Why Should AdSense Change To Suit Everyone?

On the support forum today I saw posts from so many people with some crazy issues and requesting Google goes to some crazy measures to accommodate them. I don't get this.

One publisher says his country is in political turmoil, so he says, and because of that banks are closed and he said Google should consider getting debit card type things for publishers. ANother publisher said his site is small, it'd take months to reach the $100 payout threshold so it should be lowered. Then, of course, there is the ever present "I need keyword filtering" complaints and that type of very typical whining.

This got me to thinking, Google AdSense is a business model, and, like all good business models, they have their niche' which they work well within, and many they don't. Any good business model has a threshold at which they will not move any more to support a new client, because that client isn't in their sweet spot of business, and likely wouldn't maximize their revenue and wouldn't be best suited for their core competencies.

With that said, small publishers, or publishers with unique or sensitive content can't expect Google to rearrange their business model, or modify their system to support these unique situations, because it is moving outside of those core competencies.

It's not up to AdSense to suit us, it's up to us to decide if AdSense will work best for us as it is.

Not Able to View Faxes Stored in Exchange?

I had an interesting issue today. A coworker had been for the last many weeks/months has been storing incoming faxes in Microsoft Exchange and viewing them as a .tif file that comes as an attachment. Today, suddenly, they stopped working, telling her she doesn't have permissions to create the file and all that.

Naturally I assume it's a folder permission thing or some such, I talked to our telecom service, they agreed, remoted in, yep, that's the problem, told me too look into that. I do, she has all the authority she needs, still not working.

Well, after Googlin' around, asking a couple other people, it seems it's a temp directory issue.

So, to fix it, I have to navigate the registry to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office11.0/Outlook/Security and get the default temp directory files are stored in, then, empty that directory and it works.

It seems, since every fax is "fax.tif" there are 99 copies of the same file name in that directory and the directory locks itself from any further submissions of that filename.

So, I fixed it and told her to look me up again in 99 more faxes.

Interesting little tidbit submitted for future reference.

Adventures in Social Networking

A few weeks back my wife joined Facebook in order to stay in contact with a specific group of people. Days after that I was often getting questions from her about how to do this or that. I really couldn't answer many of them, never having done Facebook.

Well, after a few days I figured what the heck, I'll get a Facebook and learn how it works. It'd likely be in my best interest to learn a little bit more about social networking, as my only previous experience had been LinkedIn.

During the process of registering and setting up your profile they ask various questions which you may or may not want to answer. I added my age, the high school I graduated from, they year I graduated, the job I do and various other things. Upon submission of my profile the following page consisted of a list of people I might know.

Wow, it was the majority of my graduating class, people my age from my home town, and some random folks I didn't know. Impressive, but really, a reasonably simple, though large, database query. I didn't take much action "friending" anyone but a small few, but, in the following 48 hours or so I had dozens of people friending me from that group of people, and others that I know.

The first week or two was thoroughly addicting, I was talking to people I grew up with, and hadn't seen in years, even connected with an old friend that mysteriously vanished some 18 years earlier without ever saying he was leaving or why.

Quickly one finds out about all the silly time wasting stuff, you can, via the site find out "what 80's band are you", "what drink are you", and various silly crap. There are loads of games, none of which I spent more than 10 minutes with, but it does seem a few of my friends spend a lot of time on them given the little requests and alerts I get from them within the games.

Additionally, it has ways to "group" people, and I have found a couple productive ways to use them. In addition to our web site, I encouraged guys from my Lodge to join and we can use the Facebook group applications to further promote ourselves, and have a secure virtual meeting place with no expense or development time.

Come the thrid week or so the thrill started dying down a little bit, but then guys from a neighboring Lodge started joining, friending and all that, and other friends from my home town or high school join.

While I still believe social networking has gone mad, and I still believe there are far too many social networks, but, there is definitely a place for it, and the last while has been loads of fun (hence a few days without posting here) catching up with people from the past and finding new mediums to be able to talk with current ones when we can't physically be in the same location.

I have been pleasantly surprised with my experience thus far.

Unwanted Postback From Enter Button

I am in the process of building a product catalog on a ASP.Net platform and had an interesting issue come up I have dealt with from time to time, but this is the first time in a .Net environment.

When the visitor selects all the options of the product they want (size, color, etc) the catalog does a quick inventory check, if it turns out there is inventory in stock it then displays a text field to enter the quantity wanted along with two buttons, one to do a price check based on the product and quantity ordered and another to add the quantity to the cart.

Due to the form having only a single text field, entering anything in the text field, then hitting the "enter" button forces a postback which results in an error as no event is set to postback to.

There are all sorts of ways to set a default postback event and such things, but I didn't want it to postback to either button function, I didn't want a postback at all.

Easy way around it, add a second text field and set it's style to the visibility to hidden and the display to none in order to hide it from the user. Adding the second text box eliminates the forced postback altogether.

Silly hack; yes

Does it work; yes

Some Simple Facts about AdSense

Those of us that frequently help in the AdSense forums are constantly answering the same questions over and over and over again. I plan to use this post to address the most frequent, and ignorant, as I see it.

No, AdSense is not a scam.

There are a lot of scammers with programs that associate themselves with AdSense, but Google does not endorse any of these programs themselves, and you see them coming and going all the time with various names. Most noteably I see "Google Money Machine", "Google Money Tree", and various twists on that theme, as well as many with names around the basic "Work at Home" naming convention.

These programs ask you for money for their "program", but, AdSense is free, what the programs supply you with (if you actually get anything) is content that hundreds of other people use, web site templates that hundreds of other people use, and basic ad placement and design that hundreds of other people use. All of this will get you exactly nothing.

Google is free, and works well with established, successful, high traffic web sites.

Yes, Your Business Site Will Show Competitors.

AdSense does not work well with business web sites directly selling products and/or services. The nature of contextual advertising is to show ads related to the content on the page, so if you have a page describing your product or service, AdSense (and any decent contextual ad system) will show ads of the same types of products.

AdSense best services information distribution site such as news web sites, how to web sites, online communities and the like.

No, Your Can't Filter By Keyword Or Topic.

AdSense, at the time of this writing, gives very little control to publishers for ad filtering. It does not have any sort of keyword or topic. As is plainly visible in the AdSense control panel there are two types of filtering, those are by domain the ad points to with the Competitive Ad Filter, and the "Ad Review Center" where you can approve or reject ads that are directly targeting your web sites as spaces. But that only works on ads that directly target your web site, not your keywords.

You Cannot Accurately Predict Revenue.

As often as people ask, revenue can not be accurately predicted, so stop asking. Keyword values fluctuate so much, and the economy is changing so rapidly it's impossible. Add to that the fact that different demographics of people have different clicking behaviors and all web sites place and design ads differently, it makes it even harder.

You can investigate keyword values with Google AdWords tool, but even that I question the reliability of. At the end of the day, all you can do is put them up and see.

Ads Can Not Be Opened In New Windows Or Have It's Size Customized.

What your personal feeling are, or the "unique web site" you are running or anything else, with the standard AdSense code it is not possible (or policy compliant) to hack the code or manipulate the DOM to make them open in new windows.

That being said, if you decide to switch your ads to be run by the Google Ad Manager it does add these capabilities and many, many other features including running third party ads, directly sold ads and more.

Transparent Backgrounds Are Not An Option.

Again, regardless of your needs, design or anything else, AdSense ads must keep the solid background the code generates, any clever coding hacks that change that are a violation of the policies of the program.

No, You Can't Transfer AdSense Earning to AdWords Account.

It's been asked enough times already, they are two separate systems, handled by different teams, and the money from AdSense can not be applied directly to your AdWords bill. Admittedly, that would be nice, but at the time of this writing, no dice.

Conclusion

Many people could save the forum mod, and AdSense Pro's a lot of time if people would simply face some simple truths, read the help documentation and search the support forum before asking the same question over and over again.

Affiliate Advertising is Tough in a Tough Economy

I have always been a fan of affiliate advertising, and it seems most any medium or large online e-tailer has some sort of affiliate program available. Heck, even some of the smallest ones do. With that type of situation almost any web site that is really about anything in particular (as opposed to random blogs or personal homepages) can find something related to their content to sell for commission. Affiliate programs have never been big money for me, but they have been relatively consistent, which has it's own rewards over just volume.

Affiliate programs work best, for me, if they allow certain things, the most important for me is a data feed of their store, so I can generate my own store. This is useful because your web site can consist of more than just a banner link to their web site, you can construct their entire product line as a store within your site, gain search engine rankings if done properly, traffic, page views and more. If those page views also contain some PPC or CPM ads you are getting those stats while the visitors are browsing your store as well.

However, it's been a noticeable decline in interest in the last few weeks/months. As the economic turmoil deepens around the world less and less products are selling, which means less and less commission is coming in.

Don't give up though, if products are not selling, yet you are still seeing traffic on your affiliate pages, use that traffic and rethink your banner placements for PPC or CPM ads on those pages, see if you can improve your SEO on those pages to increase your footprint.

Additionally, if you haven't already, perhaps start scouting your affiliate programs for special pricing, refurbished goods and/or clearance items. Just like you may be getting less commission, eStores are selling less product, many are offering discounts, dropping prices, having sales, etc. Make sure you know if they are and promote it.

Looking into the Microsoft adCenter Publisher System

I was recently accepted into the beta of Microsoft's adCenter Publisher program and have been playing around a bit and found some very promising tools available that I have long wished Google AdSense would implement.

I haven't actually got to display an ad yet on any web site, but for a good reason; while I was accepted into the program, each and every domain a publisher wants to use must get approved by the program, which is awesome, I have always felt Google should do that as well. It is a big use of resources to have to approve every site, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run.


There is a plethora of all the expected tools, ad designing, template saving, channels, competitive filters and all the usual reporting. One tool that is very cool is an optimization tool, you can set up differently designed ads and run them through this tool and compare the results, it's like a built in A/B test, which is uber cool. It allows weighting of some of the ads in the rotation and compares all the performance metrics. I look forward to checking this out once a "property" is approved.

Filtering is, by the looks of the tool, far more effective than many. Multiple filters can be configured, attached to different channels, one or many, and ads can be filtered by url or keyword, which is a huge step beyond anything that AdSense currently provides. This alone will make it far more effective for many sites for whom AdSense was too much filtering maintenance time.

Getting your account set up to receive payments is wacky. You fill in your name and address at least three time in different places, which seems very inefficient, but it is something you only have to do once, so, what the heck. One thing I noticed in the account section that AdSense also lacks is the ability to add users to access the account. AdSense can only do that if one upgrades to the Ad Manager system.

I am really looking forward to my properties being approved, I am waiting on two, so I can start seeing the types of ads I get through the system, because the tool kit, for a first draft beta program, is pretty cool.

If you are looking to try an AdSense alternative, see if you qualify for, and are accepted in, this very limited beta release of their program. Try to sign up today.

More Ad Spaces Does Not Equal More Revenue

In trying to help people new to the advertising game, I notice a trend in thinking, and, I can say, I had this type of thinking myself at one point. The truth is, more ads on a web site does not necessarily equal more revenue. This is most especially true if they are all piled at the top or bottom.

I go to people's blogs and web sites to check them out on support forums and whatnot, and am amazed at how many people have the first screen of their site as nothing but a header/title type image and everything else is ads. Alternatively the other extreme approach is having no ads, as I scroll through wondering what they are doing I see a dozen ads all piled on the bottom.

The one thing that people often don't seem to do with their own sites is look at them objectively. Looks at your web site as though you are not the owner/creator of it. Would you visit your web site? Does your web site give the feeling that it is an authority, or a professional, in the field(s) that you cover? Is the content well written, grammatically correct and easily read and navigated?

In order to answer these questions objectively, you need to establish criteria that your sites should meet.

What keeps you from going back to sites yourself? It's likely sites covered wall-to-wall in ads, always popping up and popping under ads, having poorly written content or content you already read elsewhere, or a site that is just hard to move around in.

What makes a site appear as an authority or professional in their covered subjects? I pleasing, professional design, quantities of original content that is well written, informative, easy to read and very widely covers the subject(s) at hand with opinion, proven fact, references for proof and the person or people writing it having some sort of credentials that are available on the site.

What makes a site easy to navigate and content well written? Well, the navigation aspect gets difficult as you get more content. A well designed site categorizes it's content logically and implements a series of menus and link lists to make it easy to find what you want. Having content that is well written just takes time and effort...and a spell check. Too many people are too anxious to get their site up as fast as they can, so, if the site isn't copied content, it will have typos, it'll be choppy reading and unprofessional.

Not rushing to get your site out, taking time, writing good content, using spell check, having some people read it in your home or some friends, before publishing it is worth it. Research the topics you are covering, don't just cruise the net stealing others content, it never pays off.

Getting back to the ad count issue (example of choppy writing right there). More ads will not get more clicks, but, it will drive away annoyed visitors. Look at well designed sites, their ads are in well chosen areas, and it's only a few, not everywhere. They sometimes aren't even immediately noticeable as they are blended in to the site. Fewer ads that are well designed, placed and contain good, related ads will out perform double the ads containing obnoxious animations and completely off topic subject matter.

Take your time, do it right.

Trying Out Clicksor

I have heard the name Clicksor so much lately I figured it's in my best interest to try it out and see what it's made of. Initially I was simply pleased because they had a real, honest to goodness approval system. You apply, wait a few days, they check out your site and all that. One thing that makes me immediately skeptical is any system that you just sign up and start placing ads when you're done.

After approval I was immediately annoyed by one thing; that being you don't log in with your email address or a user name, you use the account number they supplied for you...and of course it's a string it'll be ages before I ever commit to memory. THAT is incredibly annoying.

Once you get in it's all pretty logical to set up ad code, look at reports and all that. However, when making ad code they pre-check all the type of ads they want you to use, which includes popunders, interstitial, inline text and standard banners. This is somewhat annoying on account of I already use Kontera for inline text ads and am very happy with them, and every time I will have to uncheck interstitial and popunder because I won't use them.

The code generated is typically of any ad system, just some simple lines of JavaScript to copy and paste into your files.

The reporting very much lacks, the default report just shows revenue, you need to dig a bit to get impressions, clicks and so on.

I found that after putting the code up late in the day I had about 800 impressions for which I earned a whopping 2 cents. I go digging and find out that I have had zero clicks. Well, no big wonder, I am looking at the ads it's producing, and, even though I gave specific categories for my site I am getting completely unrelated, and cheesy ads. The first one I see is for the "Acai Berry Diet". Now, personally, I am a huge fan of the Acai berry's health benefits, and know a great deal about it, and weight loss is not something it helps with, so immediately the first ad I see is a scam.

Following that I have a few blank displays, my alternate choices are Amazon ads, those get displayed now and then, a few other weight loss ads, some "get rich at home" type ads. Disappointing, as none of my audience will ever click on those garbage ads.

What I was doing is using Clicksor as back fill for Chitika, since Tribal Fusion bombed once I used it as back fill. I guess I'll just stick with Amazon affiliate ads for back fill and hope I can get some affiliate sales. Clicksor I can pass judgement on very quickly for their banner ads.

Admittedly, they also have text ads, which I can't use for fear of ticking off Google for violating their policies. Perhaps when I find something to replace AdSense (God knows I am looking) I can give the rest of Clicksor a try, but their image ads do indeed really, really suck, are completely untargeted and profitless.

Work with AdSense a New Way using Google Ad Manager

After waiting far, far to long, I decided to finally dive in to Google Ad Manager during a redesigning of one of my bigger web sites. Ad Manager is Google's web based advertising management system, that, as one would expect, works with AdSense accounts quite well.

Ad Manager allows the easy creation of ad code, obviously, that's it's primary task for the average AdSense user, but, beyond that it allows reporting, multiple user access and even allowing the managing of third party and independently sold ads.

If you sell an ad space yourself, outside the AdSense system, you can go into this application and schedule the showing of the ad and use AdSense only for back fill behind inventory you don't have filled with other ads.

In this tough economic climate, I predict that wise companies will be looking for more and more direct ad sales, since this cuts out the middle man it costs them less money and stands to make the publisher more money at the same time. Having a tool like this would be very useful in these situations, with the ease of AdSense back fills to make sure all inventory is always fulled with something. There are many similar ad management tools out there, but my fear has always been that it alters the delivery method of the AdSense code, and therefore violates the terms of service. This is a Google tool made to delivery AdSense, so with that, that fear is remedied.

I like this tool much better than the default AdSense system, the code is less clumsy, and the placement and channel management seems a bit more logical to me. However, the reporting only reports on revenue made with that code, it does not track AdSense as a whole, so if you convert your site slowly, you'll only be getting part of the reports at any given time.

I would suggest, whether Google's Ad Manager or another system, it is well worth the investment to move, just to be ready when advertisers come to you directly, rather than though a system like AdSense. With better money at stake, and money savings for the advertiser, it's be a shame to not be prepared.

Years ago I switched to AdSense to save myself the hassle of dealing with advertisers directly, because then I didn't know what my space was worth, and did not have a convenient system with which to manage the ads. With this I can look at reports and see the value of any given ad space, and easily manage their ads in the same tool.

Google Latitude

Well, now, I'd hate to be the ONLY blogger on earth that doesn't say something about the much publicized, very controversial new release from the great and powerful Google.

Latitude is the name of Google's latest infringement on our privacy in their never ending quest to know everything about every one at all times from anywhere, er, I mean, latest software release.

Latitude is, for all practical purposes, a massive GPS system that tracks people whereabouts by their cell phone or computer. Of course, there are privacy issues one needs to allow others to view it, I see the permissions to hide your location and other such things. I just really wonder what the bigger picture is on this. Google is sort of starting to scare me.

I do believe there is such a thing as others knowing a little bit too much. I mean, I don't mind government officials listening to my phone calls if they suspect a real threat (my only objection being the waste of my tax dollars) and I don't mind having to prove my citizen status at times, or that sort of thing, but the idea that somebody out there is tracking you by your cell phone or laptop is sort of scary. I know the technology exists, incredible tracking technology exists, but that doesn't mean we need it on everyone.

Time will tell what comes of this, some folks are really pissed off, as a parent I can see it having it's benefits, but then, GPS from cellphone to cellphone without Latitude could be done for a long time. I guess this is where technology is going though.

I am just starting to think Google knows too much. Plus, they own Blogger, so now they know the I think they know too much. Time to get into my cave.