I added as many ads as I could in the past. Probably Every four to six paragraphs.
Why wouldn’t you do that?
That was what Ezoic, Mediavine and Raptive sites were doing.
Since Google started to smash every small site out there, I have been more cautious about the number of ads I add to my sites.
if you add more ads to your site, you might end up making more money, but you might also get hit by a Google Update.
I remove ad units which are not making the least amount of money to keep a balance between the money I make and the number of ads visitors see.
Days have been rough these days but this can give you an idea about what ad units to spare and what to remove.
Table of Contents
Adsense Stats from October 2024
If you use Adsense or an Ad network that provides good reports, you can do a similar exercise.
| Placement | Earnings |
| In-Content Ad #1 | 13.3% |
| In-Content Ad #2 | 7.2% |
| In-Content Ad #3 | 4.7% |
| In-Content Ad #4 | 4.8% |
| In-Content Ad #5 | 3.8% |
| In-Content Ad #6 | 2.6% |
| Anchor Ad | 17.7% |
| Sidebar 1 | 4.0% |
| Sidebar 2 | 2.9% |
| Sidebar 3 | 4.5% |
| Sidebar 4 | 2.9% |
| Sidebar 5 | 4.0% |
| Vignette Ads | 27.7% |
| Link Units | 0.1% |
Top Earners vs Low Earners
These are some of my conclusions:
- I am not removing Vignette Ads. Its frequency is set to 2 minutes because that’s almost 28% of my earnings.
- Anchor Ads are also here to stay since these made up 18% of my earnings.
- In-Content Ad # 1 is also a top earner since it makes 13% of my earnings. it is placed after the third paragraph.
So those three ads make 60% of all my display ads earnings.
Remove Link Units?
I am using intent links or link units which are inserted into existing text on your pages, so they don’t bother visitors. Do they bother Google? I guess we’ll never know.
it also seem that they are not shown to that many people, but when they are, they perform really.
$8.90 RPM
So you get an idea Vignettes has a $1.94 RPM
Remove Sidebar Ad?
I think I should remove an Ad Units from the sidebar, these are shown to desktop users only and a some of them are not performing that well.
It could be probably because there are five in-view sticky ads on the sidebar, which could be interpreted by Google as a desperate attempt to monetize my sites.
But I rather see a sidebar ad instead of a ad placed between paragraphs.
Remove In-Content Ad?
If I had to remove a in-content ad unit, I would consider removing In-Content Ad #6 of course which is placed After Paragraph #25.
The only argument in favor of this Ad unit is that is not grouped with other ad units, so let’s think that it will piss Google HCU less.
Final Verdict
The sidebar units and in-content ad unit #6 have been removed so I have :
- 10 ads manually placed
- Vignette ads shown by Google Auto Ads
- Link units also placed using Auto Ads
