One of the biggest things I still see forum owners miss is placing images near their Google Adsense/YPN ads. The best place to put an ad, in my experience, has been underneath the navbar with a 728x90 leaderboard ad. Above the ad you should place 4 images that are 125-150 in width and the same height. This helps draw attention to your ads and nets a much higher CTR resulting in much higher earnings!

You should seperate your ads with a light border to comply with the TOS of the advertiser.

So what has your experience been after you put ads above the images? How big of a CTR/Earnings increase did you see?

An example is: Mustang Forums | Ford Mustang Enthusiast Forums

I just did it this week, and my earnings went up nearly 300% for the past few days.

My image setup is identical to Brent's.

I'm interested in doing this, sounds it works well. How do you have the images be the same height? Sometimes I get those tall thumbnails which look different form the normal horizontal ones. Did you edit inc_features? And if so, how?

thanks

Oh nevermind. "AND p.height < p.width" in the query that grabs the photos does what I want.

Inside AdSense: Ad and image placement: a policy clarification

http://www.vbulletinzone.com/t193/

Just wanted to update this. If you are worried about Google Adsense banning you over the images I have found that the 336x280 block does really really well in its place under the navbar. It is only 80px or so higher than the images and adsense were and has a better payout and about the same CTR.

This is what I'm currently using on AlcoholReport.com - Alcohol Enthusiasts.

For guests:

Attachment 26

For members:

Attachment 27

CTR is way up, eCPM is way up, and earnings are way up. :cool:

Those images are Google ad units, btw.

Attached Images

	guestads.jpg (28.7 KB, 88 views)
	memberads.jpg (17.0 KB, 28 views)

I am thinking about going back to the 336x280 ads again for guests. Had it before moving to the leaderboard under the featured photos.

I am so pissed off at google right now over this change in policy..... They call it a policy clarification in public, that is in no way what it is. It is an abrupt "change" in policy, and one that is going to hurt adsense in the long run.

I'm making more with this layout



than I did with a leaderboard and photos above them.