Yahoo CAPTCHA Hacked

According to a recent article on TMCNet, the CAPTCHA test that is used by some of the largest email providers has been compromised. This could, if true, lead to a massive increase in spam in coming days.

CAPTCHA has long been picked away at, the simplest CAPTCHA tests being compromised years ago by OCR software reading the image. This lead to further distorted images some leading to images that were harder for legitimate users to read as well. This is the problem that brought me to look for other solutions to stop automated form submissions, which has actually been quite successful.

My current contracting company is having some serious spamming issues on their open community projects, and have found different ways of dealing with it without using CAPTCHA, and are having limited success. I am hoping to talk to the lead developer of that project and sharing some of my findings with the team before moving on to my next contract.

CAPTCHA is running on a limited shelf life, anyone using it would be wise to start investigating new methods of dealing with auto-submissions. The methods I discussed weeks ago, have been proven very successful, and I suggest everybody at least try them.

The Runner Up, Bidvertiser

I have spent a bit of time the last couple weeks looking for a decent AdSense alternative. There are lots of ad systems out there, so many are just plain stupid, or simple copies of all the others. There are any number of places you can go to get "You're visitor # 1,000,000, you've won!" banners. That's not what I am looking for. After a few days my search focused around Bidvertiser and Adbrite.

They are both essentially the same system, and all I need a system for is my small sites that I am building, like this blog and others, so I don't need to put them in AdSense, and, because their new sites, risk the chance of my bigger sites getting smart priced and hurting my bottom line. So, while sites are growing, or, sites that don't have a high CTR, I can keep in the second choice, and as they grow, move them in to AdSense.

Bidvertiser wins out for me, not because of payout or anything like that, because really, the small sites don't make enough to matter anyway, I just like the way Bidvertiser works. The setting up of new ad spaces, categorization, approving and disapproving of ads, and such other factors I just like better, and it seems I can get my maintenance done quicker with Bidvertiser. The only thing I kind of learned the hard way is that if I use a large rectangle on one site, set the colors and all that, then assign a large rectangle to another site in my account, using different colors...well, all the large rectangles anywhere in my account change colors, which is pretty stupid. You can't seem to have ads of the same sizes using different color schemes.

If you need a second choice, check them out. Given my smart pricing experiment, and the outcome I am finding, I highly suggest one gets a good second choice to use on new sites and save yourself some financial loss from AdSense.

I Hate The New AdSense Code

A few months ago Google launched a new control panel with which a publisher can manage ads. 95% of the time this is pretty neat. When you create your ad size, colors, channel assignments and so on, you name the ad and AdSense saves the name and gives you the code. The code is much smaller, and gives the ad a "slot" number. You then paste that code in your web site just like with any other AdSense code.

Then, from the new "manage ads" tab in your AdSense account you can change colors, channels and whatnot from there. A few minutes after committing the changes they appear on your site. In theory this all look well and good, however, is you decide that the large rectangle is too large and want to go to the next size down you need to recreate the code, and thereby create a new ad in your list. With the old code you could just edit a couple lines of the existing code.

In addition to that, on one site I have ads in members profiles, which change colors with the colors that the member sets for their profile. In the new code this is not possible. You can not set the colors on the fly like that, as they are assigned in your AdSense account, no longer in the code itself.

The last issue I saw is the in the link units, which I very much like using, with some color schemes it is impossible to not have the "Ads by Google" line highlighted with a different background color, which really destroys the ability to fit it gracefully in to your site.

Fortunately my biggest sites still use the old code, I have enough of it I can copy and paste that I can keep using it all I want. I use the new code on a few web sites, but not all, as I have found it to be "new", but not "improved". To me, it solved problems that I had already found my own solutions for, and not giving us publishers the option of using the old or new code was somewhat disconcerting. The new code simply will not work in some of my applications.

What has been any of your experiences with this new code?

Google AdSense Smart Pricing Experiment

I have read a bit lately about "smart pricing", which is a subject Google has not really talked about much, however, some information has slipped out. It is now known that smart pricing is a way of setting the prices for ads based on the performance of the site they appear on. Basically, the same ad could cost more to show on site 1 than on site 2, if site 1 has proven to have a more effective advertising campaign. It has also been revealed that smart pricing is evaluated weekly.

It has also been determined that smart pricing affects a publishers whole account, not just the web site within the account. So, in theory, one poorly performing web site can drop the income of an entire account.

Knowing this, I went through my account and took a few of the sites with the lowest CTR off AdSense and put them on Amazon, AdBrite or any other system. I planned to wait a week, to make sure a re-evaluation had taken place. Much to my surprise, after a couple days my income increased about 5% - 10% on my account, and I had one day that was actually about 25% higher than average.

After seeing this I immediately went to my log analysis and realized I had pretty average traffic and pretty average click through rate, nothing dramatically different either way, up or down. So, knowing this I can only attribute the difference be the fact I have smart priced myself out of a few dollars over the last few months. I try web sites on this topic or that, and see what happens, always using AdSense.

I consider myself schooled. Build a site, get some traffic and a decent CTR on another system before bringing AdSense over to it. If you don't, it can cost you money. However, my test is only a couple weeks old now, so I am not going to jump too drastically yet, but it certainly is an interesting coincidence.

AuctionAds Becomes ShoppingAds

I have been playing, to a limited extent, with the newest system created by the inventor of Text Link Ads, ShoppingAds. I have had minimal (read: no) success with Shopping Ads, but they make decent space fillers on site I am getting a low CTR/eCPM through AdSense on to help facilitate a little Smart Pricing experiment I am doing.

I was surprised when I went to log in to ShoppingAds today, for my weekly-or-so check on impressions and clicks (it's not like it ever gets a sale) on my account, that AuctionAds is now part of the same system. This is pretty cool, as I had always meant to try AuctionAds but never got around to it, and I like the idea of ShoppingAds, even though they don't seem to perform very well. I still see it as having possibility, perhaps with the blend of the content from AuctionAds in the mix is what it needs to step up it's game.

However the experiment is teaching me something about AdSense though. As I remove lower performing sites from my AdSense account, the revenue is actually going up on the sites I keep on the account. So I am earning more. This, I suspect is part of that damn Smart Pricing system I am trying to understand and work with, and hopefully report on later.

Enter The New Year With A New Disposition

It's the beginning of a new year, so all the web publisher forums are being order run with the "how much did your web sites make last year" type questions. I always avoid those threads, what I make is nobody's business, and the threads always wind up being one of three types of people.

1. The dude/dudette who makes nothing, whining about it and telling everyone how this "make money on the internet thing is a scam".
2. The dude/dudette who lies and tells everybody he's making loads of money when he is really person #1.
3. The dude/dudette who actually is making loads of money and wants to brag about it. Note that person #3 can vary by what each person thinks "loads of money" is.

What is funny is that person #1 almost always winds up being some person that made their web site because they thought they could make money on it. They picked the topic based on which topics pay the most for ads, they researched and copy/pasted loads of content, or used some auto text generator, and figured they'd be rich.

Person #2 is the internet version of a douchebag...no further comment necessary.

Person #3 comes in a couple varieties. Very often, does their topic research, saw how much any given topic paid for ads, picked some that they are actually interested in, or knowledgeable about, wrote original content, and built a useful, original site that ads to the internet. The other option is that the person built a web site based on knowledge or passion, because they enjoyed it, created a good site with original content, then found out as an afterthought that maybe people would advertise on it.

Every now and then somebody will start as one person and end as another. For example once in a while somebody will be person #1 and it'll catch on and make a go of it...but not often.

Again, as I repeat very often, and I will repeat again today, the key to succeeding on an advertising revenue scheme you web site must be something you know, understand, can write about and enjoy. That is the trick, or, at least has been for me. Copy and pasting text will not work, picking a topic you know nothing about won't work, topics that have high ad values have incredibly high competition due to too many person #1's in the world.

If you have a topic that interests you, so what if it's lower paying, it may also have less competition then, which could possibly net a great revenue, and be more fun for you.

Think about it...

BlackHat AdSense Tricks

I just read the free eBook from AdSense Black Hat Edition and was actually pleasantly surprised. Typically these books are pretty much all the same, giving the same advice and info that everyone does. I actually found this one pretty darn interesting. It has some ideas I am going to put in to testing myself, and see what shakes out.

Most of the interesting info was regarding designing and placing ads. Some of it is brushing the fine line of against the TOS, and may be against the TOS in spirit, but to the letter of the law, it seems legit. Of course, there is a lot of stuff that I disagree with, such as automated content generation and stupid junk like that, which I completely, 100% do not endorse in any way. I'd just ignore that part of it, but if you have a few active, legitimate sites, I would most certainly take a look at the design and placement advice.

On any account, I would recommend any active AdSenser read the book, and, I would lay odds everybody can pull at least one or two interesting tidbits out of it. If not, it's not like you are out any money, just a few minutes of your time.

Get great AdSense tips and tricks to get the most from the AdSense ads from my eBook Common AdSense, as well as other great bonuses.

Theory vs Reality in Ad Publishing

I was spending some time on a new forum the last few days and came across a thread of somebody asking for a site review for content, ad placement and such things. I look at the site and it was noticeably lacking in content, but that is common with new sites, hopefully the intention is not to leave it like that but grow, so I leave that alone and say it doesn't break any terms of service or anything like that, but breaks a few design "rules".

I was surprised to see others comment on their "good placements". Their ads were almost completely covering the first fold. There was the site header, then the next few inches were covered with two 300x250 rectangles and a 160x600 skyscraper.

Sure, this is "good placement" for CTR I suppose, but it is horrendous in terms of usability and design. If your one and only goal is click through rate, with no regard for user experience, return traffic, or visitor retention, perhaps that is a good strategy, but, if you are wanting good traffic, repeat traffic and a good surfing experience for your visitors, you really need to balance placement and user experience. Nobody wants to come to a site and see nothing but ads on the first screen.

My Hopes For 2008

Hmmmmm, it's a new year, everybody has resolutions, most will be broken within a week or two, or, once the hangover wears off. I am trying to think of not what my resolutions are, that's on me, but what I hope for the things that are out of my control.

• I sincerely hope Google AdSense tightens up their publisher approval requirements to lessen the amount of MFA sites or just low quality, spammy, garbage publishing sites. I hope it involves approving each domain, not just the parent account. With tighter control over approvals I think the invalid click/angry disabled user issue would be much closer to just solving itself, as I am of the opinion the vast majority of the angry, disgruntled publishers are the little guys trying to game the system, or getting in clickbombing wars with other little publishers. Instituting some sort of traffic requirement, original content or content volume requirement would not be out of line.

• I hope there is an decrease in the overall use of AJAX, yet an increase if effective AJAX use. It's a fun technology, it's very cool in the right place, but like every new(ish) technology, the last couple years it is being vastly overused and entering the area of my personal prejudice that Flash currently inhabits.

• I wish people would stop developing HTML already, we don't need HTML 5, XHTML 2 or whatever the hell they want to call it. HTML does what it it supposed to, has plenty of options, what it can't, mix in some JavaScript, sprinkle some CSS and blend to suit. I have yet to experience an HTML limitation...development needs to be focused on CSS standards I think. But I know that won't be a popular opinion.

• I hope freeware and open source continues to flourish. There are some great things out there, that, if people put down their "get what you pay for" attitude, which is typically correct, these applications could bring the over priced, under developed, overly buggy application companies to their knees. The software is free, and the user community usually provides better support than the companies that charge for it. Open source has huge momentum and excitement behind the developers and the users.

That's about it, I'm pretty low maintenance.

The More I Think About It, I'm Scared of Google

Well, I am not scared of Google right now, I am scared of Google in a few years. Based on my previous blog where I commented on Microsoft being scared, now I think about it, it could be scary.

With Google's data mining abilities, plus, the fact they host email for millions, calendars for countless hundreds of thousands, documents and spreadsheets, plus I suspect maintain search histories for users that are logged in when they search...man, that's a lot of data.

Then I read a story recently about a murder, where the suspect said he was at home, but, using his cell phone records they figured out he couldn't have been based on which towers transmitted a couple of his calls. Then I realize Google did say I while back they are getting into the cell phone business. Add to that the fact there is increasing popularity of having GPS on cell phones and you have one very knowledgeable force in Google.

Of course, all that info has good uses and bad uses. Good uses is being able to say "hey, where is the nearest gas station" and you don't even need to say where you are. What was that bar I was at yesterday? What was that query or email from last week? The bad is that they know too.

The information this can provide for targeting advertising, however, is stellar. Geo-targeting, and behavior targeting...now that is cool. The accuracy with which they could display ads could be very good.

At the end of the day, however, this could lead to one very knowldgeable company, and with information like that being used by the wrong people, well, could have devastating outcomes. Let's just hope they stick to their mantra of "don't be evil"...and even moreso hope their definition of evil and mine are the same.