Besting Adwords

Blogads Earns!

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 04:05:07 GMT

Beyond the numerous bugs in Blogads, they do seem capable of earning money for bloggers. I've made 3 sales this month and I've only added a small fraction of the KBCafe blogs.

Blogads Sucks! Part Trois

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:42:59 GMT

Blogads is really having difficulties since they converted to their latest interface. Here's some new problems I've encountered...

In trying to setup The RSS Blog under a mini-network, I found out that the programmers inadvertantly removed a bunch of blogs, including The RSS Blog, from the list of blogs available for advertising.
I've had one advertiser on The RSS Blog, but his ad is not running, even though his ad has been approved.

Past entries on Blogads...

FeedBurner FAN Update

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:12:43 GMT

Just an update on my FeedBurner FAN trials. At the start of this month, I was very disappointed in the lacking ad inventory at FeedBurner, but by the second week of the month, I was running more ads than ever and my earnings have more than doubled since last month. I only run FeedBurner FAN on 3 blogs and it's now 3rd behind direct ads and Google AdSense in terms of generating revenues from the KBCafe blog network.

Note: This blog now is now #1 Google search results for the term feedburner fan.

Sorry You Can't EFT

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:44:21 GMT

Yesterday, I tried setting up EFT on my AdSense account after receiving an email from Google telling me I could. I got an error saying that I had already setup that account, which I hadn't and didn't. I submitted an error to AdSense support and they responded.

Thank you very much for bringing this issue to our attention. I've forwarded the information you provided to our engineering team for further investigation. Unfortunately, at this time it appears that you won't be able to select EFT as a payment option for this account. I apologize for this inconvenience and we'll be sure to let you know when this option becomes available.

Huh? You gotta kinding me.

Performancing Partners

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:13:15 GMT

Performancing Partners is a new ad network. I've already emailed Google about having AdSense and Performancing on the same webpage and they indicated that it is allowed. I haven't signed up yet myself.

http://performancing.com/partners

Badly Timed Commercial

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:56:41 GMT

Badly timed commercial. The commercial appears during a news broadcast and immediately before a bad report about the company..

Bad Timing - video powered by Metacafe

Thanks to Scott Kingery for the play tag with me link.

$1 Billion AdSense Quarter

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:02:35 GMT

AdSense revenues in the last quarter was $997 million.

http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623729

Google Website Optimizer

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:05:41 GMT

Philipp Lenssen: You can now apply to become a beta tester for Google’s new Website Optimizer program. The Website Optimizer allows you to optimize your landing pages – those pages that users reach when they click your site within e.g. organic search results or AdWords – for better conversions.

More at InsideGoogle.

http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

Yahoo! Re-indexes KBCafe

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:26:25 GMT

Yahoo! is slowly re-indexing KBCafe. After a several month ban where I was unable to get Yahoo! to tell me why I'm banned or how I could get unbanned, I finally contacted a friend at Yahoo! who did some digging and got me out of Yahoo! hell. In the end, the reason for the ban was illegit. This is disturbing, becauses not everybody has a friend at Yahoo! that can help them around the red tape of Yahoo! hell.

Ad Spending is Falling

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:21:24 GMT

Steve Rubel: Actual dollars spent on advertising this year was sharply lower than the original estimates.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004206

Spammers Like Me

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:00:03 GMT

I finally got a reason out of Yahoo! on why I was banned from their search index. I apparently had a "distrubingly high" amount of inbound anchor text associated with spammers and malware. Well that's fair. I run an anti-Malware blog where I challenge spammers and sploggers. So, I'm being penalized for trying to clean up spam. They've also indicated that my domain has been cleared. I'd like to thank my friend at Yahoo! for helping me out. Glad to know there's good people in there.

Blog Juice Calculator

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 04:58:55 GMT

Text-Link-Ads has a blog juice calculator. Some rankings for blogs in the KBCafe blog network.

http://www.text-link-ads.com/blog_juice/

Thanks to Tom Simpson for the link [play tag with me]

Click Record

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 04:41:39 GMT

Yesterday I broke my all-time record for AdSense click-thrus and by a long shot (17% higher than the previous record from 7 months ago). Thanks readers!

PayPerPost Sucks!

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 00:42:08 GMT

According to Blogger's Blog, someone has placed on order on PayPerPost.com paying bloggers $10 per post to discuss The Death of Adsense. This is why pay per post schemes don't work and why I have refused all invitations to join. The topic is suggestive. Google could pay bloggers to blog about Why Yahoo! Sucks, Why Microsoft Sucks. This is deceptive, especially considered that PayPerPost doesn't make these offers public knowledge. Maybe someone will blog that my blog sucks because PayPerPost is paying them $10.

http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=1013062

Yahoo! is Pathetic

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:10:39 GMT

I've exchange numerous emails with various people at Yahoo! in the last four months, since I've had this domain banned from the Yahoo! index. In each case, I'm simply passed off to someone else or ignored. My latest re-inclusion requests after I've done substantial changes to my website to make it more Yahoo! friendly was refused with the following excerpt.

It has been determined that your site may not comply with Yahoo!'s Content Quality Guidelines. [cut] We do not offer specifics detailing how an individual site is not in compliance with our guidelines, but we will review your site individually. You will not be receiving further notification regarding your request for a second review, and we are not able to offer the option of another review.

The supreme cop out. I've made numerous changes to adhere to Yahoo!'s guidelines. But no matter what I do, I'm still not in compliance and they won't tell me why. It's getting pretty easy to understand this and this.

Here's the reasons they give for deletion. Does anybody have any thoughts on how I can better meet those guidelines?

False and Deceptive Pay-Per-Click Ads

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:02:10 GMT

Benjamin Edelman has analyzed a lot of unethical AdWords campaigns and is placing some of the blame on Google.

http://www.benedelman.org/ppc-scams/

Feedvertising

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:31:48 GMT

newsniche: Text Link ads [cut] have introduced Feedvertising, a way for you to place ads in your RSS feed.

http://www.text-link-ads.com/feedvertising.php

Blogging for dollar$

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 11:55:10 GMT

Alexandra Zabjek: Not so long ago, blogs were mere hobbies for the tech-savvy or for conspiracy theorists who had finally found soapboxes from which they could address the world. Today, there are an estimated 50 million blogs on the Internet, so it's hardly surprising that some have become profit-making ventures.

Randy: Great article on blogging for profit, which features a friend of mine, Alec Saunders.

Blogads Sucks! Part Deux

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:39:13 GMT

If you read my previous rant on Blogads, then I have some news for you, Blogads really does suck. I received a reply from Blogads and it turns out that I was correct. They disable all their ad units and nulled out all their publisher profiles as an attempt to force their publishers to use their newer version. Why did they not port the data? Why did they not send their publishers emails telling them? Why did they continue to allow the ad units to run without error? There's only one answer to those questions. Incompetence.

AdSense Domain Blocking

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:09:27 GMT

Amit Agarwal is reporting that Google is rolling out a new AdSense feature that allows you block your AdSense ads from appearing on domains you select. This can prevent malicious use of your publisher ID, which has happened to me in the past.

AdSense Policies

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:00:28 GMT

Every once in awhile, I like to review my e-mail exchange with adsense-abuse@google.com. I usually find that any abuses reported disappear in reasonable time. But this time, I'm noting the following two incidents which shed bad light on Google.

I reported an AdSense publisher who was asking his blog readers to click on his ads. The text has disappeared, but the guys account is still account. This seems to indicate that you can ask your readers to click on ads, so long as you stop doing it when you get caught. I've asked Google to confirm.
I reported an AdSense publisher who threatened to abuse my own publisher ID. I forwarded the email as-is to Google, but a month later, this publisher is still in business. I've asked Google to confirm whether theatening to abuse another publisher's ID is allowed.

Is Google getting lax on bad publishers?

Blogads Sucks!

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 17:13:04 GMT

I'm sure getting tired of broken Web 2.0 companies. Today, my beef is with Blogads. Forget for the moment that I haven't got a new ad from Blogads in months, but today, a reader informed me that the Advertise here link on all my blogs is now pointing to a webpages that says "This link no longer works." That might explain why I'm not getting new advertisers. I don't know how long it's been like this but I'll be jamming an email down their throat in about 5 seconds.

Update: Investigating further, most of my Adstrips in Blogads have vanished from my profile. My profile data is completely empty. My accounting history is 404. It appears that Blogads is completely dysfunctional at the moment. Blogads code will be removed from my blogs in the near future.

Update II: It appears that Blogads did this intentionally according to a note on September 9th. They appear to have intentionally broken all adstrips and deleted all profile information in order to force their publishers to re-register with their new Website. OMG! These guys are really stupid.