Anyone who claims to have his/her Adsense increase in the last 90 days either 1. isn't paying attention, 2. is deliberately misleading others or 3. just opened his account and started with zero.
Sad truth is that, on or about November 15th of 2007, practically all publishers saw a large drop when Google made it so that the only clickable part of the Adsense banner is either the hyperlinked title or the URL itself. Prior to that, the entire banner was a big juicy hot spot. For practically all publishers, that alone caused a huge income droppage. Big G called it a safety measure to prevent accidental clicks. Ok, whatever. Go argue with that.
Next came this smart pricing concept on or about the same time. Clicks that previously brought in significantly more now pay only $0.05-$0.10 -- if you are lucky. Sure some categories still pay a little more, but practically all took a beating.
Take a moment and think about this from Google's point of view, though. With the previously higher payouts, they got publishers to use their product in droves, they established themselves as the de facto place for companies to allocate advertising dollars, and they kicked the corporate tushies of MSN and Yahoo. Great strategy.
If you were them, you too would probably realize that the time has now come to cut back on the publisher payouts and to keep the payments within the stock holder family. They are well aware that most of their publishers will be too lazy to switch and/or not be concerned with the drop in earnings.
Will the Microsoft's purchase of Yahoo make G re-address their lower publisher payout decision? Perhaps, but that may or may not ever happen (ie, anti-trust concerns). And, even if it does happen, it may never be a threat to G anyways. It may be too late for Microsoft to turn that sinking oceanliner around. Remember that IBM bought dying dog Lotus thinking they could turn it around. Novell bought dying dog Word Perfect thinking the same thing. When was the last time you used either Lotus or Word Perfect? (Anyone remember Altavista?) Well, now Microsoft is going to buy Yahoo. Maybe they will resestablish it into a real contender ala Facebook or maybe they are just wasting their precious $44,000,000,000.00 (Wow, that's a lot of money!). I predict the latter and that Google will not only end up as a winner, but that Microsoft will then have $44B less to spend in their warchest.
So, if you are a publisher...what to do? Relax. We are all in the same boat. Even those that say otherwise.
Remember when you first started with Adsense and/or Overture and were really happy to be earning enough to buy yourself breakfast on a daily basis? Then lunch...and soon, it became a dinner? Soon, it was a really nice dinner and desert, and eventually it covered your mortgage or more. As a eminder, your daily Adsense income continued to grow as you continued your hard work, experimented with different banners and ad types, created channels and added content, content and more content. Ok, so you took a hit, but you'll recover. Not the end of the world. Just dust yourself off and get back on the horse. It still beats working.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Latest Adsense Referral Pricing Slot
It was believed that generating income out of referrals was a tough job. Lol, for me it was almost impossible. But there is a good news now
Google Adsense has revised it’s pricing structure for adsene referrals.
Here are the details:
Adsense Referrals:
* When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.
* When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment, you will be credited with an additional $250.
* If, in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).
Adwords Referrals:
* When an advertiser you refer spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee) you will be credited with $5.
* When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.
* If, in any 180 day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payments are limited to 1 per year).
The rules however follow as they were in the TOS. you cannot click your own refferals and neither would you be paid by doing so. Banned! Probably yes!
The new pricing structure actually applies to the publishers who have reffered but who have not yet reached one of the new earning/spend thresholds.
That’s even cooler.
For me, well two days back, i removed referrals from all my sites. I though it was a waste of space.
Alas, back to work now and place all the referrals back again.
Google Adsense has revised it’s pricing structure for adsene referrals.
Here are the details:
Adsense Referrals:
* When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.
* When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment, you will be credited with an additional $250.
* If, in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).
Adwords Referrals:
* When an advertiser you refer spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee) you will be credited with $5.
* When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.
* If, in any 180 day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payments are limited to 1 per year).
The rules however follow as they were in the TOS. you cannot click your own refferals and neither would you be paid by doing so. Banned! Probably yes!
The new pricing structure actually applies to the publishers who have reffered but who have not yet reached one of the new earning/spend thresholds.
That’s even cooler.
For me, well two days back, i removed referrals from all my sites. I though it was a waste of space.
Alas, back to work now and place all the referrals back again.
Adsense Retire
Last year seemed to be an experiment, when the New Pricing Structure For Adsense Referrals was introduced. However this year, Google Adsense has decided to end that price structure and carry on with the one they had previously. This did come as a unpleasant surprise for some. These pricing changes took place during the last week of January. A referred user who reached $100 within 180 days of signing up and who removes all payments holds before the change occurred, generated earnings of $250 for the referring publisher. Any referred user who met this conversion criteria after the change will only generate $100 in earnings for the referring publisher.
However there came a new addition to this news, which was rather disappointing and shocking. If you are an adsense publisher, and you’re not from North America, Latin America or Japan, then the referrals promoting Adsense, will retire soon for you! The reason for retiring Adsense referral for these countries has been stated in terms of “Not Meeting Expectations”. For some reason Adsense team were hoping much more better results from other countries which failed. So the decision of retiring Adsense referrals from rest of the countries had to be taken.However, all the other referrals for other products as Google Pack, Mozilla Firefox etc are still available in your Adsense Account. So it’s time that you replace the existing code of referral for adsense with some other referral code.
However there came a new addition to this news, which was rather disappointing and shocking. If you are an adsense publisher, and you’re not from North America, Latin America or Japan, then the referrals promoting Adsense, will retire soon for you! The reason for retiring Adsense referral for these countries has been stated in terms of “Not Meeting Expectations”. For some reason Adsense team were hoping much more better results from other countries which failed. So the decision of retiring Adsense referrals from rest of the countries had to be taken.However, all the other referrals for other products as Google Pack, Mozilla Firefox etc are still available in your Adsense Account. So it’s time that you replace the existing code of referral for adsense with some other referral code.
Is Adsense Go Down?
There's word around the Webmaster World forum that publishers have been experiencing a sharp decline in AdSense earnings over the past month. There's been little consensus, lots of possible explanations, but nothing you might call conclusive.
A small poll at Search Engine Roundtable (43 participants as of this writing) shows just over half reporting a decrease in AdSense earnings, the other half reporting that things are on the level or increasing.
It's hard to say that's a representative sample with just 40 respondents, but it does match a bit with the reports at Webmaster World: some are losing, some aren't.
Many plausible explanations have been proffered without any real, thorough site examinations, as no URLs have been given by those complaining. The center of conversation though, has been around Google's "smart pricing," and whether that is the cause of lower returns on ad clicks.
An ad's cost-per-click is determined by a number of factors, according to the AdSense blog's explanation:
"More than conversion rate goes into determining the price of an ad: the advertiser's bid, the quality of the ad, the other ads competing for the space, the start or end of an ad campaign, and other advertiser fluctuations."
Keep in mind also that Google has the leader in CPC inflation rate, also.
Google denies that clickthrough rates affect the price of an ad click, though they don't go into how much weight is put on user action beyond the click, i.e., sales completed, forms filled out, engagement on the site that follows. Google describes smart pricing this way:
"Google's smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click based on its effectiveness compared to a search click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results -- such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups -- we reduce the price you pay for that click."
But observers are right also to note that the higher quality the site, the higher likelihood the publisher gets high quality, costlier, better-converting ads. AdSense Publisher Support pretty much says so, reminding publishers that content is king:
"[Smart pricing] leads to higher payouts for publishers by drawing a larger pool of advertisers and rewarding publishers who create high quality sites…. The best way to ensure you benefit from AdSense is to create compelling content for interested users.
"This also means driving targeted traffic to your site -- advertisers don't gain as much ROI when paying for generic clicks as they do for quality clicks that come from interest in your content. Good content usually equals a good experience for user plus advertiser, which can be much more valuable than CTR."
So, this is Google's usual stance: create some relevance and we'll help create you some revenue.
Things like that have added to the cynicism in the aforementioned forum, as one member notes the lack of examples to test, and, without naming names, notes that some complaining members' sites are nothing to write home about with potential quality problems like:
* Obviously made for AdSense (which implies lack of content)
* Too many ads, including unrelated ads (lack of focus on content, lack of central theme)
* Confusing layouts (not end-user focused)
Webmasters also reported conversations they had with the Google AdSense team, who told them the sharp decline likely has to do with advertiser budgets, many of which would understandably be tightened after the holiday crunch, and perhaps even more so during economic uncertainty.
So recession in the economy might mean recession in your AdSense take-in, too.
An interesting frustration was also presented. Google's smart pricing, according to forum members applies account-wide. A webmaster with many sites but one AdSense account could experience a hit on all of his or her sites, instead of just one or two. This brings down the revenue potential of the more popular sites the webmaster owns.
The suggestion, then, is that Google adjust so that smart pricing affects individual sites and pages, rather than targeting an entire account.
A small poll at Search Engine Roundtable (43 participants as of this writing) shows just over half reporting a decrease in AdSense earnings, the other half reporting that things are on the level or increasing.
It's hard to say that's a representative sample with just 40 respondents, but it does match a bit with the reports at Webmaster World: some are losing, some aren't.
Many plausible explanations have been proffered without any real, thorough site examinations, as no URLs have been given by those complaining. The center of conversation though, has been around Google's "smart pricing," and whether that is the cause of lower returns on ad clicks.
An ad's cost-per-click is determined by a number of factors, according to the AdSense blog's explanation:
"More than conversion rate goes into determining the price of an ad: the advertiser's bid, the quality of the ad, the other ads competing for the space, the start or end of an ad campaign, and other advertiser fluctuations."
Keep in mind also that Google has the leader in CPC inflation rate, also.
Google denies that clickthrough rates affect the price of an ad click, though they don't go into how much weight is put on user action beyond the click, i.e., sales completed, forms filled out, engagement on the site that follows. Google describes smart pricing this way:
"Google's smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click based on its effectiveness compared to a search click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results -- such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups -- we reduce the price you pay for that click."
But observers are right also to note that the higher quality the site, the higher likelihood the publisher gets high quality, costlier, better-converting ads. AdSense Publisher Support pretty much says so, reminding publishers that content is king:
"[Smart pricing] leads to higher payouts for publishers by drawing a larger pool of advertisers and rewarding publishers who create high quality sites…. The best way to ensure you benefit from AdSense is to create compelling content for interested users.
"This also means driving targeted traffic to your site -- advertisers don't gain as much ROI when paying for generic clicks as they do for quality clicks that come from interest in your content. Good content usually equals a good experience for user plus advertiser, which can be much more valuable than CTR."
So, this is Google's usual stance: create some relevance and we'll help create you some revenue.
Things like that have added to the cynicism in the aforementioned forum, as one member notes the lack of examples to test, and, without naming names, notes that some complaining members' sites are nothing to write home about with potential quality problems like:
* Obviously made for AdSense (which implies lack of content)
* Too many ads, including unrelated ads (lack of focus on content, lack of central theme)
* Confusing layouts (not end-user focused)
Webmasters also reported conversations they had with the Google AdSense team, who told them the sharp decline likely has to do with advertiser budgets, many of which would understandably be tightened after the holiday crunch, and perhaps even more so during economic uncertainty.
So recession in the economy might mean recession in your AdSense take-in, too.
An interesting frustration was also presented. Google's smart pricing, according to forum members applies account-wide. A webmaster with many sites but one AdSense account could experience a hit on all of his or her sites, instead of just one or two. This brings down the revenue potential of the more popular sites the webmaster owns.
The suggestion, then, is that Google adjust so that smart pricing affects individual sites and pages, rather than targeting an entire account.
Avoid Fraud Click
Like in any other industry, fraud is not a new thing in Google Adsense. Although Google has made significant stride in addressing Adsense frauds, there is still so much that has to be done to protect the interest of advertisers. Apparently, it is the Adsense publishers who usually resort to cheating for the reason that Adsense is the best source of income for site publishers.
Adsense fraud comes in several ways. One way is through use of click bot software designed to commit fraud. Such software can be purchased online and can automate clicks. Another way is through deliberate and manual clicking of ads. In this way, friends and relatives with different IP addresses can be accomplices. Another form of Adsense fraud is when cheaters lure potential clickers of high paying keywords. To entice clickers, these people employ misleading items such as possible rewards and promotions, in exchange for Google ads clicks.
With the rampage of Adsense fraud, addressing the problem should not be just the concern of Google. Advertisers should also be proactive in doing their share. Instituting measures like the setting up of an ad campaign tracker software is one way to reduce fraud clicks. A tracker is a very potent tool for any site owner in monitoring site visitors. The tracker can also tell right on the first visit if a particular visitor is serious or just doing some clicks for fraud. In this way, tracker software serves as valid evidence for any site owner to convince Google that he is being cheated.
Adsense fraud comes in several ways. One way is through use of click bot software designed to commit fraud. Such software can be purchased online and can automate clicks. Another way is through deliberate and manual clicking of ads. In this way, friends and relatives with different IP addresses can be accomplices. Another form of Adsense fraud is when cheaters lure potential clickers of high paying keywords. To entice clickers, these people employ misleading items such as possible rewards and promotions, in exchange for Google ads clicks.
With the rampage of Adsense fraud, addressing the problem should not be just the concern of Google. Advertisers should also be proactive in doing their share. Instituting measures like the setting up of an ad campaign tracker software is one way to reduce fraud clicks. A tracker is a very potent tool for any site owner in monitoring site visitors. The tracker can also tell right on the first visit if a particular visitor is serious or just doing some clicks for fraud. In this way, tracker software serves as valid evidence for any site owner to convince Google that he is being cheated.
Great Adsense Secrets - Part I
The only thing you must know about Google Adsense secrets is that nothing is secret. Basically, once you search online, you will see so many guides and articles about how to earn more money online. Thus, any information about Google Adsense is just a click of a mouse away.
Probably what most internet users think as among the Google Adsense secrets is that Adsense leads to highly profitable keywords. This is true; however, there are many tools which one can use to get a list of highly searched keywords and those less demanded by companies. Some tools are free, while some require affordable subscription fee.
The whole Adsense concept is actually quite simple to understand. Forget about those tons of websites and ebooks claiming they hold the key to unlocking Google Adsense secrets. Everything is just a matter of common sense, hard work, and patience. Once one has found highly used and profitable keywords, he can begin building a website based on those keywords.
However, one must bear in mind two important things when applying Adsense in a website: content and location. New contents should be added to the site as frequently as possible. The more fresh contents added, the more ads will be displayed. In addition, the location of the ads should be clearly defined in the website. It is recommended that ads be placed on right portion of the site. Use skyscraper layouts, for Google states this type of layout is used for the ads, one is more likely to receive best results.
Probably what most internet users think as among the Google Adsense secrets is that Adsense leads to highly profitable keywords. This is true; however, there are many tools which one can use to get a list of highly searched keywords and those less demanded by companies. Some tools are free, while some require affordable subscription fee.
The whole Adsense concept is actually quite simple to understand. Forget about those tons of websites and ebooks claiming they hold the key to unlocking Google Adsense secrets. Everything is just a matter of common sense, hard work, and patience. Once one has found highly used and profitable keywords, he can begin building a website based on those keywords.
However, one must bear in mind two important things when applying Adsense in a website: content and location. New contents should be added to the site as frequently as possible. The more fresh contents added, the more ads will be displayed. In addition, the location of the ads should be clearly defined in the website. It is recommended that ads be placed on right portion of the site. Use skyscraper layouts, for Google states this type of layout is used for the ads, one is more likely to receive best results.
Useful Adsense Tips
Learning Adsense tricks should be mastered by every site owner. For beginners, this task is important, since this goal would help in building a website. Besides, most people outgrow the fancy of creating sites and instead build sites for money, thus they could choose between a single site for big profit or a hundred sites for a dollar gain.
Once the person has decided on the kind of website he wants, it's time to apply Adsense. Apart from its importance during at the start of the site's creation, Adsense could also be used once the site starts to receive high traffic. The first thing to do when applying Adsense is to get high hit keywords which are the ones to bring more profit to your site. But after sometime, an evaluation of keywords must be performed, since some keywords don't really earn anything and just clog traffic and space in the website. Thus, these keywords must be removed to prevent jeopardizing the site.
Another of the Adsense tricks concerns the location and sizes of the ads. Google advises that ads be placed both at the center and left portion of the web page, since these are the spots where ads are easily noticed. Ads also are visibly better if they come in sizes such as large rectangle 336×280, inline rectangle 300×250, or wide skyscraper 160×600.
Other useful Adsense tricks involve putting generic images on top of the ad to attract visitors and possibly, linking with other sites to generate more income.
Once the person has decided on the kind of website he wants, it's time to apply Adsense. Apart from its importance during at the start of the site's creation, Adsense could also be used once the site starts to receive high traffic. The first thing to do when applying Adsense is to get high hit keywords which are the ones to bring more profit to your site. But after sometime, an evaluation of keywords must be performed, since some keywords don't really earn anything and just clog traffic and space in the website. Thus, these keywords must be removed to prevent jeopardizing the site.
Another of the Adsense tricks concerns the location and sizes of the ads. Google advises that ads be placed both at the center and left portion of the web page, since these are the spots where ads are easily noticed. Ads also are visibly better if they come in sizes such as large rectangle 336×280, inline rectangle 300×250, or wide skyscraper 160×600.
Other useful Adsense tricks involve putting generic images on top of the ad to attract visitors and possibly, linking with other sites to generate more income.
Explore Adsense
Yes, there's no doubt about it, without traffic, your efforts are in vain. Simply pasting your adsense code into a generic looking web site will have little effect.
More importantly, targeted visitors are your focus. While you may have considered frauding the Adsense program for a quick buck by using clickbots, rotating IP's, etc, this short sighted strategy will have you banned long before your first check is issued.
Many Adsense Ebooks attempt to show methods of generating traffic, as do Adsense forums. While these can frequently be a great source of information, it's important to ask yourself a single question: If you had stumbled upon a great revenue generating concept, would you share your tricks and secrets with the world?
So then, where does that leave one? There's always Videos, and assorted other tools such as Adsense Tracker, adsense gold, and more.
Your best bet at generating traffic is through a steady and determined effort of building quality websites, and finding quality linking partners.
Visit our Sitemap page for listings of all the information on this site, or visit our Partners page for more sites on Adsense.
More importantly, targeted visitors are your focus. While you may have considered frauding the Adsense program for a quick buck by using clickbots, rotating IP's, etc, this short sighted strategy will have you banned long before your first check is issued.
Many Adsense Ebooks attempt to show methods of generating traffic, as do Adsense forums. While these can frequently be a great source of information, it's important to ask yourself a single question: If you had stumbled upon a great revenue generating concept, would you share your tricks and secrets with the world?
So then, where does that leave one? There's always Videos, and assorted other tools such as Adsense Tracker, adsense gold, and more.
Your best bet at generating traffic is through a steady and determined effort of building quality websites, and finding quality linking partners.
Visit our Sitemap page for listings of all the information on this site, or visit our Partners page for more sites on Adsense.
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