Subheadings and google adds

Hi there,

If an article has (too) many subheadings (they are shown on the right as well in the table), the google adds don't show up anymore. Especially anoying regarding the Caribbean Ferries article

Mike

Ok, got this things changed now, wasn't thinking this early already.
From headings to subheadings.
Still, this could be prevented when there are too many subheadings though

Hey Mike,

I think the ads should still show up, though they'd obviously be quite a bit further down the page. I don't think there's any good way to push the ads up in that case (other than converting headings to subheadings as you did), because that table of contents really needs to be at the top in my opinion.

Cheers,
Eric

Sorry to disappoint you Eric,
But they adds did not show up anywhere. I changed it now using 3 times the = instead of 2. The subheadings do not show on the right, the normal headings do.
Mike

Huh, the ads didn't show at all? There's nothing in our code stopping that from happening, so I can only guess there might have been some Google issue. For a slightly longer navigation to cause that would seem odd though.

Quoting Peter

Huh, the ads didn't show at all? There's nothing in our code stopping that from happening, so I can only guess there might have been some Google issue. For a slightly longer navigation to cause that would seem odd though.

The best thing you can do is check an article without too much headings or quickfacts and compare it with one that has many headings and quick facts. There the adds usually show up at the extreme top or bottom on the right, because the content (headings and subheadings) and quickfacts are in the way (they are in the same place you know).
The caribbean ferries article had many headings, and now used subheadings, after which things were ok.
If you are in doubt, just revert the caribbean ferries article to the previous version and you will see what I mean.

I really am suprised that you either don't believe me or don't know exactly what I mean
It's not a bug Peter and nor has it something to do with google. It's just that the adds are in the same position as the quickfacts and headings, and thus compete with eachother for space, which after a while is limited

[ Edit: Edited on 02-Oct-2009, at 05:06 by Utrecht ]

Ah, so you're just talking about how they are pushed down. Your first post suggested that they weren't showing at all and later on you seemed to confirm that with "the adds did not show up anywhere". Got me confused there

Yes, well, that is a bit hard to work around I'm afraid. I think your solution to use subheadings is probably the best. The alternative would be ads right at the top or within the content. In the content would in fact probably be the best for clicks, but obviously the trade-off is that it is butt ugly.

On the topic of ads, we've discussed internally at least the idea of including ads only for people who aren't logged in. This would capture the majority of people who actually click on ads while leaving the site nice and clean for those who are members. In a world where that was the case, we could potentially make some ads more prominent I would think.

Quoting Peter

Ah, so you're just talking about how they are pushed down. Your first post suggested that they weren't showing at all and later on you seemed to confirm that with "the adds did not show up anywhere". Got me confused there

Yes, well, that is a bit hard to work around I'm afraid. I think your solution to use subheadings is probably the best. The alternative would be ads right at the top or within the content. In the content would in fact probably be the best for clicks, but obviously the trade-off is that it is butt ugly.

On the topic of ads, we've discussed internally at least the idea of including ads only for people who aren't logged in. This would capture the majority of people who actually click on ads while leaving the site nice and clean for those who are members. In a world where that was the case, we could potentially make some ads more prominent I would think.

Ok, sorry for the confusion I may have caused.
I wouldn't have a clue though if people who aren't logged in click (more) than people who are members. But I guess you can see that

I don't have specific insight into whether people were logged in or not when they clicked. But we can more broadly see the difference between how many people are logged in at any point in time vs how many aren't. And there are FAR more that aren't.

These ads are generally also more successful when people actually *don't* get what they were after. Basically, they then want to look elsewhere, so are prone to clicking on ads more. This explains the plethora of sites that have very little content but are plastered with ads. The point being that people who are just dropping in off the search engines are the ones most likely to be clicking on through. Or so the theory goes. I'm not really an expert on ads to be honest - it's not a big focus for us.