Besting Adwords

AdSense Reports B0rked!

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:13:48 GMT

Last night, I noticed by daily page impressions on URL channels were twice normal. Custom channels appear to be OK. The problem persists this morning and might be thrice normal.

More...

Ask.com Double Sucks

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:50:36 GMT

Just how bad is ask.com? Even their advertising produces undesired results. For instance, they have a deal with NASCAR where they are major promoter with commercials on TV and their website. On the nascar.com website it suggests the top NASCAR related search is NASCAR Driver Standings. The result of this search on NASCAR is a 6 month old standings page on nascar.com. Obviously, the intent of such a user seach would be the current standings, not a historical one.

Google on the other hand, produces exactly the same first result, but if you turn to the secondary results, Google wins producing the correct result on the second item. Ask.com on the other hand doesn't provide the proper result page at all.

Result: Even ask.com's own advertising provides better results on Google than Ask.

Selling MySpaceLayoutStore

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:57:16 GMT

I'm looking to sell one of my websites. The site is profitable, but I'm want to get more site sales in my reportoire. I'm looking for 1000 dollars. First bid wins, assuming the terms are reasonable.

http://www.myspacelayoutstore.com

AdSense Failing

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:16:59 GMT

Six months ago, AdSense made up more than half of the revenues on my websites. In February, AdSense made up less than 10% of my revenues. While my websites have grown 10-20% per month, AdSense CPMs have been shrinking just as fast. Now, my direct and network ad sales are 10 times higher than AdSense and other revenues are 5 times higher than AdSense.

Two weeks ago, an AdSense representation approached me about optimizing my ads. They recommended that I make my AdSense ad units more promenant and that I add more units. Wow! Great advice. I would've never figured that out on my own. Maybe I should just remove all my content to the small right sidebar and put ads in the larger content area. My users will just love that.

I wonder about GOOG's revenues in the next quarter or two. I suspect the short-term outlook is not good.

PayPal Reputation

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:08:45 GMT

Today, I notice my PayPal reputation is (69) Verified Buyers. I remember it being this several months ago and possibly more than a year. Lately (for months), I've had more than one buyer per day. My reputation should be in the hundreds. I wonder if the PayPal reputation feature has been broken for months and maybe even a year or more.

Update: I received an email from PayPal confirming their reputation index is broken.