First Attempts At Arbi - Am I Over Complicating Things

[Dio]

I'm giving arbi a spin at the moment. I have other affiliate and content sites that make a bit (not a lot) from other sources and thought this might interesting to try. I spent the weekend glancing at a few sites and posts and made my first site in about 3 hours (after the template were done)

I'm getting traffic to it, but it's not converting well. I made the template and site to feature both affiliate and PPC sections. I've had a bit more of a browse around and found some examples of layouts you guys are using and realised I might be over-thinking things and designing things.

I'm looking for advice on a couple of things. Firstly, am I giving the users to much choice? There's a site navigation in the big header - should I be thinking more on a per-page model than a per-site model?

Which leads me onto my second question. A lot of the sites I've seen here have no page to page navigation. In the AdSense TOS, it mentions sites need to have working navigations. Does building a single page with none mean a violation of the TOS?

Any thoughts on the pages and potential changes appreciated.

Oh yes, the URL is Welcome To The Fresher Breath Info Index Page

 

[Jathan]

Try what everyone has said over and over here.... 1 row of ads on the left, content on the right.

 

[domokun]

I think some of your ads (especially the one with the topless lady :love-smiley-085 might be in infringement of adsense services because it draws too much attention to the ad

 

[Dio]

I think some of your ads (especially the one with the topless lady :love-smiley-085 might be in infringement of adsense services because it draws too much attention to the ad

LOL - She's not topless, it's just low cut and cropped off. I got the idea for doing the image like that from the Adsense Background site. I wouldn't pay for their stuff though. According to their spiel:

Isn't It Against Google's Terms of Service?

I'm sure some of will ask this question. So I sent an email to Adsense support team and showed the samples. This is what they said:
Hi Jay,

Thanks for your interest in AdSense. I'd be happy to answer your question about decorative backgrounds.

As you may know, publishers are not allowed to alter the AdSense ad code for any reason. Once you've generated the ad code in your AdSense account pages, you may not alter any portion of the code or manually change the layout of the ads.

The individual ad implementations you've proposed appear to be compliant with our program policies.

- The Google AdSense Team
According to Google AdSense team, as long as you don't change the Adsense code, which you must not do in any case, and follow the Adsense guidelines, these designs are fine to use with Adsense ads. According to Google TOS, you must not encourage clicks or unnatural attention to the ad, such as by using arrows and offer rewards for clicks. These background images naturally blend with the ads to make them look better.

If she was pointing at the adds it would be an issue. That's my interpretation any way.

 

[Reefer420]

my best sites were the easiest to make - around 200 words Bsing about the topic- ads to the left, one large pic to draw attention to them...

 

[micfire]

Your interpretation is wrong

1. There needs to be a line between pics and ads, a clear line that is.
2. Don't try to be smart ass. That woman is only there for "to show the ads".

If you come up with these "new designs" and don't want to risk your Adsense account, just make html page with only the ad design and ask Google to review it. I have done this few times and both times my designs were not ok. Well, other thing you could try is to grow some balls and just do it. What's the worst thing can happen? They ban your Adsense account.. big deal.

 

[Allen.H]

Well, other thing you could try is to grow some balls and just do it. What's the worst thing can happen? They ban your Adsense account.. big deal.

For some of us it is a very big deal.

@Dio: not meaning to go off topic with your question, but your adsense position near that fine lady does violate Adesense's TOS. I've spoke to Adsense reps several times on this, all said it is okay as long as there is a visible seperator between the ad and the image. You can choose to disregard this of course.

I'm looking for advice on a couple of things. Firstly, am I giving the users to much choice? There's a site navigation in the big header - should I be thinking more on a per-page model than a per-site model?

You can think per-site model, as long as you keep the content on pretty much the same subject, i don't have the permission to post someone's URL, but some guy from around here posted a site with navigation at the top that all pages had to do with mortgage-related content.

Which leads me onto my second question. A lot of the sites I've seen here have no page to page navigation. In the AdSense TOS, it mentions sites need to have working navigations. Does building a single page with none mean a violation of the TOS?

I've taken a look at this clause, and i'd say it's rather about visitor accessibility and not content. See, they want your site to be easily navigtable if you have navigation options, and if you don't it's fine, but don't go posting broken and messed up navigation links.

 

[micfire]

For some of us it is a very big deal.

Ya, that's why I said "grow some balls". I know a guy who said that getting banned from Adsense was the best thing ever happened to him business wise He found out other ways, more profitable ways to make money

 

[Dio]

my best sites were the easiest to make - around 200 words Bsing about the topic- ads to the left, one large pic to draw attention to them...

Thanks, I'm going to go and try some simpler things - this is quite a leap for me, I'm used to making whole sites - simple single pages is still a new thing for me and it's hard to break old habits.

2. Don't try to be smart ass. That woman is only there for "to show the ads".

Like I'm going to try and deny that - it's an arbi site...

In the past I've seen a few things from the adsense team that led me to understand that if there's enough whitespace between adds and image, it's Ok. Anyway, added a visible barrier, just to be sure. Visually, it kills the block for me.

For some of us it is a very big deal.

You can think per-site model, as long as you keep the content on pretty much the same subject, i don't have the permission to post someone's URL, but some guy from around here posted a site with navigation at the top that all pages had to do with mortgage-related content.

I've taken a look at this clause, and i'd say it's rather about visitor accessibility and not content. See, they want your site to be easily navigtable if you have navigation options, and if you don't it's fine, but don't go posting broken and messed up navigation links.

Cheers, I've not spotted anything on the forum that points to people getting bans for lack of navigation and single landing pages - so I really need to simplify some more.

 

[scott]

This to me is NOT an arbitrage page. Way too many options for the surfer. You want one or two blocks of adsense and nothing else. Lose the links to your other pages and move the text up next to your first Adsense block. Then get rid of the search and the rest of the ads.

Arbitrage to me means buy traffic cheap --> surfer sees your page with some text and Adsense ads --> surfer either clicks back or clicks an ad.