Do Ugly Sites Earn More With AdSense?

[rustybrick]

An article named The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites (http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/The-Surprising-Truth-About-Ugly-Websites.html) was just /.ed (http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/20/175212&from=rss), it says that this site (http://www.plentyoffish.com/) made $10,000 in one day. Why? Basically because it is ugly? Why would ugly sites make more money according to the article?

Ugly websites are surprisingly effective in making money. As a person who puts business before technology, a profitable website is a website is an unbelievably attractive website to me.

But what I think makes for a profitable AdSense income Web site is a site that makes you want to click off the Web site. If PlentyOffish.com, is doing so well, in terms of functionality, then why are so many people clicking off the site on to ads of other dating sites?

Yea, ugly web sites earn lots of money, if their goal is for you to click on an ad to earn PPC. Do ugly Web sites earn more with AdSense?

[NevDull]

I'm with you on the willingness to click off to follow an ad. Frustration with the free service likely to cause someone to consider match.com, jdate, etc? I'd think so.

[hulkster]

My two cents is he hit a big market niche and "wins" via sheer volume - probably more of a driver than "ugliness.

I do wonder a bit about the $10K/day number, but having read through the WebmasterWorld thread, he seems like a legit guy - impressive stuff!

[gabs]

Almost 1million page views in one day..

The math would be $1 per 100 impression then.. Which guess the cpc i'd say he'd only need a 0.05% CTR..

So it's pos IMHO

[GuyFromChicago]

But what I think makes for a profitable AdSense income Web site is a site that makes you want to click off the Web site.

That's the key right there. I have some ugly pages that are years old that make great revenue for that exact reason - they suck and when people get there they click on the best looking thing on the page - the AdSense ad.

One page in particlar was making about $100 for a year+ straight. Last November I decided to "pretty it up" thinking that would maximize my revenue (both affiliate and Adsense) and discovered that making the page look better actually killed my revenue. After a year + of $100/day the first week of the new design resulted in earnings being cut by 95%. I took down the nice page, uploaded the "ugly page" and revenue was back to normal the very next day.

I would really like to have a better looking/more functional page for my users by can't justify it if the revenue goes from decent to practically nothing overnight.

[gabs]

The other side to this is the fact that the ads can only be styled by colour (unless you one of the lucky ones) this can be classed as Ugly/don't fit with a styled site..

So you add some style to your site and the ads would stand out more as ads thus maybe less clicks.. ?

Its the catch 22.. Better for users vs higher ctr but then your have more users if your site is better.. ummm.. {time to sit on the fence}

[kermit_karma]

I also noticed this on my site. I run a tv guide (http://www.tvguideuk.co.uk) site that I'm constantly modifying to provide a better service.

About a year ago I was using the affiliate mirago search results in conjunction with adsense ads in an old basic layout.

As soon as I started using a better set of search results my adsense revenue dropped.

Again when I redesigned the site to make it look nicer and be more functional, with loads of extra pages, hence loads more adsense ads (not excessive tho) it dropped still further.

I am in a real catch-22 here as I want my site to look nice and provide a good service but I want to make some wedge from it. If anyone has any other ideas how I can get the revenue back without being detrimental to the look and feel then I would be much obliged, maybe i'm just doing something fundementally wrong on my site!:(

[gabs]

Do you reckon google might think along the same lines ?

I still find the quality of broad search on google low (the best out of all the SE) but end up clicking on some ads..


The Auth site status must help google's rev as i'm searching for lets say a book and don't like the info i've read on amazon which comes up say #1 and #2 with then a list of kelkoo's and shopping.com alikes #3-#10.. but a ad shows up being very relevant to my search.. Bamm click google makes $$

[Sharpseo]

My two cents is he hit a big market niche and "wins" via sheer volume - probably more of a driver than "ugliness.

Exactly. This guy has GREAT search engine placement. #2 for "free online dating" on Google, which gets ~43k searches/day according to DP's overture-based tool.

Scobelizer's post (http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti-marketing-design/) about him oversimplified things. Like hulkster said, much more to do with a great niche (and traffic) + pretty good ad integration.

[dazzlindonna]

Ugly can help. But let me give you a potentially better idea, but just as effective. Rather than ugly, try SIMPLE. Simple doesn't have to be ugly, it just needs to be clean. In other words, don't let your visitor wonder what to do next by presenting him with too many options. Make it obvious what you want your visitor to do next, and don't let him get confused by 100 things on the page. It's not the only way to succeed, as crowded pages can be useful as well, but clean, simple, straightforward pages can point the way - to whatever - adsense, affiliate links, products, forms...whatever the goal is.

[EGOL]

I like donna's idea... but also the CTR will be higher if the content is terrible. If the content is great they will read the content.. but if the content stinks the ads will be more interesting.

[GuyFromChicago]

Rather than ugly, try SIMPLE.

How about simply ugly?:D

[hulkster]

Here's my contender for simply ugly ;-) (http://rat-hunter.com/)

P.S. If you own a pet rat and/or belong to PETA, you may not want to click on that site.

[gabs]

The rat and gun pointer killed my IE..

I smell a rat!

[hulkster]

Did it really crash your browser? Do a view-source ... no shenagins ... a few lines of Javascript to load the customized cursor. Works fine for me in both IE and Firefox - sounds effects (which are ... uhhh ... entertaining ;-) are .wav files using the EMBED tag - see bottom of the html.

P.S. BTW, just to go back-on-topic slightly, this is NOT a money-maker ... was just fun to futz around with some CSS/AJAX stuff.

[gabs]

Scroll wheels and mouse pointers don't alway mix ;)

[pk_synths]

Unfortunately that website owner could have monetized the traffic better. With a million pageviews and some ads the website owner can make around 45K a day.

CPM advertising is alot more profitable than PPC will ever be. An average adspot yields a $15 CPM (Cost Per Thousand) so 1MM divided by 1000 = 1000CPM units. 1000CPM units X $15CPM = $15K in revenue. Just add 2 more adspots (leaderboard, skyscraper, bottom banner. etc.) and you get $45K per day.

An ad server would cost about $500 per day to serve that many ads and a salesperson's monthly salary would run about $2K. Everything else is pure profit :)

My PPC income is around $5K while my CPM campaigns bring in close to $300K per month. Do the math. PPC works but CPM is better :)

[Sharpseo]

Unfortunately that website owner could have monetized the traffic better. With a million pageviews and some ads the website owner can make around 45K a day.

CPM advertising is alot more profitable than PPC will ever be. An average adspot yields a $15 CPM (Cost Per Thousand) so 1MM divided by 1000 = 1000CPM units. 1000CPM units X $15CPM = $15K in revenue. Just add 2 more adspots (leaderboard, skyscraper, bottom banner. etc.) and you get $45K per day.

An ad server would cost about $500 per day to serve that many ads and a salesperson's monthly salary would run about $2K. Everything else is pure profit


A Salesperson who works for $24k/year, that can sell $45 worth of CPM banners per page, to the tune of $45k/day, is one I would love to hire :)

[pk_synths]

Don;t be surprised if they try to renegotiate their contract after 1 month :D

Usually a % split works best.

[KeithCash]

I also prefer simple. This type of site works best for my clients.

[drumat5280]

It might not just be the Ugly issue, it might have to do with tone of his writing.

If you read the plentyoffish about us page he does not capitize the word i. But when you read his post on WMW you will see that he does.

This gives his site a more un-professional feel which users might expect in a free site.

It could be just the tone of his writing.

[Kenny Allman]

An article named The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites (http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/The-Surprising-Truth-About-Ugly-Websites.html) was just /.ed (http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/20/175212&from=rss), it says that this site (http://www.plentyoffish.com/) made $10,000 in one day. Why? Basically because it is ugly? Why would ugly sites make more money according to the article?



But what I think makes for a profitable AdSense income Web site is a site that makes you want to click off the Web site. If PlentyOffish.com, is doing so well, in terms of functionality, then why are so many people clicking off the site on to ads of other dating sites?

Yea, ugly web sites earn lots of money, if their goal is for you to click on an ad to earn PPC. Do ugly Web sites earn more with AdSense?
Yes. I've see ugly sites out perform pretty ones many times, but only for one visit and they are gone. In the end my goal is to have many return visitors.

I still think the internet is like a bricks and mortar business in this respect. Return customers and visitors is the answer to long term success.

- Kenny

[imike]

I agreed simple is the right way to go. Ugliness is bad and will defintely drives visitors away. Do it the correct way by adding new content and slowly build links and you will be on your way to success.
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[Diwinu]

Too early...

[Steve Thomas]

Well!
It will never work out in a long run.


Steve Thomas

[axlarry]

Well!
It will never work out in a long run.


Steve Thomas

I know this is an old thread, but I just want to reply to this post.
You're right, at least now Google started to ban arbitrage and MFA :D

[lekkii]

I'm not succcess with that.May be can try to do one.

[nacworld]

The ugly website you have mentioned gets 1.4 millions of visitors per day, did you know that ???? PlentyofFish.com
Check Peer1.com Hosting company - and PlentyofFish is on the main page...

[adsmoko]

Try to make your site user friendly even though other people think the design was ugly.That's way better site

[webhosting]

That's the key right there. I have some ugly pages that are years old that make great revenue for that exact reason - they suck and when people get there they click on the best looking thing on the page - the AdSense ad.

One page in particlar was making about $100 for a year+ straight. Last November I decided to "pretty it up" thinking that would maximize my revenue (both affiliate and Adsense) and discovered that making the page look better actually killed my revenue. After a year + of $100/day the first week of the new design resulted in earnings being cut by 95%. I took down the nice page, uploaded the "ugly page" and revenue was back to normal the very next day.

I would really like to have a better looking/more functional page for my users by can't justify it if the revenue goes from decent to practically nothing overnight.

Lots of cool information here .

[Jacob777]

I suppose it's much clean than other site

[alexisj]

Better do clean than ugly ones..
I think the point here is that...why not just create
a simple one..
than making ugly ones..

But I see it as a good trick..! :cheer2:

[Blackpool_Beach]

Almost 1million page views in one day..

The math would be $1 per 100 impression then.. Which guess the cpc i'd say he'd only need a 0.05% CTR..

So it's pos IMHO

If its $1 per 100 impression hes onto a winner here then

[Hsekhar]

That plentyoffish site is no ugly site. Besides you need a lot of content on your site to earn big, the thing if the site is good-looking or ugly comes next.

I don't think ugly sites earn more with adsense.

[chawchaw]

really ?

Thank for info.

[joycegot]

A big pitfall of the Ugly Sites Earn More With AdSense is that, what is the definition of ugly??

The so calles ugly in your eyes maybe specaill in the other's eyes~!

[bugzy]

Based on my experienced it's not on the design the simplier the better. What matters most is the service and content your website is offering

[joycegot]

Based on my experienced it's not on the design the simplier the better. What matters most is the service and content your website is offering

Right! But, as designers, we have to take the vistors's experience into it, so that the beautiful designs win!! I guess!

I also hold the belife that the simpler the better!

:):)

[muzammal]

Don't say ugly... Keep you desing neat and clean or you can say simple and clean.


Don't add too many images ... I believe too many images in posts will not help in increasing adsense income

[Gennie32]

yes it does. but i think its a bad idea.. there are better ways. try creating curiosity. ull have more visitors.

[seosaro]

yes but not much

[aimhigh]

Wow, I didn't know that ugly site will earn more. Thanks for the idea. I think i'll start creating an ugly sites. :P

[haverox]

yea ugly sites def do way way better. This is kinda old news but yea

[ser320]

I think your confusing making money with adsense and getting conversions. I'm not saying ugly sites don't sell. I am saying that pleny of fish makes money [ off of PPC. That is all we know. We don't know if the click turn into sales. Getting people to click on adsense is very differnt than getting actual conversions

[sockyee]

Well, I don't think so. It will of course lead to high bounce rate and by any chance when google spot the trend, this will somehow affect the whole seo process. Finally it means ugly sites, lead to high bounce rate and then drop in serp.

[afridz]

so u say we juz wanna make the visitor well planned bout the nxt step to take.. nice advise.. thank u..

[felixjames]

Exactly. This guy has GREAT search engine placement. #2 for "free online dating" on Google, which gets ~43k searches/day according to DP's overture-based tool.

Scobelizer's postabout him oversimplified things. Like hulkster said, much more to do with a great niche (and traffic) + pretty good ad integration.

Will it work out if i starts a brand new websites.

[mody1001]

i do not know i am sorry

[rencalago37]

that will depend.. because their are some ugly sites that earn much higher comparing to those you have an excellent sites.. alright.

[Lancer786]

Don't know if they earn more or not but yes they do earn quickly than non-ugly sites. If we observe them closely, one may can say that they are earning more because people are even interested their ads.

[sheleja]

hiiiiii
thanks all for lovely disscussion special thanks to dazzlindonna. i m totaly agree with her.site should be simple and informative but not complecated and most importantly user friendly.

thanks.