Google Site Exclusion Limit at 5000 sites.

[Discovery]

The site exclusion limit of 5000 sites has been set for a while now. However, many advertisers are now coming up on this limit as we have.

Our latest placement report had over 500 pure crap sites.
Some were porn sites, many foreign based and many more just pure content scraping junk sites with no legitimate content or purpose. If Google is going to serve our ads on such terrible sites then they need to have unlimited site exclusion.

Of these 377 had at least 1 click or more.
(honestly we only excluded sites with 0 clicks who had over 100k impressions.)

These sites cost us: $2632.01
Total Clicks: 765
Avg. CPC: $3.44

Now that we have hit this limit our content performance is quickly declining, there is little doubt my rep will help increase this limit. But why have a limit at all?

Have many of you hit the 5000 site mark?

Discovery

[sitetruth]

Do you really want to use the Google Content Network at all? Or are search ads producing most of your real sales?

If you can't tell which clicks convert to sales, you probably don't want to be using the Content Network. Remember, 10% of the users produce 50% of the clicks, and that 10% will click on anything and buy nothing.

[Discovery]

I would dare to say if you can't tell which clicks convert into sales, then you shouldnt be using PPC at all. It's such a no brainer that there is no excuse not to track your clicks to sales.

Content performance on Google has slipped in this past 6 months. Not sure if it is sign of the times, increase in bad publishers, lack of standards by G or what, but it has clearly dipped. I am not happy finding my client's ads running on porn sites, homestead personal pages for big booties nor spammy "fill in and win" sites. With that said, Google is the only content network that has actually ever worked.

36-39% of our conversions are on the content network.
Placement ONLY advertising campaigns with keywords tightened up that ratio nearly to 1:1 however, the CPC on the placement ads exceeded our target.

Here are 3 reasons content can perform poorly.
(yes there are more)

1. The search behavior is general but the topic and or solution being sold is complex creating a mismatch in the discovery process. Foreclosure may be a good example. The keword is what most consumers know of an use, however the intent of the searcher are complex and solutions are varied. It is difficult for advertisers to handle this problem by creating thousands of targeted adgroups.

2. The topic is very lucrative with $5 KWs and scamsters are out their to hit you with click fraud.

3. The advertiser has no clue on how to control content with proper campaign structure, targeting, specific wording of ads and vigilant reporting.

One great way content can out perform search is when it comes to local search. Many consumers trust local sites such as their local newspaper, radio or news station when it comes to finding a local service; the handyman, dentist, doctor or auto repair service. Local search and content are a powerful combo.

Yahoo content - Stinks

MSN/Adcenter content is fantastic, but it is limited to MSN properties and subject to huge swings in volume.. nothing one day and a landslide the next. MSN has not opened up their network to syndicated content thus they have little to no "placement" reporting. Great conversion rates otherwise.

ASK.com - a crapshoot, mostly crap.
Findology, Kanoodle, abcsearch and virtually all other 2nd tier networks you can count on a good old fashion ass whoop'en. And thats my professional opinion.

Discovery

[jimbeetle]

Content publishers have also taken a hit lately with boatloads of spammy ads that have nothing at all to do with their pages. Google's system -- whether it admits it or not -- has somehow been gamed and it affects folks on both sides, the legitimate advertisers looking for coverage and the legitimate publishers looking for legitimate advertisers.

I might be wrong (usually am), but I firmly believe this is tied in with the recent spate of hacked AdWords accounts; it's just too coincidental to me for it not to be. Scammers need many accounts to carry this off, and what better way to pay for it than to use other peoples' money. And heck, besides phishing emails, the scammers have used AdWords to advertise phishing pages.

Google appears to be facing a few challenges now as it tries to deliver quality for all of its audiences: advertisers, publishers and, of course, its users.

[Farhan]

there is an article at seobook blog about arbitrage clicks. This might be a reason for low performance of keywords in the content network. Another thread here at webmaster world forum has this discussion recently.