Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Google Page Rank and Contextual Ads

Last April (2004), my family had the opportunity to visit the beautiful beaches of Ubatuba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, shown to the left. Overhead, a sky diving team makes light what would scare most of us senseless. Because they've jumped more than a few times, what was once frightening even to them, is now fun and thrilling!

These guys didn't jump while we were there, and a friend directed me to their sky diving site, but I am told they all made it back down to earth only to jump again another day.

In my experience, you could go from a frightened contextual ad user to having fun watching your revenue increase in a few months. Block out a few hours of day now to learn your craft. Just remember - work this thing as a business, and you will get paid like a business.

A few posts back, I commented how the Google Jagger update zeroed out my Google Page Rank. It dropped from a healthy five. In case you are wondering, yes, I did write Google and let them know that I thought it was a mistake because the site does offer what many have told me is valuable content.

Of course, many think I'm just rehashing what they already know, but that's okay. If I had this information when I started with AdSense many moons ago, I would be wealthier.

In any event, I am happy to say that the powers that be at Google agreed with me and reinstated my Page Rank to a five. Someone actually took a stab at trying to figure out what Page Rank is and how it is derived. The funny part to me is that you never hear from Google whether someone "came close" or really "got it right". They are quiet about this stuff. But, if you read my post on Page Rank, you'll see it's an evolution of why Google even exists.

I was asked recently if PR really mattered in the grand scheme of things.

The question came in the form of e-mail, and had to do with the bearing Google Page Rank might have on the quality of contextual ads running on the site. So, I investigated.

Taking into consideration the Page Rank, I looked at click through rates and ad payout. What I found was that there is a correlation between the frequency ads are displayed and the quality of ads displayed, but no link between your PR and what ad appear.

As a matter of fact, the highest paying ads I have are running on pages with no Page Rank at all.

What does this mean? It means that I will continue to concentrate on what is most important and that is - driving qualified traffic to pages filled with content of value to them. Even if Page Rank did influence the ads, I would still make this my motto.

Okay, so maybe my few sites are not enough to qualify as a scientific experiment. But, I'm sticking with it until I learn otherwise. It just makes sense.

Keep working on getting higher CTR's and contact me if you believe I can help.

Kind regards,
Dave Jackson
Naples, FL

No comments: