven’t seen such a low CPC ever before. Should I restore the ad unit?
Jordan McClements
October 29, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I had 3 link units on my main wallpaper web site.
They made me about $30 this month. But I think they mislead inexperienced users anyway - so I have removed them completely.
If this makes my eCPM go up then that is a great bonus also!
Alan
November 6, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Just came across your site. This is a good point and makes sense. Will try it out and see how it goes.
Thanks for sharing this tip.
Jam.W
November 14, 2007 at 8:08 am
I saw this tips before 1 weak, and i applied to my website, now My CTR% is low…. but, My Earnings is triple. Those days, i earn averagely 5 to 10cents for one click, but now i get averagely 35 cents per click, So i earn more now. Thank you JOHN.
I tried and it work
May 23, 2008 at 4:41 am
I tried on my website:
http://www.agranews.com
and it work. Visit my site and see how ads are more selective ( better prices one are displayed)
Thanks
Rajeev
Jordan McClements
July 28, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I tried it for a while but it did not work for me..
I have gone back to a link unit at the top of the screen, and this is one of my best earners..
Moral of story - test what works on your site is probably different from what works on other sites.
As an aside-_ also tested different sized main adsense adverts and found that on my site the large rectangle worked better than the medium rectangle - but others have reported different results…