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Naveed, I agree. There's definitely an economic incentive for Google to offer and promote the AdSense program, just as there's an economic incentive (or more than one, for that matter) for me to promote the program too. But that comes along with the territory when we live in a capitalistic society, doesn't it?
Posted by: Dave Taylor at November 7, 2005 7:24 AMTo be honest Google's business model is a very wise one, not every company can implement that model. The philosophy is "make money by helping people make money" which is derived from the wise principle "to make money serve people" or "to make money put service first".
I have a query -- suppose two guys having their own websites decide that they will click on eachother's ads (Google AdSense ads) daily then what happens? Or a group of guys decide that they will click on eachothers' ads?
I read thru your page and I'm still in the dark.. I got my Adsense code I have tried pasting it in but I don't see nothing.... My knowledge of HTML is very limited so I don't know where to put the code.. I would like to have it on sidebar on the left but at this moment in time I'd jus like to see it on the page. I got the Google Search on but this i s just missin' me.... PLZ could Help Me????
Thanx In Advance!!!
Posted by: Monty at November 26, 2005 3:29 AMMonty, I see a nice column of advertisements on your blogspot weblog. DId you get it working, or did you just not give Google time to "figure out" what to display there?
Posted by: Dave Taylor at November 26, 2005 5:56 AMi also want to know in the same case as Naveed, about two guys having their own websites decide that they will click on eachother's ads (Google AdSense ads) daily then what happens? Or a group of guys decide that they will click on eachothers' ads?
Posted by: rajiv at March 7, 2006 5:53 AMNaveed and rajiv, what you're asking about is click fraud and it'll get you instantly kicked out of Google's AdSense program, without receiving any accumulated income or anything. In fact, click fraud is the #1 threat to Google's long term success as a business: if advertisers start to feel that they can't count on Google's traffic as legitimate, they'll be less willing to advertise, and since AdWords generates the vast majority of Google's income, that's a serious threat.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of people at Google trying to automate the identification of fraudulent ad clicks and I believe that they can cross-correlate values, can certainly compare the IP address of ad clicks versus the IP address of the computer that logs into that AdSense account to retrieve reports, etc.
Generally, though, it's also unethical to defraud advertisers so you can make a buck anyway. So whether or not Google doesn't like it, you shouldn't do it anyway.
Me? I'm so clean with this stuff that if I see an advert that catches my eye, I'll type the URL into my address bar rather than click on it. It's only another 10-15 seconds and ensures I never get flagged by their antifraud system too.
Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 7, 2006 9:40 AMDave - this is a really useful introduction to Adsense. Have you experimented with different colour combinations for your ads at all? If so, did you find it made a difference?
Posted by: Jen @ Home Businesses at March 11, 2006 11:48 PMThanks for the clear explaination of using Google adsense. How much time should one have to wait before people start clicking on your ads?
Posted by: malc at March 14, 2006 7:33 PMJen, I definitely have, and much of what I've figured out has been clearly memorialized in Joel's ebook:
http://d1taylor.jcomm.hop.clickbank.net/
Malc, you should assume that you'll get about a 1-2% clickthru rate, so if you see about 100 people/day coming to your site, it should take approximately one day to see at least one click.
Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 14, 2006 11:19 PMIs it true that all people should first see when they come to your AdSense site is the header and the large AdSense box. I notice you do that on this site.
Posted by: Joe at March 15, 2006 6:09 PMNot necessarily, Joe. In fact, the best performing ads are those that are integrated into your content, because they're the most contextually relevant to the reader. If I go to a site and the first thing I see is a monolithic block of adverts, I'm outta there before you can finish loading the last graphic.
Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 15, 2006 9:20 PMthanks for the article
Posted by: Ronit at April 9, 2006 8:46 AMExcellent topic and you covered it nicely. Adsense is indeed a huge player in the online advertising world and I believe any tips and guides are appreciated. Of course, while millions of publishers are running Adsense, only a handful are making serious money off it. As far as I’m concerned, the best way to make money with Adsense is to develop a website or blog on a niche topic that should also be something you are interested in. Hobby-related sites have the best chances of keeping you, as their webmaster, happy and involved, and this will soon show in the number of visitors and the amounts of money you make.
Another vital thing to consider is ad style and placement. I prefer to use a similar structure for all my websites – one that was proven to work. I will share this with you as I believe in reciprocal help through free advice – I also learned A LOT from browsing blogs such as this and other webmaster resources on Adsense. Ok, so getting back to ad placement: I love the idea of placing a 120x90 or 160x90 adlink box on the left side menu of my sites, in the top left corner, just below the banner. Have a look at my website - web2earn.com, and get more tips on how to make money with Google Adsense and look at the area below the graphic saying “Online money” – it will house a nice 160x90 adlinks box soon after my site receives enough traffic.
The second good spot to place a 250x250 or 300x250 ad box is in the article text. Loose the border and make the background of the ads the same as your web background (same is true for the adlink placement mentioned above. The final touch comes with a final ad placed at the end of each araticle. Consider the article a path that leads to the final conclusion – exactly where the ads are. You can also place a small graphic image to the left of the ads, so that they are more attractive from a visual point of view.
By using such an ad placement most of my sites get CTRs of 10%-15% all the time
Give it a try and let me know if this sort of ad placement worked in your particular cases – I am also doing a study on this which I will eventually publish on web2earn.com
Best regards,
Mihai
First of all, I would like to thank you for writing this great explaination of Google's AdSense system!
I am developing a website with both a free and pay versions of a service in the IT industry. I'm not sure that I would do this, but if I chose to, would it be against the terms of service for me to place google ads inside the 'pay-only' areas of the website?
Since much of my website will be a free service, and I can't be certain that the pay areas will pay too much, I've been trying to find some reliable information on actual dollar amounts for well designed google ad placements. The only reliable information that I've found is on the AdSense case studies webpage. Perhaps you can shed some light on this for me?
My final question that I can't seem to find answers on is, can I mention that my website is partially advertisement funded in my website faq? Usually when I sign up for a free service, I ask why the service is free, so I think it would be helpful to be able to answer that in the faq.
Thank-you for your time
-Chris
You have given useful info on adsense.
I had an invalid clicks problem with adsense.
What are the other alternatives (other
than adsense) that are available to a
publisher based here in India?
I have added adbrite ads, do you recommend
any others?
Joe.
Very clear explanation. Good idea with the screenshots. I suggest that you go one step further by explaining search engine optimization essentials - good for anybody with a site. I use these techniques not only on my own hobby sites but on sites that I create for businesses. It is important information yet simple. If you learn about search engine optimization, you can apply the simple principles and then watch your ranking get better over time. A higher ranking gets more visitors and more visitors will make you more AdSense money too.
Posted by: Mike at August 13, 2006 9:54 PMTo answer your question Joe, the Yahoo Publisher Network is probably the most direct competitor against google adsense.
publisher.yahoo.com
It's still in beta (as it has for a very long time) and it doesn't have all the great tools that adsense has, but it does the job.
Posted by: NutDaily.com at August 17, 2006 1:14 AMThanks for the guide! It's wonderful, and I'm sure beginners will find the pictures very helpful.
Joe: Bidvertiser is another AdSense alternative. It's not a very good one in my opinion though..
Posted by: Mike at August 25, 2006 3:51 PMNice article Dave,
I think the biggest secret of Adsense is "How to raise your visitors". Without huge amount of visitors, you will never earn much with Adsense.
Enzo Chiu
Freelance Programmer & Web Developer
http://www.makemoneyathome-idea.com
hello,am new in adsense programe,i am using a blogsite,and they have template tag,where i added adsens ads to my pages ,please check and see if am on track:www.afrikng.blogspot.com,i wanted to added the referal codes to my blogs but it did not work.i will clik on the adds on your pages for u,click mine too to help me on all my blogs.
can i give friends my site who can navigate my site and click adds also or must it be by search engines.
thanks
great odil
Great Odil, no no no, clicking on ads if you aren't interested in the product or service being advertised is bad and messes up the entire system. I can say definitively:
Please don't click on any advertisements on this page if you aren't genuinely interested!
Thanks. :-)
Posted by: Dave Taylor at October 6, 2006 12:07 AMI received a spam email and I cant quite put my finger on why I opened it. I NEVER open spam. The basic gist was that you pay this guy $49 and he will tell you all about how you can make money writing ads. I noticed in the fine print, that you will be charged $39.95 a month for 'membership'. I figured that anything you want to learn on the internet can be found...FOR FREE. Hence, I found your site. I have used Google's adsense keyword advertising for some of my customers. (I'm a website developer) It's good to know that I can utilize this aspect of it for some of my personal sites and maybe make some money!
The hilarious part about the spam that I received...as I read the "agreement contract"...line item #4c stated "The Site is vigorously against the practice commonly referred to as “Spam”." It went on and on...but I felt that their contract was full of IT since they practice spam themselves.
Anyway, thanks for the good info!
Posted by: Noelle at November 13, 2006 2:08 PMOk..today I had some time to actually go to your homepage. I see that you use Google Adsense. Can you give a ballpark range of the income you make with a website of this size and the adwords you have incorporated? It must be worth it if you have the ads on your pages. Otherwise you would have taken them down?
Signed, Nosey Nate Noelle
ps...Does that qualify as one of the questions you should never ask someone? Just dont ask me how old I am or how much I weigh ; )
Posted by: Noelle at November 14, 2006 10:28 AMOkay, Noelle, you tell me how old you are and how much you weigh and I'll share my AdSense revenues, okay? :-)
More seriously, let's just say that AdSense is paying my mortgage right now and I'm darn happy about that, as it lets me focus on creating more valuable content and helping out more people rather than working at McDonald's flipping burgers.
Posted by: Dave Taylor at November 14, 2006 11:23 AMIn thinking about the site you offer, you are brilliant! The more subjects that people approach you with, the more pages you have online that need new and different Ads. I take my Cornhuskers hat off to you and will be venturing into AdSense with all of my varied sites I run. I am a website developer professionally and at heart...so I have a ton of sites to work with. Bummer that the new Dreamweaver program is so buggy that I am going to load my old version. I hope it is compatible with the new intel-based Macs. Hopefully I will be buying you another Chai soon when I make my first $100!
One question: Do you advertise your own site on Google? No traffic=no clicks. I found you through a specific search engine request.
Another question: Do you offer your photos for sale on sites like iStockPhoto.com? Another nice way to make some ching! Those are some cute kids (yours?) I am working on organizing my bizillion photos to sort out the good from the mediocre so I can start uploading. I have recently been approved as a photographer that can upload photos to sell! Yay!
What a fantastic explanation :)I think with AdSense program Google benifits more than the person who signs up for AdSense. Because if I use AdSense ads on my blog/website and make $10 per month, thats not a big deal for me, but there are 1000 people like me who are making $10 per month and trying hard to make more and in turn they are actually working hard to make Google rich. As $10 * 1000 = $10,000 which is a whopping amount, and that goes to Google :)
Posted by: Naveed Ahmed at November 7, 2005 7:01 AMVery clever business model by Google :)