Google Adsense Tips and Tricks

The Click Fraud Problem

2006-06-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

Click fraud has become a major problem for online marketers. If you participate on Google Adwords campaigns or Overture, you must already pay a lot for your campaigns.What is click fraud?Click fraud is the deliberate clicks to PPC search engine ads for completely other reasons than expressing interest for buying the related products or services.Overture defines click fraud as clicks arising for reasons other than the good-faith intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase goods or services or to obtain information.Google defines click fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions.In simple words, Click fraud means that someone is cheating you and that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns.Who is doing that?Three main groups click on pay per click ads, without real interest in the offered goods:People who join Google AdSense or other per click affiliate programs click on the ads on their own web site to make a little income. Often, these people cooperate with other webmasters to click on each other's ads.Some unethical companies click on the pay per click ads of competitors to drive up their advertising costs.Companies (often in India, Russia and China) hire people who are paid to click on ads. Google and other search networks provide refunds to advertisers when click fraud has been discovered.Google and Overture employ "fraud squads," or teams of people dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent of the advertising fees paid to all search networks.This is a huge problem. There is no "pay per click" Company denying that click fraud exists. Web analytics companies estimate that the 50% of all click activity is fraudulent.This means that your pay per click marketing activities are half effective as they could be because of click fraud.Overture spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens refutes that in estimate, the numbers likely represent acts of fraud that are ultimately caught. She added that Overture filters most fraudulent clicks with the best antifraud system in the industry, which combines technology and human analysis.Most advertisers are aware of the click-fraud issue but have not delved into it because of the technical complexities involved. Others are concerned that they could jeopardize their relationships with the powerful search networks if they complain too loudly.One of the best ways to eliminate click fraud is using anti click fraud services such as ppctrax. They provide services like the below:IP address capture.IP address geographic Location.User Agent (browser, bot etc.)See exactly what keywords are generating your clicksDate and Time stampSystem detects sudden click spikes from one or more IP addressesReal-time email alerts at 80% and 100% of your account's transaction utilizationIP address history - alert you to prior offendersAnother similar service is "who is clicking who".Other way is the click fraud capture software like Click Auditor.About the Author: Christos Varsamis is an internet marketing consultant and the creator and publisher of http://www.settinglifegoals.com

Where to put your Adsense ads

2006-06-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

There are statistics about where it's best to stick PPC ads on your blog, to maximize click throughs. You've all seen the infamous Google heat map, which other PPC services also use as a guide. But my results differ slightly, from one blog to the next, and I have a theory. I have one blog that people really read and comment on. The visitors are deeply involved in that site, and close to half of them are regulars. They don't come there to be distracted by ads, and my PPC on that site doesn't do very well, really. I have some other blogs that are mostly reprint articles people use to research one topic. Then they're outta there. PPC does nicely there, in the traditional Google heat map spaces. I tried something with the blog that actually has its own interested readership - I put the ads halfway down the sidebars. According to the heat map, that's a pretty lukewarm placement. But my thinking was that it usually lands the ads at the bottom of one article and the top of the next - where people are taking a little break, and might very well respond to an ad of interest. And my PPC on the site has improved noticeably. It's hard to say for sure whether I was right. My visitor numbers have also been improving noticeably lately, so maybe that's the only reason for the change. Further experiments will see whether moving and changing my ads around frequently helps or hurts.

$1 Million in AdSense Earnings

2006-06-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

They are calling him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis recently revealed in his blog that he is on track to earn a million dollars from AdSense over the year ahead. And if that number doesn’t wake you up and have you sitting on the edge of your seat, consider for a moment that he reached this level in less than a year. His company only started using AdSense in September 2004. Calacanis runs Weblogs Inc., a network dedicated to creating trade weblogs across niche industries. And he’s quickly proven that AdSense is a credible advertising partner. As their network has grown, so has their AdSense revenue. In January 2005 they earned an average of $580 per day. In March it was $737. In May it was $1,585. One day in July, just before he made the blog entry referred to above, they earned $2,335. Remember that is just for one day. If they can take that daily average to $2,740 they’ll be earning a rate of $1 million for a year. And Calacanis predicts that reaching daily earnings of $3,000 or even $5,000 is quite achievable.

That’s quite an achievement. Keep in mind that Calacanis has 103 bloggers on the payroll and nine staffers. Even so, many webmasters would give an arm or a leg to have even a third of that. Google’s AdSense has been revolutionary. It has become firmly established as the darling of the online advertising industry. Although rumors are heard of major competitors launching a similar service, AdSense’s premier position seems secure for now. In essence, AdSense has made it possible for almost anyone with a web site or blog to earn some revenue from advertising, without having to employ sales people or spend precious time searching for advertisers. AdSense works like this. Webmasters sign up for an account in just a few minutes. They receive a small snippet of code to include on their web pages. Google will then automatically serve advertisements that are relevant to the content on the webmaster’s pages. When someone visits the webmaster’s site and clicks on one of Google’s AdSense advertisements, the webmaster earns a fee. Advertisers can pay anywhere from five cents to a hundred dollars per click, and the webmaster receives a percentage of that fee.

Many webmasters are content with earning five to ten dollars from AdSense to cover the cost of web hosting. But many, unsurprising, have higher ambitions. At a popular WebmasterWorld forum, participants share tips and encouragement on reaching a goal of $300 per day from AdSense. So it is no wonder that Calacanis created quite a buzz when he made his million dollar blog entry. Google have proven once again that they excel at designing innovative Internet services. If you are in the web industry and have not yet used AdSense, then perhaps you should try it out. Or if you are already using it, perhaps Calacanis’ impressive results will encourage you to track the performance of your AdSense units more closely, fine tune their positions and formats, and take your earnings to a new level.

Google Adsense TOS

2006-06-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

15 Common Mistakes by Google Adsense Publishers that Violate Terms of Service

Google Adsense program is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are well defined terms of service to strictly adhere to when participating in the program. On my visit through sites and forums, I daily notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. Believe me, if I can see it in a 5 seconds gaze! - so can the Adsense guys. And if they do, you are on your way off the program. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.

2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad unit and 1 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.

6. Label headings as "sponsored links" or "advertisements" only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, "thank you" or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.

10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.

11. Do not send your ads by email. Html formatted emails look good and allow placement of these javascript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!

12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches - Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of 'excessive' is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.

15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports "Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish". In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.

Adsense Affiliate Firefox Hack

2006-06-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, Google opened up a referral program where by if you refer a user to FireFox with Google Toolbar, you earn $1, and if they get an AdSense account and earn $100, you also earn $100. But you dont want to advertise "Get Firefox" to users running firefox, do you? (I dont see it as being much of a money-maker) so with a little coding we can select what size image, and which image (Firefox or Adsense) the user should see based on their browser information. As you know the ads come in 5 sizes. So first and foremost we have to make our php file, we are going to call it "myad.php", and put the following code in it:

if (!isset($ff)) {exit("No ad size defined");}
if (strpos($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"], "MSIE") > -1) {
if ($ff == 1) {echo "Javascript code for size 1 Firefox ad";}
elseif ($ff == 2) {echo "Javascript code for size 2 Firefox ad";}
}
else {
if ($ff == 1) {echo "Javascript code for size 1 AdSense ad";}
elseif ($ff == 2) {echo "Javascript code for size 2 AdSense ad";}
}
And so on until all 10 of your ads are loaded into the file.

Now the process if displaying the ad that targets the users you want, simply insert the following code in the place you wish for the advertisement to be displayed:

$ff = 4; //Size of the ad to display (1-5)include("myad.php");

And the ad the uesr would be most likely to click is displayed. As you can see it wouldn't be hard to add more specifics to this code, however considering you only earn the $1 for users who have never had Firefox installed on their computer before, there isn't much need except to target Internet Explorer users for Firefox, and AdSense for all other users. And finally, any support I get from you guys is extremely appreciated Get firefox if you dont have it, you are missing out. And Google Adsense can make you webmasters some serious money!

Adsense Tricks - 7 ads per page?

2006-06-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hot off the presses from the Inside AdSense blog (the official Google blog from their AdSense team.)
On each page of your site AdSense is now able to support up to:
3 ad units
2 AdSense for Search boxes
1 Link unit
1 Referral button per product (i.e., 1 AdSense referral button and 1 Firefox plus Google Toolbar referral button).
So if you are building a site monetized by AdSense you might be able to make a little extra money by putting in a couple of the new formats of AdSense ads. I’ve been playing around with them and have found some (like the linkbar) to be pretty darn useful!

Adsense Content Writing Hack

2006-06-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Writing Content for Adsense

Was just having a smoke with tea and ... here it is .

How to write content to get more clicks from webusers . First of all adsense must be placed near article but where exacly depends . If your visitors usually read entire article it would be good to place it under article if not ... ( bad articles :-/) on left or top is best way i think , depends on your design . I don't think ( is just a guess ) that users click on ads placed on right , remember Google triangle that GG users click on first 3-4 listings from search engine results , also now a lot of website's are 800X600 aligned to left as people mostly look there not on right .

Another thing would be what should be in article : Product reviews i think are best , as Google adsense will give you more money for a click , also i would recommend to say only good things about product . If you will write that this product it's not worth money webusers will not click on ad ( in ad will be listings to buy this product ). Another thing is not to link to another pages related to your as people will click on it to see what is there . Usually i open links i like in other tabs when reading an article and after reading it i don't click on it as i am busy to check what other pages say .

I think there is another way to write content for AdSense , this doesn't work for all pages but if thinking a little can be used a lot . Give only some information about product , just make webuser curious about it and after reading article visitor will have to click on ads for more information . I had something more in mind but can't remember , seems i will go now for another smoke to remember it .

AH! =))

I wrote about this but in another way , just will add another example for last adsense tip . EG : If you have a page with a tool ( or you can make one to pretend you have the tool but this is not good as you will get 0 (zero) natural links for this ) and visitors will want to use this tool and guess what he will see ???? Of course you will have to place some good words near adsense code also some people use images near them (in this case keep border of ad not to have problems with AS TOS and make them like images aren't placed there for adsense ) . In a future post i will put a script to show random images near adsense code on your blogs where you don't have php like this one :( but it will require a php script to run on another server with php .

Hmmm this is it for now . If something else will appear in my head i will write here . Title of this post is "Writing Content for Adsense" so i just wrote this to say goooglebot or slurp that this page is about how to write content for better Google Adsense CTR . Hope you don't mind last paragraph . Any comments are really apreciated , i will die waiting for them . ( hope not :-/ ) God bless eCPM (this is amount of $$ you earn for every 1000 impressions).

Mega Adsense Earners - Tips

2006-06-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

Mega Adsense Earners - The New Tips

Every day we hear about the "mega adsense earners". Few people are interested in who are they but most want to know how to become a one of The mega adsense earners. Below are some "how to" tips for you:

A. How to make the website
1. Dont do sites for adsense

2. Dont copy articles and content made by others

3. Try to improve the quality of your site

4. Work on oprimization

5. Offer your visitors some unique and valuable content

6. Focus on one website, building more websites will not be an easy task to promote all of the sites you will have.

B. How to promote the website
1. Quality content will promote the site for you

2. Write articles and submit them to articles directories

3. Make polls on your site

4. Offer free content, information, and services

5. Make link exchange with sites that are relevant to your content

6. Submit to free and paid directories.

Adsense Optimization = More $$$

2006-06-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Adsense Optimization - Make More Money

This article will show you how to better optimize Google Adsense to make more money from your web site. First step with Adsense is to learn more about Google Adsense here: http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/

First and foremost is: Positioning. Where you position your Adsense link boxes and banner ads is extremely important. Trying to make money from the bottom of your pages within your website just won’t cut it. You need to add your Adsense links right in the heart of your template or right in the heart of your content. I would personally suggest both actually. Adding Adsense in the heart of your template: Link Units. Since the introduction of Google Adsense “link units”, we can now add what looks like a “menu system” to compliment our menu system within our website. This is HUGE. Have you ever just clicked on a website and kept clicking on the menu links? I know we all have. By adding a “Google link units” to your menu, you will get more clicks than you thought possible. Try adding the link units near the top for better performance and try creating your link units to match the color of your menu system in place. Once in a while I find myself clicking on a menu link unit without even realizing it which in turn gives more money to the website owner.

Leaderboards & Skyscrapers: These may very well be your “bread & butter”. I only say this because of the sheer size of these ads units. The best place to add these ad units is obvious; Straight across the very top of your website (leaderboards), and straight down the side of your template (skyscrapers). Anywhere else may not look proper within your template and may look unprofessional. Square & Rectangle Ad Units: These are great to compliment the mass amount of content within your website and also within your recommended resources. You want to compliment your content, you don’t want Adsense to BE your content because this will look poor on your part. Adsense is very popular with webmasters; who doesn’t want to make some extra money. However, don’t forget that many of your visitors are also used to seeing Adsense within a website, and need a good reason to click on them.

Square and rectangular units are great to use within articles posted on your website or within your link resources. Try adding your Adsense boxes above your resource links within a page to give your Adsense account that added extra exposure. Just remember that Google allows up to 3 ad units per page. Using these 3 strategies will help to better optimize Adsense for positioning! Let’s now go onto targeting…

Optimizing Adsense: Taking out non-related ads! Do you ever wonder how ads like “business card specials” ever get displayed on to your website when your company content is all about baby clothing? Since the introduction of “Adwords Site Targeting”, we now have to keep an eye on the ads being displayed on our website(s). Companies may now specifically target your website for more exposure. There is no restriction whether the website is content related or not, just more marketing exposure for the advertiser.

Filtering Adsense Advertisers: Within your Adsense manager, you have the option of using the “Competition Filter” which allows us to remove certain websites from the ads being displayed regularly. This is going to be an on-going optimization task in the future. Without filtering the ads being displayed within your website, you might find yourself with ads unrelated to your industry and possibly some ads that have a negative effect within your site. If you don’t remove all the unwanted ads being displayed on your website, you might end up hurting your Adsense performance online. The more targeted you can get your Google Adsense ads to display on each page, the better your chances at being able to make more money. Try to take a moment every week to study the ads being displayed on your website. Open up a note pad, or word document and record all the websites you don’t want to be displayed anymore. Add these sites to your “filter list” within your Adsense account. Remember to add the website (within your filter list) like so: smartads.info - without the www. Adding anything after or before the url will only prevent the company from displaying one of their many ads like so (www.site.com/ads/1.html). This way you stop anything from the entire website from showing up within your Adsense campaign online. The more you optimize your Adsense filter, the better your performance will pick up and the less non-related ads will be displayed on your website.

One constant that holds true with Adsense: The more pages you have with your Adsense campaign being displayed, the more you WILL make. People who have online networks immediately can profit from Google Adwords because they have the power to add their Adsense boxes & banners onto multiple websites, possibly 1000’s of pages. Should you add Adsense to your website? If you own a small company that has a brochure type website that gets maybe 50-100 visitors a day, I recommend NOT adding Adsense to your site. It will never make enough money with that kind of traffic. Remember: Your Adsense campaign needs to make over $100 to get paid out. If your company receives around 500-1000+ visitors a day, you can now start considering to make money through Google. Adsense is all about numbers. Play the numbers to make more money. In fact, try making goals for yourself to make X amount of dollars through your Adsense account by a certain time. Doing this will only increase your business and make your company more powerful online by increasing the amount of traffic it receives.

For multiple websites, channels are important: Google allows you to track the performance of multiple websites all in one account which ultimately gives you the ability to track how many visitors you’re getting for each website. It also allows you to work harder on those sites that aren’t up to par. I consistently look at each individual website channel to work harder at promoting the ones that aren’t performing well. By doing this, we increase the amount of promotion going into the websites that under perform, and in turn eventually increase the business for those websites as well. The more you promote your website, the more the exposure you will ultimately deliver for your Adsense campaign and your company.

Google Search with Adsense: To top all that off, you can add Google search within your site to give visitors a search function for your content and to allow people to also click on your Adsense program. Please note that for Google search to work, your website and all of its content pages must already be indexed by Google. Adding the Google search bar to your site right away won’t help your visitors at all.I hope this article helps you to make more money!

Make Money With Google Adsense

2006-06-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense Easy Money For Webmasters

Any person who owns or is thinking about creating a website would be crazy to ignore this. Earning money with your site, no matter the topic, has become easier than it's ever been before. First of all, Google.com earns most of its money by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns by placing these same text ads on your site. In other words, you're helping Google advertise. Adsense is not easy but never forget TRAFFIC = MONEY. I have been receiving monthly checks from Google since July of 2003. A colleague of mine earned $2,000 during his first month, and I've read numerous success stories of websites earning 5 digit incomes per month with Adsense. There are no catches, hidden fees or tricks to success here. All you need is a website that gets some traffic. Now, a 5-digit income in a single month is not the norm for most participants. My monthly checks usually range between $600 and $800, but it shows you what is possible if you learn how to capitalize on this opportunity. You can definitely earn a healthy profit if your site becomes popular and receives a lot of traffic. Every website owner should be involved in this. It's just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Even if your site is just for information purposes, you can still participate and make decent money with Adsense -- or at least enough to fund your website. So if you are one of those people that don't like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some. Even if you earned as little as $10 in a month, it would more than likely cover some or all of the costs for your web site. Or, if you are simply looking for ways to add additional revenue to your website, then it's perfect for that situation too. This program is getting so popular, people are creating websites just to display the ads and profit from Google's Adsense alone.