Affiliate Marketing Forum

advantages · Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 2

I have two almost identical music sites:
www.musictodownload.eu
www.freemusictodownload.eu

They always have had very similar AdSense CTR and Revenues.

Few weeks ago I started to exchange links. I have been offering adding link on www.musictodownload.eu (in Links) in turn of placing link to my other site www.freemusictodownload.eu .

Since I have been doing it, I have noticed dramatically drop of my CTR for www.musictodownload.eu . It was earlier about [double-digit figure]% and now (for few weeks) is about [low single-digit figure]%. Of course I have more impressions for www.freemusictodownload.eu and almost the same CTR as earlier.

Why have dropped my CTR for www.musictodownload.eu ? Could you help me?

Thank you!

[Links edited (space added at end) to make them work properly. Admin.]

AllanGardyne · Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:11 am Post subject:

A fascinating problem! It will be interesting to see what other AdSense users suggest.

Just a reminder, though, please don't post specific AdSense click-through details on this forum. That's against the AdSense Terms of Service which you agreed to when you joined AdSense. I don't want to be dumped from AdSense.
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Polar · Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 42 Location: Montreal, Canada

One possible reason : A high paying advertiser might have put the URL of the site in his filter to avoid his ads to appear on your site...

If he had the best ad and most of your trafic used to click on it, it can have a huge impact on your revenues.
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Steve M Nash · Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 1

Hi

The only thing that I can think of is that one
site is now being linked to from a site which
has much less targeted visitors. Have your visitor
numbers gone up a lot? Do people visit both
sites, and perhaps they visit the site with lower
CTR second.

I would try and identify, as much as possible, what
is different between the two sites, if you can.

Sorry can't be of more help.

By the way the second "www.freemusictodownload.eu."
has an extra dot (.) in it, taking visitors to
a very different website

Steve

[Quotes placed around incorrect link to unhyperlink it. Admin.]
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niallr · Joined: 11 Dec 2003 Posts: 34

Hi there,

There seems to be a few people suffering from much lower Adsense earnings and CTR this month.

Last week I put up two portal style sites (small 6 page each) and within days my Adsense earnings took a nosedive (40 - 50% less overall).

I'm taking down both of those portal style sites tonight to see if that has any impact i.e. are the style of sites being monitored by Google.

Will let you know.

Niall
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ahearn · Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 27 Location: Atlanta, GA

advntages:

There are any number of possible reasons for this situation. First, you're assuming that the same type of visitors are coming to both sites, for the same reasons -- which probably is not the case. I would guess that each site appears differently in search engine results, and in different rankings, which would result in differences in the type of visitor and their expectations. I suspect that something changed in the way one of your sites is being displayed in search engine results.
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Voasi · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 895 Location: California, The OC

Smart pricing might have kicked in. If your ads aren't converting for the advertisers, your commission will be lower.

That's one possibility.

Another might be the way you've been doing your linking; 3-way linking. Amidst what people say, Google can see those 3-way links. And a lot of the time, will have a link from one site to another, or maybe their on the same IP. Point is its easier to spot, pushing impressions down, as well as CTR.
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Peter · Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 18 Location: Orlando

Here's a thought. What if your site with the lower CTR recently took a positive jump up in the search engine results for its main KW. And as a result you get more traffic. But now the traffic includes some less tageted visitors because the higher visibilty attracts more casual visitors. These less targeted visitors are less likely to click an ad. Before the jump up in the search engine results, your visitors had to dig a little deeper and work a little harder to find you. This type of visitor would naturally be more targeted and hense more likely to click an ad.
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advantages · Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 2

Thank you!
I will check some of your ideas and let you know what is the reason for lower CTR.

quest · Joined: 13 Aug 2006 Posts: 823

CTR is NOT related to smart pricing, payout is. CTR is straight forward - they click or they don't.

As you ad links from other sites to your site the bot will use those links to determine what your site is about.

Imagine if 100 people linked in to you with sheet music and another 100 linked in to your with FREE Downloads. The content in the ads will vary.

So while there are many factors that will play a role in click throughs you need to consider which ads are displaying. You need to know which pages on your site are bringing in the traffic. You need to know which ads are displayed on those pages.

You can control the size, colors, etc. of your own material. So you should be able to test and find out for yourself why your clickthrough rates have dropped month to month.
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AllanGardyne · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 12:34 am Post subject:

quest · Joined: 13 Aug 2006 Posts: 823

It works you can test it if you have mininets. It's kind of hard to control how other people link to you though.

Trying to change only the on page factors can be a real challenge. How much weight is assigned to on page vs inbound links? Who knows? I don't worry about it. I just change things until I get what I want. And unfortunatley it doesn't happen instantly. Sometimes the changes are quick sometimes not.

The challenge now is to "fix" links from sites that are essentially banned. The only way to fix them is to get them recrawled. And the only way I know how to do that is to get sites that are not banned to link in to those that are. Even tougher.

BTW: Nearly everything with Google is "Theory" these days... but you now that.

Over the weekend I watched several sites with tons of incomming links - related but not necessarily real tight drop in the rankings. One site that had been #1 on the top 10 for years. This site was NOT using artifical linking, but it was essentially a link site. Another site that dropped was in fact using artificial linking strategies and should have been banned a very long time ago.

It's Christmas season should we expect anything less than disruption Smile

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