Besting Adwords

Bidvertiser and Adsense

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:12:12 GMT

I wanted to clear the air about whether Bidvertiser and Adsense ads may be displayed on the same page, so I sent an email to Adsense support and I got myself a positive response.

BidVertiser ads may be displayed on the same page as Google ads on your site.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Bidvertiser. It seems I have dozens of bids on my ad space, paying as much as 65 cents per click, but my earnings per click are always about 6 cents per click, not very much.

Thoughts on Sitemaps

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 15:29:25 GMT

I don't regularly check my Google sitemaps, but today, I wanted to submit a new sitemap, so I logged in and added the sitemap. At some point, I realized that most of my previously verified sitemaps were no longer marked verified. I also realized that Google is pulling my sitemaps at a regular interval, which means you don't have to resubmit them or ping. I verified that all the URLs previously submitted were showing up in Google's index and they are. End results, Sitemaps seems to be working, but is still very buggy.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/stats

One Letter Can Boost Conversion Rates

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:52:14 GMT

Eric Graham: The keyword “piano lessons” had a conversion rate over the last 30 days of 5.09%. The keyword “piano lesson” had a conversion rate of only 1.64%. Both of these keywords had the exact same Adwords title and description, the same average position in the search results and the exact same landing page on my clients website. The only variable is one letter in the keyword… an “s”. [cut] With identical titles, descriptions and landing pages, “How to play the piano” converted at 5.92%, while “How to play a piano” only converted at 1.42%.

AdBrite for Risque Publishers

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:31:01 GMT

I've seen some evidence that AdBrite works for risque Web publishers. I've struggled with AdBrite myself and haven't made enough to justify the time spent.

1/2 Million Pages Indexed

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:44:35 GMT

I just noticed that I broke thru the 500 thousand Webpages in the Google index. And a plug for ehlist, which is an amazing SEO tool. I suggest you search for results from all your domains, as ehlist doesn't begin tracking your domain until someone searches for it.

http://ehlist.ca/show/34

cross-posted

Google Adsense Compliance

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:14:48 GMT

Chris Vaughn: Tonight I got an email from Google Adsense stating that my site isn’t in compliance, but not giving any specifics.

http://chrisvaughn.net/cvnetwordpress/?p=103

Randy: I find it amazing how stupid many AdSense publishers are. Here Chris Vaughn doesn't know where he's not in compliance with the AdSense policies. At the right, is a fragment of his blog's homepage. In his letter to Google, he states...

Chris Vaughn: but I can’t find an instance on my sites that are using language that is encouraging “click the ads”, “support our sponsors”, and “visit these recommended links”.

Randy: I think Chris wins the "Remove me from the gene pool" award.

Make the most of your ad units

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 16:06:49 GMT

Google Adsense Blog: Make sure the the ad unit with the highest clickthrough rate is the first instance of the ad code that appears in the HTML. Since the first ad unit is always filled before the rest, you want to make sure that ad unit is located in the best placement on your page.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/make-most-of-your-ad-units.html

Randy: That's some advice that is more important than you think and rarely mentionned. You see, the highest paying ads will be placed highest within the HTML, which is not necessarily the best position on the Webpage.

Truth about Click Fraud

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:54:32 GMT

I get a lot of comments from pissed off AdSense publishers who's accounts were cancelled because of clickfraud. I not only get comments on the Besting Adwords blog, but I also get them on the iBLOGthere4iM blog. Here's one I got today.

iBt4iM reader: Google makes a lot of money. They shut off publishers without due process. They cancelled me with only $50 dollars in the account. They won't provide any proof of illegal clicks. They know that if they shut off x amount of publishers they steal x amount of dollars. Brilliant algorythm. Thievery.

I just want to clear something up. In addition to my AdSense account, I also have an AdWords account and every once in awhile, I get a credit from Google. The credit is a refund from clickfraud that they have uncovered. I'm not an auditor in Google's accounting department, so I don't know for a fact that they return all the clickfraud funds to their advertisers, but I pretty certain that they do.

The facts about smart pricing

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:43:26 GMT

With recent speculation around smart pricing, Google has gone public on the Google Adsense blog with clarifications to dispell some of the myths about Smart Pricing.

Many factors determine the price of an ad
Clickthrough rate doesn't affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)
Google doesn't make money from 'smart pricing'
Remember the old chestnut: "Content is King"

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/facts-about-smart-pricing.html

eMiniMalls as Adsense Alternative

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:50:00 GMT

Chris Pirillo: I'd wholeheartedly recommend that (if nothing else) you run Chitika in lieu of a AdSense PSA URL. Super simple to do, as a matter of fact:

Sign up for a Chitika eMiniMall.
Wait to get approved, then build your code through their system (easy).
Copy your Chitika eMiniMall code into a new file on your Web server.
Open the file / template wherein you keep your Google AdSense code for display.
Add or edit the Adsense line that begins with google_alternate_ad_url. If you don't have this line already in your code, you're missing out on alternative streams of revenue anyway. A full line might look like:
google_alternate_ad_url = 'http://www.lockergnome.com/includes/adsense_psa_blog.html';
Add or edit the URL to be your own (unless you want to serve up my alternative URL instead of your own, which would be welcomed but not necessarily recommended).
Bam. Now, if AdSense doesn't serve something up - your Chitika eMiniMall will.

http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/27/1327141.html

Randy: And be sure to disable eMiniMalls contextual targeting. Myself, I choose to run eMiniMalls along-side AdSense. This gives me as much as 7 ads per Webpage; 3 eMiniMalls (recommended limit), 3 AdSense ad units and 1 AdSense ad link unit. And you can add AdBrite for an 8th.

Rejected by Advertising.com

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 17:01:13 GMT

My application as a publisher for Advertising.com was rejected. Here are some of the possible reasons given.

insufficient US/European traffic
free hosting
porn
piracy
hacking
phreaking
illegal activity
incentives for clicks
privacy policy
downloadble games

Wow, I must run some kind of a sleazy Website. I suspect I won't be reviewing Advertising.com's potential as an Adsense alternative. Earlier this month, I got a rejection from Chitika, which was followed by an apology from their CEO. In both cases, no specific reason was given, although I feel insulted by the list that advertising.com thru at me.

Chitika Tips

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:44:52 GMT

About: Chitika Tips.com serves you the latest news and advice on how to earn more money using Chitika and your existing traffic.

http://chitikatips.com

Randy: A Website dedicated to helping Chitika publishers. The Website is a little thin right now and the advice is on the naive side and partially incorrect. I'm becoming more a fan of Chitika by the day. Of late, Chitika non-contextual eMiniMalls is making about 20-30% of my Website's revenue.

MSN MSGer ads Demographic not Contextual

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:33:46 GMT

Earlier this week, it was rumoured that Microsoft was displaying contextual ads in their MSN Messenger that was based on your private conversation. This rumour proved to be false.

David Jakubowski: Customer confidentiality and privacy is MSN's number one priority. MSN Messenger advertisements are based on demographic information the user provides when creating their Passport account, such as age, gender, language, zip code and country.

http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=34545

Advertising.com

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 20:29:48 GMT

I just signed up with Advertising.com. I want to check out their Web impressions and email advertising options. I've been looking for an email advertising option for Rmail.

http://www.advertising.com

The Sauce behind Smart Pricing

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:00:57 GMT

JenSense: Here is what that [AdSense] team member disclosed, as well as other tidbits already known about smart pricing.

Smart pricing affects an entire account. It is not on a per page or per site basis.
One poorly converting site can result in smart pricing impacting an entire account, even sites completely unrelated to the poorly converting one.
Smart pricing is evaluated each week. So removing ads from sites you suspect are converting poorly could result in seeing an adjustment to a higher smart pricing percent in as little as a week.
Smart pricing is tracked with a 30 day cookie, so you could be rewarded for new conversions that saw the initial click from your site up to 29 days earlier.
Image ads are also affected by smart pricing.
With smart pricing, an advertiser could end up paying less than their minimum bid, which would theoretically include the minimum bid price available, meaning publishers earn less for even the minimum valued clicks.
Conversions for smart pricing publisher accounts are tracked by those advertisers who have opted into AdWords Conversion Tracking

http://www.jensense.com/archives/2005/10/one_poorly_conv.html

How to ensure your account won't be disabled?

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:55:39 GMT

Google: Following these simple rules will help keep your account in good standing:

Don’t click on your own Google ads.
Don’t ask others to click on Google ads.
Don’t employ pop-up prompts or automatic software installations.
Be aware of how your site is promoted.
Don’t place Google ads on sites that contain prohibited content.
Respect Google trademarks.
Don’t tamper with the AdSense code.
Provide a positive user experience.
Provide a good environment for advertisers.
Be responsive.

http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921

Rumor of the day

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:30:08 GMT

Google Blog: You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we're testing, and speculating about our plans. Here's what's really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/rumor-of-day.html

Randy: I assume the Google Blog is referring to the rumours surrounding Google Base. It was being speculated that Google Base was going to be Google's classified social engine competing directly against Craigslist or eBay.

Including site pages in a Sitemap

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:06:27 GMT

Inside Google Sitemaps: Your Sitemap provides us with an additional way to learn about your site. We still use all of our other methods, such as following links from your site's HTML sitemap and from pages that link to you. [cut] We won't exclude URLs that you don't list in your Sitemap from the Google index.

http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/10/including-site-pages-in-sitemap.html

Randy: We knew this already, but it's good to hear it from the horses mouth.

Geo-Targeted RSS Ads

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:42:13 GMT

Kevin Newcomb: Google has quietly been running geo-targeted contextual ads in RSS feeds for several months.

http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3558661

How to get Google to fix BlogSpot

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:06:17 GMT

Mike Ratcliffe: One answer to this problem is counter-intuitive. The solution to the problem it to click gratuitously and never make purchases on the links at blogspot sites and to keep doing so to drive down conversion rates.

http://www.ratcliffeblog.com/archives/2005/10/how_to_get_goog.html

Randy: What Mike is suggesting is complete wrong and foolish. Clicking on ads for fraudulent reason is fraud and if you are caught, then you could be charged with fraud. Further, Mike is risking jail time by encouraging his readers to fraudulently click on ads and I'm guessing his AdSense account is also at risk.

Also, Mike is making the same dumb assumptions that the sploggers are making. Sploggers think that they can put AdSense on their splogs and make big money. What they don't know, is that before they ever get a check from Google, Google will have audited their site, terminated their account and returned the money to the advertisers.

Last, there's always the possibility that Google doesn't terminate the sploggers account, which in this case means that Mike's suggestion is creating a gold mine for the sploggers. More money for sploggers will translate into more splogs.

ExpoActive and AdSense

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 20:30:59 GMT

I sent an email to AdSense support asking "Am I allowed to put ExpoActive ads on the same page as Adsense ads?" They responded.

AdSense Support: According to these program policies, ExpoActive may not be displayed on the same page as Google ads on your site. We do allow affiliate or limited-text links.

Something Rotten in AdSense

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 19:55:11 GMT

Joel on Software: When you connect the dots, what seems to be happening is that scammers are doing four things.

First, they create a lot of fake blogs. There are slimy companies that make easy to use software to do this for you. They scrape bits and pieces of legitimate blogs and repost them, as if they were just another link blog. It is very hard to tell the difference between a fake blog and a real blog until you read it for a while and realize there's no human brain behind it, like one of those Jack Format radio stations that fired all their DJs, or maybe FEMA.
Then, they sign up for AdSense.
Then you buy or rent a network of zombie PCs (that is, home computers that are attached to the Internet permanently which have been infected by a virus allowing them to be controlled remotely).
Finally, use those zombie PCs to simulate clicks on the links on your blog. Because the zombie PCs are all over the Internet, they appear to be legit links coming from all over the Internet.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/24.html

Randy: Joel is drastically under-estimating Google's click-fraud detection. His algorithm would generate a CTR near 100%. That's Basic-101 in uncovering click-fraud. Now, here's the really interesting part. Those zombies are always clicking on ads from the same AdSense publisher. If any host clicks on tons more ads from one AdSense publisher than they do from SERPs, then you've likely found yourself some click-fraud. Now, if one publisher receives clicks from one set of users, who all click on that publishers ads more than they do from SERPs, then you know you've found yourself some click-fraud.

Conversation Targeted Ads in MSN MSGer

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:44:17 GMT

This thread is entirely speculative, but worth noting.

Loren Baker: Now MSN has blown away Google GMail privacy concerns by placing sponsored text links on the MSN Messenger Instant Messaging application. Are these ads targeted to the conversations of users? [cut] Type in a message about asking a girl out you met in class, and get served an ad for Match.com. Make plans to take here to a nice restaurant, get served an ad for the local TGIFridays.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=2380

How To Check Google Ads

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:07:53 GMT

Dug to Google: You really need to give publishers a way to register their IP (or some other technique) so you can filter them out and allow them to do this checking without penalty.

Randy: This is pretty simple. Hover your mouse over the ad and you'll notice the target URL in the status bar. This is not necessarily the endpoint of the AdSense clickthru. But, you can right-click on the ad and paste the content into any text editor. You'll find embedded in this URL the real clickthru endpoint. Extract it and you can now visit those sites without risking your Adsense account.

Never Click Your Own AdSense AdUnits

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:19:21 GMT

I don't know how many times I've seen blog entries like this one. The blogger is complaining that his account was cancelled because of invalid clicks. But continue reading and you find the following comments.

When I launch a new site, I check the Adsense ads carefully to see if I need to do any filtering. During the first week or so I check back often and visit all the sites advertising through google. As a result of this, bigsaucer had a ridiculously high ctm. [cut] I’ve been checking ads that look wrong or those that visitors or clients complain about on all my sites since I started using Adsense. I would be surprised to hear that your TOS does not include this in a ‘fair use’ definition of your service.

Well, obviously this person didn't read AdSense terms and policies which clearly states "that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited."

Collecting Debts via Google AdWords. Legal?

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 10:42:44 GMT

promediacorp: I would like to know if I can legally (in the US) use PPC to collect a debt. I do not want to violate any AdWords terms and conditions as well. I think the following method may prove cost effective, and should resolve the upaid invoice.

AdWords Ad:
Company XYZ
Please pay outstanding invoice
#1234, which is 31 past due.
http://www.mysite.com/invoice1234.pdf

Bidding on "Company XYZ" as the keyword for the ad.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8356

Randy: It's a bad idea, but it's was funny enough I had to blog it.

What topics get high CTRs?

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:17:09 GMT

ethanwa: Are there topics out there that get generally higher CTRs because of the types of people who click through, the types of Ads that are displayed, etc? For example, I would think an Ad for "free money" would bring a high CTR if that Ad was placed on a Casino site. Anyone have any personal success/failures with different subject matter or topics?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=387895

Randy: Although almost any topic can get a high CTR with elbow grease, some topics inherently have very high CTRs.

You want winners? You want me to put my KBCafe hat on and just discuss what my site is doing today to try to make money tomorrow and the next day and the next? You want my top 2 topics for how to make it in the New World? You know what? I am going to give them to you. Right here. Right now. OK. Here goes. Write them down -- no handouts here!: Jobs and shopping.

BTW, that's a modified quote from Jim Cramer during the Internet bubble (Feb 29th 2000).

Angry TargetFirst Publishers

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 21:12:43 GMT

It would seem that TargetFirst is having difficulties. Definately an AdSense alternative not worth considering.

Seems TargetFirst having problems paying theire publishers.

They are liars, they are a piece of **** company and they ran with my 1.5K. I am huntin em down til I get my money back.

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310000

About.com uses Adsense API

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 17:02:16 GMT

I reported earlier this week that I had a copy of a secret Google Adsense API. This got me looking for sites that are using it. About.com is using it. See those Sponsored Links? No Ads by Goooogle, but they are from Adwords. How can you tell? Right-click on the add and copy the link location, then paste it into a text editor.

Yahoo Eliminate $20 Minimum

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:37:02 GMT

Yahoo! Search Marketing: We’ve listened to your feedback and are happy to announce that we’ve eliminated the $20 monthly minimum spending requirement for Sponsored Search. Previously, all Sponsored Search advertisers were required to spend at least $20 a month in click-through charges. Now, you can choose to spend as much or as little as you like, with no minimum to meet.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8354

Randy: This is excellent news for everybody. Yahoo! Search Marketing has been dominated by big clients, partially because of the minimum. Now smaller players, even bloggers can participate.

Colours for advertisements

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 03:05:29 GMT

FACT: Weblogs Inc. witnessed a 10 to 20 percent jump in ad performance (and therefore revenues) when they matched AdSense ad colours to the sites.

http://irish.typepad.com/classroom/2005/10/colours_for_adv.html

More Google Stats

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 00:21:46 GMT

John Battelle: A few tidbits from the earnings worth mentioning, many from Comscore data that Street analysts are quoting:

Average revenue per search (yes, any kind of search, not just paid): 12 cents. It was around a dime in late 04.
Avg. revenue per searcher: $7
Avg. revenue per sponsored click: 62 cents.

http://battellemedia.com/archives/001954.php

New Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 14:41:31 GMT

SEOBook: Google recently launched a new Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool [you have to be logged in for the link to work & it may not be available in all accounts yet], which is much more usable than their older Google AdWords Keyword Sandbox.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool

Randy: The new tools has two tabs, one for finding new keywords from a given keyword and a second for finding new keywords for a given Webpage URL. Further, there are three views; Keywords only, Keywords popularity and Cost estimates. These can give you a high-level feel for how much traffic you can expect and how much it's gonna cost you. .

Monetizing from those with javascript disabled

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:53:59 GMT

SearchEngineWatch: Google gives us "alternative ads" as a mechanism to insert alternative advertising. [cut] However, what Google doesn't mention is a lot of people are surfing with javascript disabled and you won't serve up Google Ads, no PSA ads, or alternative ads, nothing. A simple appending of NOSCRIPT to your Google AdSense code solves this problem.

Just make your HTML look like this:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8346

Randy: This is very clever and can help you place a few more ads. But, I've never been one to suggest modifying your site for the minority. It's much better to spend that same time improving your site for the majority. That said, I think I'll try this, particular for <script> based banners.

msn.com PageRank of 2?

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:47:14 GMT

The Founder: As it stands now www.msn.com has a whopping 8 backlinks in Google and a Pagerank of 2. I spent about 10 min researching it and found the following: Currently MSN is using a 302, or temp redirects. Using this HTTP header spider it plainly shows that the 302 (as of today) is being used.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/4322

Randy: MSN also seems to have copied my URL syntax. I guess I should'a patented it :-)

http://www.msn.com/?GUID=xxx

Not that my syntax is that good, it just works extremely well with IIS. A preferred syntax, as Chris Nolan pointed out, would be http://www.msn.com/xxx and use a server side transfer (mod_rewrite). Why? Google penalizes URLs with question marks (?) in them.

Google Contributes $500M to our Bottomline

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 21:28:23 GMT

Globe n Mail: The company's net sales rose 96 per cent to $1.58-billion. [cut] Sales, excluding fees passed on to other websites for displaying ads, came in at $1.05-billion.

Randy: Did you get that? They contributed $503M to blogs and other Web properties like KBCafe.com. Google is gold. No, platinum gold.

Google doesn't index Translations

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 13:49:33 GMT

Two weeks ago, I started an experiment trying to get translations of my Website indexed by Google. The experiment failed to populate Google index. It would seem Google does not index any pages generated from WorldLingo's translation service.

Diversifying Your Revenue

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:48:01 GMT

workboxers: The best reason though to diversify your revenue is because you don’t want to get caught with the proverbial “all your eggs in one basket”.

http://workboxers.com/online-money/diversifying-your-revenue/

Randy: I've spent much of this month trying to move some of my Adsense revenues to other platforms. Chitika eMiniMalls is working. Now, I'm trying to do the same with AdBrite.

Fact: PSAs on multiple ad units?

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:17:56 GMT

Google: Public service ads may be served to your first ad unit if targeted ads cannot be served. In this case, the second and third ad units on the page will display as transparent boxes. You can set alternate ad URLs or colors for any ad unit on a page, that will be served in the place of PSAs or transparent boxes.

Google Accounts for AdWords

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 01:49:19 GMT

Inside Adwords: Google Accounts will remain optional from October 19, 2005 until January 15, 2006 [cut]. After January 15, 2006, you'll need to update before you can access your account.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-accounts-for-adwords.html

Randy: I assume, when I awake in the morning, the option to attach my Adwords account to my Gmail will be there. Currently, I don't see it.

MSN AdCenter Preview

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 01:19:26 GMT

Search Engine Lowdown has a preview of MSN's AdCenter Beta.

http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/10/msn-adcenter-beta-preview.html

AdBrite Promotions

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 21:00:00 GMT

I've been experimenting and asking questions at AdBrite. They pointed me to a technique they called promo price that allows you to setup private discounts.

Some publishers have offered discounts to advertisers that expressed interest in their sites in the past. You can change your prices within My Account | Manage your Zones | Manage Products. If Autopricing is turned on, go ahead and turn it off. Once its turned off you’ll see where to update your products and pricing. You can hide special pricing by using passcodes. Share the passcodes with your user base in order to strike up ad sales. Or create a discount and call it ***New Ad Special***.

Secret Adsense API

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:19:24 GMT

I just read the Adsense API doc. No, not Adwords, Adsense. There exists a private API in Adsense for retrieving ads via XML. This would allow a customer to completely customize the look of the ads and avoid the Ads by Goooogle appendage entirely. The API is RESTful, extremely lightweight and includes some very interesting options like returning only adult ads. If I try to use the API, it fails (Forbidden) because my host IP address does not have access.

Amazon Affiliates Toubles

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 17:28:26 GMT

About 15% of my Amazon Affiliate orders this year were not shipping. Over 5% are returned. That's 20% of my orders did not result in earnings. That's awfully high. Amazon has some real challenges, if they want to keep their affiliates.

eMiniMalls per Page

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 17:20:03 GMT

Some users have asked me "How many eMiniMalls may I have per Webpage". The Chitika terms simply say "Multiple Paid Listings units may be displayed on each Web site page". I sent the nice folks at Chitika an email and they responded.

We don't have a maximum but we don't recommend more than 3 on any page.

Adwords at Risk

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 04:09:38 GMT

With the recent splogsplosion of SPAM blogs, is Google's money machine, Adwords at risk? Remember a large percentage of these splogs are running Adsense ads. The splog owners may never get a cent of their money, but the Adwords content network is now compromised. Not to mention, with all the new splog Adsense players targeting high value keywords, there's a definate squeeze on these keywords, resulting in less money for legitimate Adsense players. Could splogs be the downfall of the Google empire? And who's hosting all these splogs? Google! I'm shutting down my Adwords campaigns until Google fixes their network. Are you?

AdSense Case Study: Weblogs, Inc.

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:16:11 GMT

Case Study: After implementing AdSense, Weblogs blogs were earning only a couple hundred dollars a day from the program. "At first we didn’t really understand how to use it," Calacanis says, noting that "we thought of it as helping to pay some bills." But when over about six months' time AdSense revenues reached more than $1,000 a day, he says he realized that there was a significant opportunity in AdSense – if his team would invest the time in making it work even better.

http://www.google.com/services/adsense_weblogs.html

Amazon Associates Conversion Rates

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:46:06 GMT

One thing that has always disappointed me is the conversion rate reported by Amazon's associates program. This is calculated by dividing the number of products you sold by the number of clicks you generated. My highest quarterly conversion rate was 1.5% and usually it's around 0.5% and I did get 0% one quarter last year. I don't know, but a 1.5% conversion rate seems awfully low and that's my high-end. But, if you've ever click on an Amazon affilate link, then you'll know why. The page given is always cluttered with crap that distracts the buyer from doing his job, that is, buying product. Maybe I don't get it!

http://associates.amazon.com

Adwords in Flash

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 04:50:26 GMT

Inside Adwords: We accept image ads (.JPEG, .PNG, .GIF), as well as Flash (.SWF), which is a new addition.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2005/10/advertising-outside-of-text-box.html

Unwanted Traffic

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 02:46:08 GMT

You wouldn't think that it was possible to have unwanted traffic, but I've spent a lot of time over the last two years turning away traffic. That was usually because I had bandwidth limits. My bandwidth limits were removed, but now I have to limit traffic because some of my pages fetch data from other sources and I'm stressing their limits of charity. The recent problem is bots. Those are agents that fetch pages to be indexed by search engines like Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo and others. Ask Jeeves bot is called Teoma and for some strange reason, it account for 15% of my traffic this month. I serve about 20 GB per day. Do the math. Why does Ask Jeeves need 3 GB of data on my Website everyday? I guess it was time to work on my robots.txt file. For those that don't know (tutorial), the robots.txt file instructs bots on what pages they should avoid indexing. I've placed severe limits on Ask Jeeves.

http://www.robotstxt.org/

Adsense Earnings in RSS

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:28:56 GMT

Ozh: This is such a simple idea that it must have been done before, but I just couldn’t find any PHP script doing this : create an RSS feed from your daily Adsense earnings, so that you can easily track them in your regular feed reader. So well, here is mine : Adsense Earnings RSS Feed.

http://frenchfragfactory.net/ozh/my-projects/track-adsense-earnings-in-rss-feed/

Rotating YPN and AdSense is a Bad Idea

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:21:12 GMT

Tim Flight: The bottom line is that if you are having a problem getting relevant ads with YPN and you are rotating ads between YPN and something else, try reducing how often you rotate to once every few hours or more. This has worked for me and I hope my CTR will increase as a result.

http://www.timflight.com/2005/10/13/rotating-ypn-and-adsense-is-a-bad-idea/

Testing AdBrite

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:52:12 GMT

I'm testing AdBrite's site targeted ads. I'm doing it on The RSS Blog, because it gets about 5 times the hits that Besting Adwords gets. If you plan on using AdBrite along side AdSense, then remember to disable AdBrite's contextual targeting, otherwise, you'd be violating the Adsense policies.

http://www.adbrite.com/mb/?spid=4216

$100,000 for 120,000 Impressions?

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:59:12 GMT

Adbrite is advertising 120k impression on the Wordpress.org site for $100,000. Do that math? That's a CPM of $800+. Anybody stupid enough to buy that, deserves to be parted from their money. The conventional thinking is that since Wordpress.org has a PageRank of 9, that maybe it's worth it. Just remember, you only get the Google Juice while your link is in place. That's $100k/wk for Googe Juice. Stop paying and you've lost it all.

Hmmm! I get more than 120k impressions per week. Maybe I should sign up?

Channels coming to Chitika eMiniMalls

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:31:10 GMT

Darren Rowse: Unfortunately Chitika are yet to roll out channels on eMiniMalls. I’m told that they are not far away and I personally am really looking forward to it as they will enable us to track how an individual ad unit is going.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney?m=1103

Randy: This is awesome news! My biggest problem with Chitika is that I don't know which ads are performing. I guess I will soon. BTW, Darren has a bunch of Chitika eMiniMalls tips at that link. A must read!

10 Tips to the Top of Search Engines

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:31:48 GMT

Jill Whalen: Here are my latest and greatest tips to get you started:

Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to. Randy: I've always been a fan of running one domain.
Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines.
Research your keyword phrases extensively.
Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research.
Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." Randy: This should be tip #1.
Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes as clearly and descriptively as possible.
Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site.
Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page's unique Title tag. Randy: Disagree entirely. Dynamic <title>'s are better.
Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Randy: In other words, don't bother creating useless sites.
Don't be married to any one keyword phrase or worried too much about rankings.

http://www.isedb.com/news/article/1278

Qumana Launches Ad Network

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:17:40 GMT

About: AdGenta is an advertising network focused on inserting ads into blog posts.

http://www.qumana.com/adgenta.htm

Randy: This is a great alternative to Adsense for people who's users wouldn't mind a couple extra inline ads.

Help disable Chitika Contextual Targeting

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:21:01 GMT

B.A. reader: I am planning on trying the Chitika E-mini malls on my sites after reading the articles you have posted. The only thing I am a little unclear on is how and where to insert the code to disable the contextual part.

Randy: Here's a sample from the Besting Adwords blog.

The ch_query variable passes a keyword that Chitika can use to decide which products should be shown. The ch_non_contextual disables the contextual targeting.

Adwords Campaign Help!

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:23:20 GMT

B.A. reader: My problem is I spend too much on my main keyword, something $0.30 per click. I wanted to do the shotgun, cheap keyword approach, but my keywords are too niche, if you know what I mean?

Randy: Have you considered alternate spellings? Often a good niche keyword will have alts that are good enough and cheaper. For instance, if your niche is "flowers philippines", then try

flower philippines << remove plural
flowers filippines << alternate spelling
flowers philipines << common spelling mistake
flowers manila << city
"flowers philippines" << phrase match
[flowers phillippines] << exact match
"philippines flowers" << flip words

But also, if $0.30 per click is too much, then you need to focus on your conversion. That is, you have to get a larger percentage of the people who click on your ad to buy your product. This is usually done by providing an awesome landing page.

Site Sections

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 15:26:25 GMT

About: Site targeting places your ads on individual sites in the Google content network. Site sections take that one step further by placing your ads on only one section or even one page of a site.

Randy: That's pretty awesome. You can now advertise directly on this blog by targeting kbcafe.com/adwords. That's good for both advertisers and publishers.

Thanks Darren for eMiniMalls

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 14:05:35 GMT

I've been testing Chitika eMiniMalls for a few days now and to my surprise it's performaning extremely well. I can't divulge numbers, but considering how little effort I've put into them, I project they can outperform Adsense on many Websites. This is especially true with a product blog similar to Darren's Digital Photography blog. The best part is that you can run eMiniMalls, with contextual targeting turned off, along side Adsense and make even more money. So, here's a thanks to Darren Rowse for introducing us to Chitika eMiniMalls.

https://chitika.com/mm_overview.php?refid=randymorin

Web enjoys year of biggest growth

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 07:01:22 GMT

BBC: The web has grown more in 2005 than it did at the height of the dotcom boom, says a study.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4325918.stm

Randy: You can thank Google and Adsense. There's finally a Web business model that works.

Opting Out of CPM Ads

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 06:47:19 GMT

Lately, I've seen a few notes by Google that led me to believe that opting out of image ads meant that you were also opting out of CPM site targeted ads. I fired off an email to Adsense support. They replied.

If you chose to opt-out of showing image ads, your site will still be eligible to show text ads that are bid to run on a cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM) basis.

Google Plugs Security Flaw in AdWords

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 05:17:29 GMT

eWeek: Google Inc. has quietly patched a potentially dangerous security flaw in two of its business-facing services after a private security research outfit warned that malicious hackers could exploit the bug to hijack sensitive user information. The vulnerability was flagged—and fixed—in the Google AdWords and Google Services subdomains.

http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?b404348593&r=MSNnews

I'm #2

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:55:42 GMT

If you search for 'adwords blog' on Google, the Inside Adwords blog is #1. The Besting Adwords blog is #2. Hurray! And thanks for the linking action friends.

Update: I seem to be #1 now. Inside Adwords disappeared entirely.

How Adwords can work for Blogs

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:05:29 GMT

Kevin: I'm curious if you think content sites can really benefit from Adwords. After all, you'd be paying for clicks on AdSense in order to GET clicks on AdSense. My site is http://www.health-hack.com/ and I'd be interested to know what if any kind of Adwords campaign you think would work for it.

Randy: Certainly content sites can benefit. In fact, my sites are nothing but content sites (blogs). But blogs have an automatic advantage in that you can subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. Your site is also a blog and there on your front page is your RSS button. This makes your site sticky. Stickiness is important because you don't want to pay $0.05 to Google for every visitor you get. You want visitors to come back to your site, because they see value in returning. In fact, if you look at my right sidebar, you'll note I give more than the usual number of ways to subscribe to my feed. I'd encourage you to do similar.

How can Adwords help you? Well, your blog is exactly like my blog, except the topic is different. I suspect your topic is even more Adsense profitable than mine. But, I'll tell you what I do. I setup a small campaign that is well within my own budget (example: $0.50 per day) and a small fraction of my Adwords earnings. I then buy a couple keywords like 'adwords' and 'adsense' setting the CPC to $0.01. Of course, they'll be inactive. I then use the keyword tools to add a hundred of related terms, like 'google adwords'. I can then buy some of these keywords for $0.01 to $0.10, whatever Google lets me get away with.

Last, an important thing is to make it obvious to people who click on your ads how they can subscribe. I'll talk more about this later.

Does Google Adwords Work?

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 04:22:29 GMT

Too many people: I am am thinking about putting some dollars into their program. Should I?

Randy: I get this question a lot. The answer is simple. Yes. It's not really a matter of if you should be using Adwords, but how much you should be spending. Tell me your business and I'll tell you why and how you can use Adwords to get more business. Whether you are spending $100 per day or $1 per day, I'm telling you it works and with little effort. If you don't believe me, then tell me your business and I'll tell you how to make it work for you. It's just that simple. And I won't charge you anything.

It's been suggested that my Website is worth $1,000,000. I'm telling you they are wrong. It's worth more. Why? Adsense. Adwords. Google. And you can do it too!

Chitika Blogs

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 19:11:55 GMT

Just got some great info from Chitika support. First, the big news, they have a blog. Subscribed. And on the blog, they explain the ch_non_contextual javascript parameter. That's a required parameter if you are using Chitika eMiniMalls with Adsense. I also got this great information reguarding other parameters.

ch_nosearch = 1;
This line deactivates the search tab (for people who have the
Google Search box on their site).

Another trick: Some people want the "Best Deals" tab to appear first. This line does that:
ch_default_tab = "Best Deals";

eMiniMalls is Contextually Targeted

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 14:14:05 GMT

This is important to understand, because that means out-of-the-box, you cannot place eMiniMalls and Adsense code on the same page. But, you can disable the contextual targeting in eMiniMalls and provide your own keywords. The Chitika FAQ explains how.

Yes. By default, the products are contextually targeted to your content. If you'd like to set your own query or product, we can do so by specifying it in ch_query javascript param.

ch_query = "canon powershot";

https://chitika.com/faqs.php#MM6

Six AdSense optimization tips for forums

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 13:57:34 GMT

Google has given use six awesome tips for forums.

Format is important for multiple ad units
Display your ad units where repeat users will notice them
Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post
Use horizontal link units
Opt-in to image ads
Be sensitive to your forum community

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/six-adsense-optimization-tips-for.html

In tip #5, Google hints again that opting out-of image ads also opts you out-of CPM ads, but they don't straight out say it. I'm gonna email Adsense support with the question "If you opt out-of image ads, then will you get any CPM ads, even text CPM ads?"

eMiniMalls are coming to a KBCafe near you

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 13:39:27 GMT

I got a really nice email from the CEO of Chitika apologizing for the goof up. Minutes later, I got an approval and a Chitika account. I guess I found myself something TODO this weekend. He read of my rejection on a blog. Blogs work!

MSN adCenter Looking for Beta Fodder

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:16:20 GMT

oilman: MSN is getting ready to launch adCenter and they are looking for participants in the pilot program.

MSN email to oilman and JenSense: If you know a business-owner who would be interested in advertising their business on MSN Search, please forward this email to them and encourage them to apply to participate in the US Pilot by completing our online registration form at ...

http://advertising.msn.com/adCenterPilot/89621.asp

How To Increase my PageRank

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:07:34 GMT

David Martin: I see local real estate sites with less links than I have but with a pr of 4, mine is now 3. I don't have many, but what else could be affecting this?

http://www.davidrealty.com/

Randy: Dave's page rank is 3. He wants to increase his rank or at least know why it's not higher. The biggest factor in determining page rank is the quantity and quality of inbound links to your page. In this case, Dave only has 9 inbound links in the Google index, two of which originate from his own site. Are there really local real estates sites with less than 9 inbound links and a PR of 4? He's listed in the Yahoo directories, which helps. Yahoo!'s Site Exporer list 85 inbound links. Dave has a rank of PR3, because he has very few inbound links. More quality inbound links will mean a higher page rank. My suggestion to Dave is to get listed in more directories, the most important of which is DMOZ. Don't pay to get listed anywhere, that's usually a rip off. There's enough free directories out there to get any page's rank to at least PR4, if not PR5.

1/4 Million Pages Indexed

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:17:24 GMT

Milestone. Today, I broke thru 250k pages in the Google index.

AdsOnBlogs - Blog Search 500

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 02:08:44 GMT

AdsOnBlogs ranks the Besting Adwords blog #429. Very proud to have bested Michael Moore. Congrats to Rick MacManus, B2Blog, Marc Canter, Niall Kennedy and Roland Tanglao who also positionned lower than me :-)

Clicksor Referrals

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:06:30 GMT

Just noticed that Clicksor has a referral program, where they'll pay $5 if other Webmasters click-thru to sign up. I added a banner at the top of the blog. I'll report back on any successes.

http://admin.clicksor.com/publishers/referral.php

Adsense Payment F-up

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:59:51 GMT

JenSense: It seemed there were more publishers than usual with payment problems. [cut] Turns out, there was a problem with information crossover between AdWords and AdSense [cut] when they shared an email address. Your earnings will be credited back into your account and included in your next payment cycle.

http://www.jensense.com/archives/2005/10/adsense_error_m.html

Randy: JenSense is looking out for you.

Call from YPN

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:27:17 GMT

Those guys and gals at Yahoo! sure are nice people. I applied for YPN a month or more ago and got my acceptance into the Beta program immediately. But when I went to register, I quickly realized that it was for Americans only and I'm Canadian. So, I dropped the issue, knowing they would someday go international and I could give her a test drive then.

...weeks go by...

YPN called me today (on the cell) wondering why I hadn't activated my account. We had a nice chat about me being Canadian and she apologized for bothering me. Nice people.

Sitemap Ping

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:11:52 GMT

Has anybody heard of a utility that automatically pings Google sitemap when your sitemap changes?

25 cent CPMs for Site Targeting!

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 10:43:52 GMT

Inside Adwords: We're lowering the minimum CPM bid required to target [cut] sites to $0.25 [from $1].

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2005/10/25-cent-cpms-for-site-targeting.html

Randy: This makes CPM advertising a lot more appealing to advertisers. I wonder how the calculations works. Assuming, I have 3 ad units and an average of 3 ads in each unit and they are all CPM ads, then is your eCPM per page $2.25 or $0.25? I guess I need to test this.

Rejected by Chitika

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 03:27:35 GMT

Email from Chitika: We reviewed your website: http://www.kbcafe.com and your application for eMiniMalls Paid Listings service was rejected.

Randy: No reason was given. I don't think they realize they just rejected the #1 Web ad related blog, according to Feedster. Weird. I won't say dumb. I think it's implied. Which again, makes me doubt Darren.

Longer AdWords Ad Copy Seen Live

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:42:37 GMT

SeoBook: This search showed one of the longer AdWords creatives.

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001245.shtml

Adsense and Chitika

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:39:07 GMT

Google Adsense Team via email: Chitika ads may only be displayed on the same page as Google ads on your site if you have disabled the contextual targeting feature on the Chitika ads.

iBLOGthere4iM in Japanese

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 16:11:47 GMT

In the top left corner of the iBLOGthere4iM blog, I added six new language chicklets. They translates iBLOGthere4iM into Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French and Italian. The translations are automated, a.k.a. not that good. This is mostly an SEO experiment. I'm trying to determine if Google will index them.

Yahoo and DMOZ Directories

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 03:17:35 GMT

Yahoo: Getting your site listed in major directory services such as the Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ is an excellent way to be sure that there are links to your site.

Randy: Definitely worth repeating.

Adsense and Chitika

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 03:05:41 GMT

Satish Talim: If I use Chitika, then am I violating Adsense's terms of usage? Why? I have seen some blogs that use both? Confused. Please advise.

Alang: Google does not allow it. I'd emailed them a week ago. Before this, I had Chitika and Adsense on the same site too. Although chitika looks different from adsense, its still contextual ads because its base on keyword.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=20403

Randy: I just email Google Adsense Support for final confirmation.

Google: Yes, you can use the Chitika products that rely on keywords selected by you as opposed to your site’s content, on your site in addition to Google ads.

Submit Sitemap, Banned from Google?

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 02:15:05 GMT

Sitemap User: I submitted a sitemap for http://www.patridiots.com last night and today at about 10 a.m. the hits from Google STOPPED. [cut] I was on page one, two or three for hundreds of searches because the blog has almost 2,000 posts and many are on issues people search on. As a result, I got three or four hundred hits from Google a day. Today I have had one hit since 10 a.m.

Randy: If you haven't heard it before from me, then it's worth repeating.

Don't use Google Sitemaps unless you are certain it won't hurt. It's Beta.

Chitika eMiniMalls

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 02:01:49 GMT

Darren Rowse: Adsense earnings for August - $15,849.73. Chitika eMiniMalls earnings Yesterday - $702.45.

http://chitika.com/mm_overview.php

Randy: There's a good argument for eMiniMalls, that is, if you know how to multiply by 31. Mind you, I sometimes have a hard time believing Darren. For instance, you'll note in the URL to chitika, he's tacked on a refid, which I'm certain means he's getting kickbacks when you sign up. Now, put 1+1 together and you have to wonder how much of the $700 was from this kind of kickback. Note, his original post also contained the refid. Half truths often make for good reading and bad advice.

Behold the Power of Words

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 01:44:31 GMT

This guy posted a blog entry and picture with an awesome URL. The result was 5,000 visitors per day. Something sells, even in Google image search.

Custom Color Codes

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:07:18 GMT

Wally: Is it allowed to place other colors than [the 216 colors shown]?

Smyrl: If you look at the color options shown, there are 216 colors shown. I would hesitate to go with any color not shown without contacting Google.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=351729

Randy: Since they provide a mechanism to manually enter the custom color codes, it is reasonable to assume that you are allowed to enter them. Otherwise, they would've made those fields read-only? You can enter any valid color code and you are not restricted to the 216 colors shown.

Roman: If you can get adsense to generate the code then you are safe, if you have to alter it yourself then you are at risk.

Randy: That's a rule of thumb to live by in world Adsense.

Because you don't want Halloween ads in November

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 16:23:20 GMT

Inside Adwords: As part of the process of creating a new campaign, you can set the campaign start date for a time in the future. [cut] As we mentioned in our blog way back in July, you can also set a specific end date for each of your campaigns on the Edit Campaign Settings page.

Randy: I don't know how many times I've seen election ads running a month after the vote, or Valentine flowers ads in March. I imagine the CTR is very low on those ads, not to mention a waste of time, when the promotion has long ended. This seems terribly obvious information, but none-the-less worth repeated.

Winning Result with Google AdWords

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 04:40:00 GMT

What is adsense? adword?

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 04:28:23 GMT

CyberBjorne: Does adsense and adwords really work? How do i start?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=31383

Randy: Ya, it works. Ask my wife. She collects the cheques. OK, to start you want to get accounts for both...

I think you'll also want to subscribe to both blogs...

There's also an Adwords forum on Google. Read everything at Digital Points under Google everyday. And subscribe to the Besting Adwords blog.

Sitemap meet Site Explorer

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:39:14 GMT

Google now allows you to submit your site via an XML file called a sitemap. Yahoo also has an new feature for viewing a Website inside their index called Site Explorer. This services also has an API. Putting together and you can check your sitemap against the data in the Yahoo! index. You just have to write the code. I did. Click here to download it. You must save it to your harddrive before you run it, or it'll throw an unhandled exception, a.k.a. blow up real good. Last, requires .NET.

http://www.webvertization.com/SiteExplorer.exe

Site Targeting Causes a Re-Think

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:55:35 GMT

Rob Watts: I asked.

You just need to contact the Google AdSense Team and request it. Opting out has been in place since site targeting initially launched.

I requested an opt out and got this

Unfortunately, at this time, we don't offer the option to display only cost-per-click (CPC) ads. However as you are aware, you can opt out of showing image ads altogether. While reviewing your account information I noted you've opted to show text ads only. This will also ensure that your websites will not include CPM ads

Make of that what you will...

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/4071#comment-25129

Randy: I wouldn't recomment opting out of CPM, but there now seems to be a backdoor manner of opting out of CPM ads. Further, opting out of image ads, also means you are opting out of site targeted ads. I expect that most users who opt out of image ads, don't understand this.

Yahoo! Advertiser Web Services

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:47:19 GMT

About: Advertiser Web Services enables advertisers to develop software which interacts directly with Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign management systems.

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/af/yws.php

Yahoo! Site Explorer

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:45:23 GMT

Yahoo! Site Explorer is live. Here's a my domain. There's also a couple APIs. Overall, it doesn't seem that interesting.

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Reach out to Millions

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 03:37:23 GMT

GoDaddy: Did you know that 85% of all Web site traffic and 70% of all online purchases originate from a search engine directory?

Feedster to Release New RSS Ad Product

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 03:33:05 GMT

MediaPost: Blog and RSS search engine and advertising network Feedster will within the next two weeks release a product that will allow small publishers to more easily place ads in their RSS feeds.

Can Translation lead to greater Earnings?

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:52:26 GMT

I've been wondering tonight, if I can increase earnings, but providing links to translations of my site. Will those links get indexed by Google? Will they lead to accidental discovery of non-English people? I checked and google doesn't seem to index pages that use its own translation tool. On the other hand, WorldLingo translations seem to get indexed. With both, the Adsense ads are preserved.

Ways to Increase your Earnings

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:16:28 GMT

DanielHB: Some things I have noticed:

Blending seems to work better on lighter colour schemes while ads which stand out work better on darker backgrounds (for me at least).
Having ads at the end of an article really does help.
Having a small ad which stands out near the top of each page does get quite a few clicks.
Although I don't receive many clicks from my forum, it keeps users coming back.
If the pages are dynamic, mod_rewrite is essential! Ads on page-name.html seem to be targeted better then index.php?page=page-name.
If you do have a forum, it seems a bad idea to put it into a directory named forum or similar. Placing it into a directory called "forum" or "phpBB2" seems to result in web hosting ads.
Since I have started adding at least one page or writing one article every, my traffic has and clicks have risen. More traffic = more money (a little obvious).
Rotating colour schemes seem to give higher results but also changing the colour scheme every day is also effective (tested it out for two weeks, currently using the one built into adsense).

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=31106

Randy: Great tips! Further to #5, URLs with question marks (?) are not as well indexed by Google.

Adsense Calculator

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 13:57:47 GMT

Quickly calculate your Adsense earnings based on Page Impressions, CTR and CPC.

http://www.adsensecalculator.com/