How to tell It’s a Premium AdSense ad unit?

Here’s few sample of a Premium AdSense ad units. As you can see, not only you have more customization in terms of fonts face and size, you can also rephrase the ad label – “Ads by Google” into “Sponsored Results”, “Sponsored Links”, or in fact, nothing at all. One of the premium ads has background colors in alternative ad units too.

How do I become AdSense Premium Publishers?

For starters, you site must have more than 20 million pageviews or at least 5 million search queries. That breaks down to about 160k search queries on daily basis. Dint seem too easy huh.

Privileges of AdSense Premium Publishers

• More flexibility in ad formats
• Optional labeling of ads
• Google sales representative & account manager
• Advanced filtering options
• More monetization options

Though it really look kinda hard to get an invitation to those, but getting know what it is and how it works is still good. Let’s work towards it?

It is very important to know that Google AdSense distributes ad on a first-come-first-serve basis. That means when the bot crawls the site’s HTML code for ads placement, the first one it encounter, will usually have all the high CTR ad units.

Now imagine a site with several ad units, say 3 for instance. The first ad unit will usually contain all the high CTR ads, leaving the rest of the 2 with lower CTR ads. When a visitor were to click on one of the ad, there’s a 2/3 chance they will end up on lower CTR ads. Besides, more ad units is just going to make the page uglier and less trust for visitors. So, from my point of view, there’s really no reason why a page should contain more than 2 AdSense unit.

This is just a page with direct link to a .mp3 file but the interface sure looks far more complicated that it should. On the upperfold, it kinda mis-lead users to click the ads by placing AdSense block after [Description: Get your file below]. Meanwhile on the lowerfold, a AdSense Link Unit in the center, and the tiny download link is placed in between 2 rectangular AdSense block. It requires real careful and accurate clicking or you’ll end up clicking on the ads. As for the paragraphs of contents, it’s really something irrelevant to the page. I think they are there just to trick search engines for some SEO benefits.

Now that’s a really evil download page. Have you seen worst?

Good news for bloggers who once sold text link ads but drop the idea because fearing that Google might de-rank or de-index your blog again. Linkworth, ad network with text advertising service similar to Text-Link-Ads is now allowing you to put an optional "nofollow" in text links you sell.

LinkWorth, however does not encourage you to put this option on, but if you want to make money from selling text links again and avoiding punishment from the big G, this looks your only option.

Where’s this option?

To turn nofollow on for every future text links you sell, go to my sites -> manage sites. Click on settings icon under Actions and look for "Additional Website Settings".

Follow or Nofollow. What’s the difference?

We really don’t have to go through this again. Those who previously been selling text links know the consequences when Google came smacking the site with either a PR0 or contents totally remove from Google index. That directly leads to tremendous traffic drop, the organic traffics of course.

via AdesBlog

Visit AdSense Blog for details.

Look into single.php

Most themes will usually consist of single.php. single.php is the file that shows your full content. Look inside, and search for

<?php the_content(); ?>

Add the section targeting codes before and after this line, making it something like this:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
<?php the_content(); ?>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

If it’s not working..

Like I said, not all themes have single.php or even if they have some may not have the

<?php the_content(); ?>

inside. If this is the case, you should be looking for:

and insert the codes after opening of DIV and before closing of DIV

Google Ads are targeted based, so the more targeted your topics and contents the better the ads are likely to appear. The Google Ads on your page will change in time, depending much on the page content and Google AdWords bidding. Google AdSense Preview Tool is a tool that enables you to preview what ads you will likely see on any specific page. What’s the point of using a Preview Tool, one might ask. It allows you to check type and destination of ads based on any URL or any keyword inserted. Results can be Geo-location targeted too.

To read more about the preview tool, go to Google AdSense Preview Tool page.

Preview Tool on IE

Google provides a preview tool for your browser however it currently only works in IE6.

Installing Google AdSense Preview Tool

1. Download AdSense Preview Tool (Right-Click, save target as)
2. Double click, and click Yes to continue
3. Close all IE and restart
4. Remove .reg file.

To use the preview tool, you must be using IE. On any specific page, right click and choose Google AdSense Preview Tool and start playing with your options. Here’s a full coverage on using Google AdSense Preview Tool.

Preview Tool on Web

Here’s a good online preview tool from Digital Inspiration. It shows you the latest ads for particular keywords or URL with the option to target it geo-location.

On my way to the living room

Boy, are you making some money from the online Google..

Me: Yeah! Google AdSense. Why ask?

(Ignore my question) Ahh yes, Google AdSense. Do you click your own ads?

Me: Of course no la~ Why would I…

(Interrupt) Do you know if you clicked on your Google AdSense ads, your account will be suspended?

Me: ………………………..

So here’s a very interesting thought for you bloggers or webmasters who are making money online. Does your folks know what you’re doing online? or Do you tell them how you make these money?

After the slight touch up on the contextual ads last week, Google AdSense now appears without “Advertise on this site” at the bottom. Google AdSense quickly introduced Onsite Advertiser Sign-up so you don’t lose out potential advertisers.

What is Onsite Advertisers Sign-up

“Onsite Advertisers Sign-up” allow advertisers to create a site-targeted campaigns directly from your website. “Onsite Advertisers Sign-up” comes in a more flexible way; it can be an image, text or even flash as long as the URI points advertisers to a sign up page.

How to create Online Advertisers Sign-up link?

Here’s a standard format of the link:

<a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/OnsiteSignupLandingPage?
client=NUMBER&referringUrl=http://www.YOURSITE.com">Advertise

on this site</a>

Red color indicates what you need to change in order to work for your site. Here’s where you can get NUMBER

1. Login to your Google AdSense account
2. Click on My Account tab
3. Scroll to the bottom, look for Property information
4. Code the code for AdSense for Content. (Example: ca-pub-9999999999999999)
5. Replace it with NUMBER

Also replace http://www.YOURSITE.com with your website URL. Change “Advertise on this site” too if you want to make it real catchy.

Customized Onsite Advertiser Sign-up Page

Here’s where your potential advertiser will land when they click on your “Advertise on this site“. Now this page is really important; either they advertiser or they not depends on how you describe your site.

You’re done! Happy making money online. Thanks Ashish for for notifying me on this. Cheers mate.

What is Google Apps

Here’s a Google description:

Google Apps provides customized email addresses (powered by Gmail), Google Calendar, Google Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets and Page Creator, all for free. Best of all, everything is hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software to download, install or maintain.

How Google Apps referral works?

1. Login to your Adsense account
2. Click Adsense Setup tab, choose, Referrals
3. Select Google Apps from the list
4. Copy-paste codes to your website.

How I get paid from Google Apps?

You will be credited $5 when someone clicks the referral ad from your site and signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service. That person’s domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks. It’s that simple.

via InsideAdSense

Google Adsense FAQ

I pasted AdSense ad code for two ad units into my site — why is only one ad unit appearing on my page?

Don’t worry, this is normal ad behavior designed to automatically optimize your site’s revenue potential. Although you can display up to 3 ad units per page, sometimes only the first ad unit contains ads. When highly targeted ads aren’t available for all your ad units, we’ll display the additional ad units as transparent boxes rather than showing ads that our system determines would not perform well. As our ad inventory changes, or if your page content changes, you may start seeing ads appear in all of your ad units.

In the meantime, you can set up your ad code so that an alternate ad will appear when this happens.

[read more]

Is there is a minimum number of impressions or clicks I need to get before I can start earning through AdSense?

No, there’s no minimum number of impressions or clicks for generating earnings. You can start earning the very first time a user clicks on a cost-per-click (CPC) ad or views a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) ad. Keep in mind, however, that you’ll need to earn $100 before your earnings will be paid out to you.

If a CPM ad appears on my site, do I need to receive 1,000 impressions before I am paid?

No, with CPM ads you’re paid for each impression, so if you receive 1 ad impression, you’ll receive 1/1,000 of the CPM bid for that ad unit.

Do I get paid when visitors use my search box?

With AdSense for search, you’ll be paid when users click on the ads that appear on their search results pages, not from the search queries themselves. You won’t be paid if a visitor uses your search box, but chooses not to click on the ads on the search results pages.

[read more]

What is eCPM?

Yeap, eCPM stands for effective Cost Per thousand Impression, but how many of us really understand what it does and what can it help us in betting revenue generating with Google Adsense? The explaination here gives you a clear answer to what is eCPM but you might wanna take a look at the example below. It should give you a good idea.

For example, let’s imagine we have two custom channels named ‘Blue Skyscrapers’ and ‘Red Rectangles’, respectively, which reflect the types of ad formats we’re testing on our site. During our test, the ‘Blue Skyscrapers’ channel receives 370 page impressions and $1.48 in total earnings. The ‘Red Rectangles’ channel receives 187 page impressions and $0.97 in earnings over the same period. To make these figures more comparable we calculate eCPM — i.e., the estimated earnings for every 1,000 impressions received. We find that eCPM for blue skyscrapers is $4.00 while the eCPM for red rectangles is $5.18.

This means if we received 1,000 impressions of blue skyscrapers, we would earn roughly $4.00. But for 1,000 impressions of red rectangles, we would earn about $5.18. Therefore, assuming that our sample size is large enough, it is to our advantage to switch to red rectangles throughout our site because they generate more revenue per impression.

[read more]

Optimize Google Adsense for Forums

There are tones of websites out there teaching us how we can optimize for Adsense, but if it is a Google’s tios its something you will not want to miss. Here’s the six optimization tips for Google Adsense for forums. Read more at Google Adsense blog.

1. Format is important for multiple ad units
2. Display your ad units where repeat users will notice them
3. Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post
4. Use horizontal link units
5. Opt-in to image ads
6. Be sensitive to your forum community

[read more]

Click here to read Google Adsense: Facts, FAQs and Tools

My Google Adsense PIN has finally arrived last Friday (26th January 2007). See, that’s the disadvantage to be staying far from United States. Such simple mail takes at least 3 weeks to arrive. If you are wondering what Google Adsense PIN (Personal Identification Number) is, this is a PIN generated uniquely for you to unlock yourself to future Adsense check payments. PIN is sent once after you make more than $50 in your Google Adsense Account.

I started using Google Adsense 18th December 2006; PIN were generated somewhere around end of December; took the mail 1 month to arrive; activated my payment; now waiting for the check to arrive and I heard this will take months.

Competitive Ads Filter is a function in Google Adsense that enables you to lock specific ads, such as competitors’ ads from appearing on your pages. Google allows you to enter up to 200 URLs.

Why Competitive Ads Filter

Most webmaster and bloggers doesn’t realize that by not setting that, they are actually losing a lot of their earnings to MFA (Make for Adsense) sites and Arbitragers. This means you can actually earn more, but a fat percent of your potential earnings has gone to MFA & Arbitrages.

What exactly are MFA (Make for Adsense) sites and Arbitragers?

Print screens below shows sample of a MFA.

These websites basically have no content. Their pages are full with Adsense begging pathetically to be clicked. Their existence is only for one reason – to make money from Google Adsense, usually by taking advantage of visitors that click on your website.

How MFA (Make for Adsense) sites and Arbitragers suck my income?

MFA sites bids the minimum amount on a keyword and with the relevant keyword of your content, these MFA ads be will showed in your Adsense text ads.

Your readers clicks on these MFA text ads, you make few cents (probably 1 to 3 cents or so). Your readers are then brought to the MFA sites, filled with real Adsense Text ads. Your readers click and MFA make $1 or more. Not all will click on the ads on MFA, but it’s definitely enough for them to break-even and make 50% to 500% return.

This whole process is called the PPC Arbitrage. PPC Arbitrage not only affects your Adsense income but also the experience of using your site. Readers expect something informative, but their click leads them to more confusing ads.

Now that you’ve totally understand what a MFA sites and Arbitragers are, you will probably be asking? Why hasn’t Google done something about this? Simple. Google make their profits out of it no matter what and it did not violate any terms and condition set by Google Adsense.

How to use Competitive Ads Filter

To keep these MFA sites away, you need to insert their URL into Google Adsense Competitive Ads Filter. This will then filter their low CPC ads out and Google will then give you higher pay ads on your site.

Log in to your Google Adsense account, click on Adsense Setup and look for Competitive Ad Filter.

Start putting in list of these MFA sites, save them and Google will take about 12 hours to start blocking these ads out of your ads.

To add list to Competitive Ad Filter, you should check out Ads Black List. Ads Black List generate you a list of 50 MFA sites for you to filter. If you are a member of Ads Black List, they will generate you 200, which is also the limit of the Google Competitive Ad Filter.

I’ve put my list of 200 MFA sites here, if you need them.

Please help to spread this, especially to webmasters that don’t realize how much this could hurt their income.

1. Use Section Targeting
2. Work on your keyword density
3. Make Your Ads Look Like Normal Content
4. Make Sure Your Best Unit Loads First
5. Embed Your Banners In Or Near Your Content
6. Think About Where Your Hotspots Are
7. Reduce The Noise Around Your Units
8. Use The Competitive Ad Filter
9. Don’t Be Afraid To Put Your Ads Below The Fold
10. Use Channels And Experiment

Google AdSense gives you an option to tell which they should emphasize by using the section targeting codes. All you need to do is put 2 sets of codes, one before the content and one after the content you want to target. This should help google understand the site better and pass in more relevant ads and help increase AdSense CTR.

Before content, insert:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->

After content, insert:

<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

More details on Section Targeting.

I guess Google Adsense is aware of this, and came out with an improve witting on their Adsense Referral Program. I find them particularly usefully and will implement more referral on my sites in the future. Check it out and see if you can use it to increase your overall Adsense earnings.

Top Paying Adsense Niche

1. Legal, see keywords
2. Financial, see keywords
3. Web Hosting / Domain Names, see keywords
4. Medical, see keywords
5. Travel and Tourism, see keywords

Even though it may be a little late – Merry Christmas everyone!

Well it would appear that another year has quickly come and gone, but it has been a very eventful year for me in terms of my AdSense experience so I thought I’d share my experience over the last 12 months, and maybe throw in a few hints and tips that I have learnt in that time.

OK will start off with who I am and how long I have been doing this for? My name is Chris and I’m a 21 year old university student from Brisbane, Australia. I started my sites back in the middle of 2004 for a bit of fun and to apply some of the new skills that I had just learnt in one of the subjects I had just studied at uni. That said I did have a bit of website and SEO experience from a few hobby sites that I created back in 1999 – 2001 when I made a couple of sites while I was in high school, again just as a hobby about topics I liked. As you can see I have been a member here at DP since October 2005 so I have been here for over a year now and I have learnt SO much, and I guess this thread is my little way of summarizing a lot of what I have learnt and giving back.

So I guess what you all really want to know is just how much am I making from AdSense on my sites. Well as it stands I’m making around $120/day lately. Here is a graph of my earnings progress since I joined DP:

As you can see when I first joined DP I was earning a very measly $10/week from AdSense with my sites that were at this point about 15 months old. Once I joined DP I obviously had my eyes opened to the true potential of my sites, not just in terms of AdSense but also in terms of SEO and the importance of building a good quality site. With this, I quickly saw improvements in my AdSense earnings and my traffic to my sites by applying that simple advice that is scattered all over these forums, and within a few short weeks I was earning a very solid $100-$200/week which I was quite happy with.

From October 2005 through to May 2006 I saw fairly gradually, but small growth of my sites with the exception of two weeks in February where my sites were down for a few days and constantly crashing until I upgraded my hosting, which had become overburdened due the progress I had made. Then in May I got caught up with my university commitments and then I went on a couple of brief holidays which saw my sites’ growth stagnate until around August at which point I had a terrible drop in revenues as a result of Google supplementally indexing my sites and placing many of my pages into supplemental results, a problem which I would solve a couple of months later.

Then came September! As you can see on the graph I made significant progress in September. What did I do that made such amazing returns in such a short period of time? Simple – I got serious and started working hard and applying what I had learnt over the past two years.

How did I get serious? I took a bit of a risk, bought a few books about AdSense, SEO and general website development and dropped down to part time uni and started dedicating more time to my websites. I started writing articles that were on topics that people wanted to know about and topics that people were searching for, and I placed these articles into a highly optimized template that was just designed for these articles, then I went about building a few backlinks for these articles to help with the SEO. I’d have periods of maybe a week where everyday I would sit down and write an article two, often three or four, and I’d just keep writing, sharing my knowledge, sharing my expertise.

Why were articles successful? These articles each focused on an individual search term or topic within my industry. The articles were informative and useful. They were 100% original and completely unique in the industry. They were my thoughts, opinions and beliefs on topics that I was very knowledgeable on. They were detailed and lengthy. And the search engines loved them.

Why did the search engines love them? Because they were original and unique, and because they were getting backlinks and they were on my established sites which I believe have a fair amount of “TrustRank” because at this point my sites were well over 2 years old and had thousands of backlinks, because I had slowly but surely developed them over the previous two years. Plus the articles were all on niche topics that there wasn’t that much competition for, and I had employed very basic, but very solid SEO techniques. Things like:

- Giving each article an individual highly relevant page title.
- Using meta descriptions and keywords, but not abusing them.
- Using H1 and H2 tags.
- Using good keyword density and specific phrase targeting.
- Using good quality, unique, original and focused content.
- Building some well anchored backlinks.
- With a good navigational system between articles.
- Using an aged domain with good TrustRank.

These techniques are nothing special, and are the basics of SEO and when they are applied to individual articles and based around a well optimized AdSense template is the formula for high earnings and success with AdSense.

So what sort of template am I using? It is again nothing special. It basically is a simple article page that was 780px wide, with an AdSense links unit at the top, then a 100px high header image, then a left hand navigation bar. Then a large rectangle unit above the article, then the article itself with a H1 title, with H2 sub titles, where required, followed by another large rectangle unit after the article which was along side a list of similar articles, then a footer. Far from a revolutionary template design. I have attached the hand drawn version I gave to my designer so you can see how simple the design was.

Ok so that is the basics of how I went from less than $10/day in August 2006 to $100/day in October 2005, but before I wrap up this “little” post I thought I’d also share a few bits of wisdom that I have picked up along this 15 month learning curve here at DP.

Firstly so many people out there are preaching you need to diversifying and make MORE sites if you want to make more money with AdSense, and often in this suggestion is the timeless of debate of which is the best way to make money with AdSense, with sheer quantity of sites or a few quality sites? Personally I’m a quality sort of person who believes that that with every page and site I’m creating and building an asset that will not just be of value now, but well into the future. I’m not working on a snatch and grab model of trying to create one spam site a day everyday for a month to hopefully earning $1 from each site so that by the end of the month I can be earning $30/day. Why don’t I work like this – because in life making money generally comes down to one thing – providing value, and sites like that are soon weeded out by refined search engine algorithms.

Whether you are a CEO of a large company or a factory worker working on assembly line you are being paid for the value you provide. When it comes to websites you also need to be providing value to your visitors for them to continue to use your service, and by providing value you will gain them as a loyal reader, and as a reader you can advertise to them. The more people and the more value you provide the more you will make. It’s a simple equation really. Now search engines are constantly working towards weeding out the “poor value” sites that are often referred to SPAM and whilst there may be loopholes at the moment with every passing year the search engines become savvier and are refining their search algorithms.

So for me providing value is normally about providing good quality content. So I make sure that when I’m creating sites these days I’m adding something to the site that makes it worthwhile for someone to visit and if possible try to make it so valuable to them that they are actually inspired to come back again and again. These sorts of sites are then normally looked upon favorably by search engines as they receive natural link development from all the fans of the site. This is a model of site development that doesn’t just work presently, but is a model that I’m confident that will work well into the future of this rapidly changing environment.

Another issue that is often brought up is the issue of creating lots of sites for high paying niches. Personally I have never wasted my time with such things because I’m focused on providing good quality expert content and if I’m going to do this I need to make sure that I’m knowledgeable in the niche that I’m creating the site on, and unfortunately for me I’m just not that knowledgeable on mesothelioma, cancer, debt consolidation or lawyers, nor do I have any passion towards developing my knowledge on such niches so creating a site for such things would just be a waste of my time and any visitor’s time that came by my site, because the information on it would be next to useless.

What is a much smarter idea, that I believe I got from one of Shoemoney’s posts was that you should establish a good quality site in an industry that you are familiar with and knowledgeable of then when you have built the site to close to its potential and you are looking to make a new site to diversify, you should look to make a site that is still in a similar industry but has only a degree or two of separation from your original site. So say you had a site about Sports Cars, instead of trying to start a site about Music or something else that is completely unrelated to your established site, you might try making a site about Car Sound Systems, or Luxury Cars, or something that is still related to cars. This way you can build the new site somewhat off the back of the already established Sports Cars site. Plus you already have a great deal of knowledge about the related industry plus it is easier to stay motivated if you make sites about topics related to your passions, and even if you don’t have expert knowledge to start off with, you will pick things up quickly when you have loads of related knowledge from your other expertise. This is so much easier than trying to develop a new site from scratch and is a very effective way of developing a successful network of sites that feed off each other.

In this game of making money online you really should be always experimenting and trialling new things, but you should also be looking to apply methods that you know work. Building on what you have with more of what has worked in the past and consolidating your position.

You also need to make sure that you are working hard and keeping yourself motivated. The online world can be extremely competitive and you need to make sure that you are doing your best to stay ahead of the pack. You should be reading diversely on a range of topics, AdSense and other earning methods, SEO, online marketing, website design and development. Reading diversely doesn’t mean just reading forums, I also highly recommend buying ebooks, books taking classes to extend your learning beyond that of JUST DP – there is a whole world of thinking out there and often I think that so many people are just reading DP thinking that it is a one stop shop for everything.

The reality is DP doesn’t have it all and a $20 book from Amazon on AdSense or SEO could make you thousands of dollars. Let’s face it, if you aren’t willing to part with $20 at bare minimum to extend your expertise, chances are you aren’t going to be the next person here making $XX,XXX/month from anything online. That said there are definitely exceptions to that but it’s extremely rare. Plus you can certainly fast track your development and earnings if you are willing to shell out a few dollars to increase your knowledge, or get a good quality design made, or some special feature for your site. Plus if you have invested money into your projects chances are you will be a lot more committed to gaining a return from them which will only further contribute to your development.

The reality is there are millions of people online that are willing to put their time into making money online, but only a very small proportion of those are willing to put there time AND money into giving themselves the edge, and the reality is that for every person that had tried to make a few bucks online and succeeded there have been about another 99 that tried and made nothing. So give yourself the edge, and take the risk of losing a what is literally a couple of dollars – I can almost guarantee you it will be the best risk you have ever taken.

I mentioned above, it is important you stay motivated, and one of the best ways I know of staying motivated is setting challenging goals and targets that are very detailed and measurable. That includes, short, medium and long term goals, and often making them public like here on DP is a great way of making yourself accountable to them. I personally think that you should have your goals written down somewhere along with an action plan at least and renewed them at least once a month. There have been many goal setting threads started up here at DP before in the past, many of which I have tried to stay actively involved with in the past, and I have always found them be wonderful references for both your progress and to help with keeping to a target.

Well it think this thread is getting excessively long now so I will wrap it up, with a good old fashioned, if you work hard you will reap the fruits of your labor. So stick at it, and best of luck in 2007 may it be your greatest year to date.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So are you on the right path?