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Comment Moderation - How Do You Do It? Posted: 15 Aug 2008 12:25 PM PDT Today I came across a post on one of the NYT blogs on how the blogger there, Marci Alboher, moderates comments on her blog - via Steve Rubel. In the post Marci shares a few reasons why she doesn’t allow comments to go up: 1. It is too long (even though it might be well-written and make interesting points). 2. It is nasty, impolite or uses language that is unprintable in The New York Times. 3. It includes a a link that has a typo or is broken in some other way (again, even though it may be well-written and make interesting points). 4. It should have been sent as an e-mail since it is clearly addressed to me and does not appear to have been intended for other readers. 5. It is pandering to me (like visiting the blog to tell me that I'm brilliant and have my finger on the pulse of something) or blatantly self-promotional. I’m fascinated by this list on a number of fronts. I think it’s great that Marci (and the NYT) has thought through which comments she’ll allow up on her blog. I suspect that many bloggers don’t have any kind of policy on comment moderation (formal or informal) and have not communicated to their readers what they accept or don’t accept. I think that such a policy would be helpful for both readers and bloggers. My personal opinion on comment policies is that what the blogger (or the blog owner) says goes. We all have different opinions, values and approaches but in the same way that I decide what I want to happen inside my home I decide that boundaries of behavior on my blog. While a few of the things that Marci said do make me raise my eyebrows (moderating comments based upon length even if they are well written and interesting for example) it’s her (and the NYT) prerogative to set the boundaries where she sets them. Having said that - I find it interesting to see where bloggers do draw the line. Perhaps it’s partly to do with writing a blog for the NYT who would have strong guidelines on such matters - but I get the feeling that Marci moderates comments a lot more tightly and in areas that most bloggers wouldn’t even consider moderating comments on. Most bloggers do have concerns of self promotion (particularly when it borders on spam) and many would edit based upon unacceptable language or personal attack but the idea of moderating based upon length or comments with typos in links goes to a place that I’ve not seen many bloggers go. I don’t really want to create a discussion based around debating whether Marci’s approach is ‘right or wrong’ (I think it’s really up to her to make those decisions for her blog) but I would love to hear readers opinions and experiences is setting boundaries in their own blog’s comment sections. Do you have a comments policy on your blog (written or unwritten)? When do you moderate comments? What triggers you to moderate certain comments? PS: My answers to these questions are in my comment policy. It’s a little dated (written in 2005) but it still largely fits with my approach. Share This

Split Testing: How To Increase Your Adsense Earnings 94% Overnight Posted: 15 Aug 2008 07:07 AM PDT In this post Brian Armstrong from StartBreakingFree.com shares some tips on using Split Testing to increase his AdSense earnings. Long time readers of ProBlogger know that Darren is a big fan of split testing ads to improve your earnings. I took this advice to heart, and wanted to show you some real world results that I got on my own blog. Feel free to take these results and apply them to your own site. Or better yet, do some of our own testing and improve on them even more! I split tested 3 separate regions of my site and looked mostly at eCPM to compare them. If you aren’t sure what eCPM is click here. I think it’s better to use eCPM than click through rate (CTR) because it incorporates not just how often it’s clicked, but also how much you make per click. Right Aligned vs. Left Aligned Ad In Post Body This ad region makes the most money for me, and was smack dab at the top of each individual post page (but not on the homepage). The right aligned ad got a 0.78% CTR and $1.41 eCPM The left aligned ad got a 1.30% CTR and $5.31 eCPM Clear winner: left aligned (276% improvement) It’s hard to say why this is exactly. Maybe the left aligned ad looks more like it’s actual content instead of an ad. Whatever the reason, the difference was substantial. Top Right: image vs. text This ad resides at the very top right of every page. I had been running it with image ads for a while and decided to test it against text ads (with some appropriate color choices). The image ads got a 0.35% CTR and $1.74 eCPM The text ads got a 0.33% CTR and $2.15 eCPM Interesting to note here that although the CTR went down slightly, the eCPM went up. This seems to indicate that the text ads were paying more per click. So even though it was clicked slightly less often it still made more money overall. Winner: text ads (narrowly) Under Posts: image vs. text This ad was placed at the bottom of each post page and also on the homepage under the excerpts. I again decided to test some text ads against the incumbent image ads. The image ads got a 0.58% CTR and $1.86 eCPM The text ads got a 0.43% CTR and $2.27 eCPM Again here the CTR went down and the eCPM went up. Also worth noting is that the color scheme I used on the text ad block is consistent with my site. “Blockquote” tags on my site use a similar color scheme. Winner: text ads Conclusions & Next Steps For those who are curious, here is the actual data from an excel spreadsheet. You can pull this out of Adsense under the “reports” tab if you use different channels to compare different ads. Overall these results were impressive. The site-wide eCPM from these three ads went up overall from $5.01 to $9.73 which is a 94% improvement. I could just convert all ads to the better performing version and call it a day, but what I’ll do instead is continue testing….forever. There are plenty of other things to test, such as… Trying text ads in the post body (since they performed better elsewhere) Left aligning ads under the posts Trying different color schemes Trying other types of ads (Amazon, Performancing Ads, Text-Link-Ads, etc) Most people focus on growing their blog’s readership to boost earnings. This is a critical component, but don’t forget about the other major tool in your arsenal: split testing. What ad formats and placements have worked best for you? Leave us a comment below. To get more tips like these, check out my blog at StartBreakingFree.com. It’s is a blog for people who’d like to quit their 9-to-5 jobs, start their own business, and achieve financial freedom. I’ll even give you 3 of the top 10 books on building wealth for FREE when you subscribe, instantly delivered to your inbox! Check it out. Share This

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