I saw many people at Digital Point and WebMaster World complaining about their Adsense income drop over the past few months. People attributing it to the worldwide economic depression. The proof is here now.
Google has released its 2009 Q1 earning statement recently. Amidst all the complex jargon, two stats are of particular importance to all those affected by Google Adsense. Google Network Revenues and TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs.
Google Network Revenues are the partner sites generated revenues. The partners include major establishments like Ask.com, New York Times etc and all bloggers and small sites owners. This can include revenues under other programs as well.
TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs are the portion of revenues Google has received only with Adsense programs.
As the graph below shows, TAC is on the decline since Q32008. This means Google is earning lesser by every quarter through its Adsense Program.
Google earning has a direct bearing on the publisher earning, hence you may be seeing lesser moolah through the Adsense on your site.
All in all, don’t fret if you are seeing a lesser amount in your account everyday. It’s happening with everyone!
PS: If you want to explore programs beyond Google Adsense, here is a pretty good list of adsense alternatives.
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This is for all those who are not able to login to their Google adsense account today. For the unaware folks, Google adsense is up with some new design for adsense home page b
ut with this new design they seem to have messed up with the login for some of their publishers worldwide. Technically what that means is, if you’re among the effected lot you will find yourself in the "loop" between your adsense account login page and your Google account settings page.
Though the official blog post claims to have resolved the problem but I can still see this occurring for me. So for those people like me still facing this issue, try login with this page instead https://www.google.com/adsense/login3
I’m sure you will be able to access your account. Gozar!
PS: Ad review center is now available for Adsense for Feeds as well. [With the help of ad review canter you can control the placement targeted ads that can appear on your site.]
After seeing a recent blog post on Adsense Blog, I thought of experimenting with inline ads on one of my blogs hosted on blogger. I liked the tip about making the adsense inline with your blog post instead of putting it under the title or above the title.
Here I am reproducing what I did to my blogger hosted blog to make my adsense ads left align and wrapped around my content, the same way as can be seen on this blog post. THERE IS NO CHANGE TO ADSENSE CODE, SO NO NEED TO FEAR ABOUT GOOGLE TOS VIOLATION.
- Trust you already have adsense code set up below the post title. If not, follow instructions carefully on this post to add adsense below the post title.
- Now, to put the ads on left side of your post. Add <div style=’float: left;’> and <div style=’padding-right: 3px’> before the adsense code. Don’t forget to close them with the </div> tags. Here is how it should look like.
- Now, to put the ads on right side of your post. Add <div style=’float: right;’> and <div style=’padding-left: 3px’> before the adsense code. Again, don’t forget to close them with the </div> tags. Here is how it should look like.
- Wondering why I have added padding-left or padding-right? This will ensure that your ad is separated by a safe distance from text. You can increase/decrease the pixels as per your requirement.
Also see, how to safely test adsense ads?
Adsense below the post title is known to give good CTR(Click-Through-Ratio). Here is how you can add adsense ads below every post title, only on inner pages and except the home page of your blog. [Yes, in a safe way!]
- Go to Dashboard > Edit HTML.
- Click on ‘Expand Widget Templates’.
- Search for <div class=’post-body’> and place your adsense code below this line.
- This is the most important step. Inside your adsense code’s <script type=’text/javascript’> and </script> , replace every occurrence of
- < with <
- > with >
- “ with "
- You should NOT change the < and > around script type=’text/javascript’ and /script.
- To show your adsense only on the inner pages and not on home page, add <b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == "item"’> before the adsense code and </b:if> after the adsense code. You can also add <center> tags to center align your ads.
- The final code should look like this.
Regarding code changes that I have done, no need to worry about Adsense TOS violation. I have asked my Google adsense representative and according to her as long as any page’s source shows the same code as you copied from adsense account there is no problem. You can verify this by going to your page where you have put adsense. Right click and View Source (in IE) and View Page Source (In Firefox). Of course if you want to double verify this, you can always check with your adsense rep.
For those interested in testing and knowing which ad unit would perform best for them, can refer this excellent post on A/B testing from official adsense blog.
Inside Adsense – the official blog of Google Adsense is following its new year resolution to the T. In the first of its kind post, the adsense team has come up with a post on Behind the scenes of scheduled maintenance. They have given a nice explanation on how maintenance happens and what all goes in the background. Here is my favorite excerpt from the post…
Some of you have noticed that impression and click stats appear a bit low after we bring the AdSense site back online, wondering if maybe AdSense maintenance is used to change data to affect your earnings. That’s a theory I’m happy to debunk: this discrepancy is actually a reporting artifact, occurring because we pause stats tallying during our maintenance period. After resuming, our reporting systems have to digest all of the accumulated impression and click logs, and there’s a lot of data! It takes the reporting systems a little while to process the logs, but rest assured that once we get the chance to catch up, the reports will reflect all of the impressions, clicks, and earnings that occurred during the maintenance period. If you’re concerned about the stats you’re seeing, we recommend checking back throughout the day as your reports are updated.
Looking forward to more such posts from the team. Source
For the uninitiated, Google Adsense for domains is a program from Adsense that allow publishers to place adsense on undeveloped domains. The idea behind this is to let user find related relevant information rather than 404’s and also let the publisher make some money from the clicks that get generated on undeveloped domains. Till sometime back, this program was only available to big domain name registrars and domain parking companies like Sedo, Godaddy etc.
What can be termed as a big decision, Google is now opening up this program for all publishers. Most of the terms and conditions that are applicable for normal adsense usage are applicable for Adsense for domains too. Check TOS. Here are some quick facts about Adsense for domains program-
- A maximum of 1500 domains are allowed per publisher.
- It won’t work like normal adsense where we can just copy and paste the code. You need to modify your DNS settings – like CNAME and ANAME Record. Here are the complete Instructions for major Domain Name Providers.
- You can’t use Google adsense for domains with any other Google service. For example, you can’t use Google Apps and Adsense for domains on the same domain. Though adsense for domain on example.com and Google Apps service on mail.example.com (sub-domain) should be fine. Refer.
- With this program, you can change the look and feel of your entire page (not only the adsense ad) right from your adsense account. Some of the options available are-
- With adsense for domains you have the option to provide keywords. The keywords provided by you may be used while targeting ads. While specifying keywords make sure that you don’t give conflicting keywords for ambiguous domain names. For example if your domain name is appleforum.com, then either enter keywords that refer to fruit apple or enter keywords that refer to the company apple. But not to both. Refer some more hints.
- Here is a quick start guide on Google Adsense for domains.
As of now this program is only available to US publishers. Considering Google’s past record with such releases, it should be available to non-US publishers within 6 months.
Now why it can sound death bells to domain parking companies?
Most of the domain parking companies use ad feed from Google, Yahoo or Ask. Domain owners flock to them just because they want to utilize their unused domains and make some money out of it. The money made from such ads is divided between Google, domain parking company and publisher. With the introduction of this program, the middle-men (domain parking companies) can be easily cut. Thus making more moolah for a publisher. I guess in coming future these domain parking companies would get reduced to a market place or an escrow service provider for domain buyers/sellers.
Here I assume that you are using the blogger beta and not on the classic one. It’s been a long time now that blogger has moved to beta. There is no reason for you to remain on classic version now.
You want to show adsense ads on sidebar of the home page of your blogger blog and not on the other pages OR you want to show adsense ads on all pages except the homepage of your blogspot blog. Here is what you can do-
- LogIn to the blogger dashboard. Go to Layout. Say you want to show ad on the left sidebar top. Click on “Add a Gadget” on LHS of layout and enter your adsense code.
- Now go to Edit HTML. Scroll down and locate left sidebar. You will find something like this-
- Copy the name of the first widget. In my case it is HTML6.
- Now click on Expand Widget Templates (given on top right) and search the name you have copied in the above step.
- You will find a similar code except what is in the red box above. Copy and paste <b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == "index"’> and </b:if>, EXACTLY at the same place as shown in the image above.
- If you want to show ads on all pages except on the home page then copy and paste this <b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType != "index"’>
Save Template’ and you’re done.
Gozar!
Recently, Google started rolling out Adsense integration with Google Analytics. [If you have not got your invitation, fill out this form and Google will update you in 24hrs, I got it that ways!]
So far so good. The problem occurred when I clicked on the invitation link –Integrate with Google Analytics-on my adsense home page. It prompted me to either create a free account or use the existing analytics account.
I use two Google Accounts, one for adsense and the other for Gmail, Analytics, Orkut etc. After clicking on continue, this is what it had to say
There was no link , no option there to link adsense with the other Google Analytics account. If you are facing a similar problem here is what you can do:
- Go to your Google Analytics Account.
- Click on Analytics Settings on the top left side.
- Scroll down on this page and click on User Manager.
- Click on Add user link given on right side.
- On the next page, enter your adsense email address.
- Make access type as Account Administrator. [For some unknown reasons the integration would not work for View Reports account type]
- Select all the website you want to grant access and move them to right hand side.
- Save changes.
- Now go to your adsense account home page and click on Integrate with Google Analytics. You will see a similar page as shown in image on the top.
- Click on continue and you will find all your website names populated there. Enjoy!
There are times when even the best blogger’s get stuck and are not able to find topics to write on. A condition formally known as Writer’s Block. Here I will show you two ways how to write a post in such situations and make the the most of it.
Use Google Insights:
An excellent tool from Google, which shows you the trend for a keyword entered by you. Say you are thinking about writing on ‘making money online’ but you are not able to guess the exact topic to write on. Enter the term in search box, scroll down to see Search terms related to ‘making money online’. The terms that you see here are ‘hot’ on Google and I guess, it will make sense to write something based around such keywords.
There is one more graph that shows ‘rising searches’ over a period of time. It distributes data in percentage and shows searches that have grown significantly in a given period of time.
Breakout means that the search term has seen a rise of 1000% in a given period of time.
Use Spyfu:
Another great tool to get an idea for your next post. As you enter a search term it shows data neatly categorized into 3 categories- stats, ads and search results. Search results shows the top 10 results returned on google search, ads shows the ads of people who opt to show their advertisements through Google adwords, stats is the most important category that we will talk about here.
As can be seen in the image above, stats shows data for Cost/Click, Clicks/Day, Cost/Day, Advertisers, Search Results.
- Cost/Click gives you an estimate of how much Google charges from an advertiser bidding on the particular term. Assuming that Google shares a revenue of 50:50 with its adsense publishers (most probably, it is more towards publishers side), you can expect 1/2 of what is mentioned in Cost /Click for a properly SEO optimized page.
- Clicks/Day: In Spyfu terms, The number of clicks per day is the best way to gauge the traffic that a keyword gets. It is a useful number in a lot of ways. Consider the difference between the keywords “Low Fares” and “Cheap Tickets”. If you are a travel industry insider, you might assume that “Low Fares” gets a lot more clicks than “Cheap Tickets”. Indeed, “Low Fares” is an industry term, but “Cheap Tickets” gets almost 100 times more clicks. Which keyword would you rather optimize your content for?
- Advertisers: Greater the # of advertisers means there is great competition for that term means more moolah for you as a publisher.
Over to you now. How do you get ideas for your blog posts?
An excusive and exhaustive list of hand picked tools for bloggers. The inclusion of articles and sites would be on an ongoing basis. You might want to bookmark this for future reference.
Create a Back Up of your blog
Blog Back Up Online: A great free resource. Works for blogspot as well as wordpress users. 
Free Photos for your blog
Free Photos for blog from SXC One of the best source for royalty free photos.
Free photos for blog from istockphoto 
High quality free photos from HP 
Huge list of free photography sites
Free icons for your blog
Free Icons from UserInterfaceIcons 
Web2.0 like free icons from FreeIconsWeb 
Create a free logo for your blog
Create those 125*125 ads free
Image Editing
To enlarge or shorten image use the ‘Stretch and Skew’ option present under ‘Image’ in our very own MS Paint (Windows user 
)
Track your website visitors in realtime
With maps.amung.us you get to see exactly where your site visitors are from – live! These maps update themselves on your site without having to reload the whole page
Check your website rankings on major search engines, the easy way
Google Position Checker Simply Enter a URL and get its current position on Google Search Engine.
Page RankChecker
Pagerank Checker Tool in over 700 datacenters You can check your blog’s PR across 700 datacenters. Handy tool during those freaking PR updation days.
How to check fake page Rank Check if the Google Page Rank for a particular site is fake. This can be especially useful for those who are into buying and selling domain names.
Site Statistics Tools
Sitemeter: Simple and nice interface. 
StatCounter: Similar to sitemeter but have an advantage that you need not show it’s icon on your blog which is mandatory in case of sitemeter. 
Google Analytics: Best, but for geeky guys. Otherwise all the options might confuse you. 
SEO for Firefox by Aaron Wall: Quickly check your Page Rank, Yahoo Links, edu links, Alexa, DMOZ status, BOTW and what not. Highly recommended. 
Grammar Checking Tool: Good writing creates an lasting impression. Don’t let your bad grammar let you down. If you are not sure about grammar skills. Check these blogs.
Check for speeelling and grammar mistaked 
40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation – Dumb Little Man 
Find out who is hosting a website
whois.sc The best service of all. You can even drill down to find how many other websites are hosted by this person. 
Who is Hosting This? Nice intuitive and easy to remember name, incase you forget the one given above. 
Find out how a website is made.
Web Technology Profiler Will tell you the technology used to create a site. 
Test your websites in diferent browsers and mobile phone
Test your web design in different browsers – Browsershots Nice tool to check the layout of your blog in different browsers and their versions. 
Check your site on mobile phone 
Check your Robots.txt for errors
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml Excellent tool to check and validate your robots.txt file. Very Impressive. 
Web Directories
DMOZ: Open Directory: Considered to be one of the best web directories. Only negative point is the moderators are very slow to respond. It can days weeks even months before your site gets included. 
Free Directory List:Contains exhaustive list of free web directories.
Free Websites Template
http://www.interspire.com/templates/ 
Determine your internet connection speed
http://www.computers4sure.com/speed3.asp?Sp=379.4 
Download entire website on your computer
Webaroo Download entire website on your computer. 
Learn blogging.
Problogger A great source to learn about blogging
Daily Blog Tips Again nice blog on blogging. Daniel- the author is always ready to help you(even on IM’s) 
Yaro Starak Go over any ‘A’ lister’s blog, you will find them recommending his blog mentoring program. For sure, he must be doing something right.
LearnPHP
Learn PHP:PHP For the Absolute Beginner
For Blogspot Bloggers
Some useful tips to increase your traffic 
Recent Comments Widget For Blogspot Users with Source Code
Web Hosting Coupons
Best Web Hosting Discount Coupons
Email Address To Image Converter
Convert your bots readable address to human readable address and avoid spam Must have for every blogger. You have to give give away your address some or the other time on your website. Finally do away with those (at) and (dot)
WordPress Add-In
125 x 125 advertising plugin for wordpress: Not so talked about. 125*125 banners are hot and the best plugin to cooly manage them.
Adsense
A nice list of adsense Alternatives If unfortunately you get kicked out of adsense or denied entry into it.
Should you find a tool/site worthy of being included above please mention in the comments below
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