Do you know you can place contextual ads on PDF files and earn some money from it. Adobe launches Ads for Adobe PDF, a free service that allows PDF publishers to embed Yahoo ads on it.

Getting started

Here’s how it’ll works. To get some ads up your PDF files, simply upload them to Adobe for ads registration. Your content will then be analyze and relevant ads will be placed. You earn when someone clicks on the ad.

Apply | Find out more

Some thoughts

PDF documents are probably one of the last place we want to see being dominated by ads. I mean, the reason why some web content chooses to go PDF version is because there’s only content and no ads. And I’m sure I wouldn’t be much of a fan to have ads on PDF files. How about you?

via QuickOnlineTips

I believe the main reason why AdSense Referrals program is shutting down is because it’s not performing as good as the measured and it’s best that the team place their effort on the more successful product. If you are using these referral ads, you should take them down, at least before the end of August 2008 as they’ll be no more ads after then.

Here’s Google’s suggestion for referral ads publishers:

• Google Affliate network
• Google AdSense

Here’s a word from Google

We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing
and supporting features which drive the best monetization results
for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing
features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most
effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring
the AdSense Referrals program.

Matched.co.uk is a new advertisement network startup based in United Kingdom. Yes, this means by any chance you are earning from them, you are getting paid in Pound Sterling (£). And we all know getting paid in pounds is better better than USD, in terms of currency exchange rate.

Matched.co.uk Model

When you sign up, Matched will give you £5 in advance and they will try to matched your site with their pool of advertisers. For every advertiser ads that appears on your site, you get another £3 each. These guys did not list the minimum amount required to withdraw payments, so we assume payments will be send every 15th of the month via Paypal.

The ad format

Here’s how a Matched.co.uk’s ad will look like. By the look of it, it’s really similar to Google AdSense. So your first concern now will be – Can this be placed on the same with with Google AdSense or other ad network?

Folks at Matched says yes.

Can I run ads along with Google Adsense or from other networks?

Yes, you can run Matched.co.uk ads along with Google adsense as they are not contextually based and won’t affect other ad systems.

Let me make things a bit clearer – if you are using imaged based Google AdSense, you are fine but if you are using contextual Google AdSense, this is not for you.

Sign up with Matched.co.uk

Is Google AdSense testing out new formats again? Folks at Technospot spotted a different AdSense block on the blog and this time, it’s nothing to do with positioning, instead, it’s a different font.

We all know AdSense allows ads customization. Publishers get to change the ad text colors but never the font type. A large rectangular AdSense block with Comic Sans font type was displayed earlier in Technospot today. Comic Sans is amongst standard font type that most platforms will have. Other examples of font type that can be properly displayed cross platforms are Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Century Gothic, etc.

Is this a sign that Google AdSense will allow font type customization in future? Well, if they do it’d certainly be something really interesting. Imagine a blog using Georgia throughout with AdSense blocks using Georgia font type – a perfect blend. There’s no news yet from folks at Google AdSense, but we’ll be watching.

We know most of the AdSense earnings usually came from contributed by organic (search engine) visitors. So will AdSense in feeds help and how likely will regular feed readers click on Ads? I think it’s definitely a new source for income, but doubt it will contribute much.

We are all addicted to Facebook thanks to all sort of interesting and funny applications developers throw at us. If you spend more than 2 hours on Facebook everyday, here’s a good news. You actually can make a few dollars with a Facebook application – UrTurn, by performing everyday action on Facebook such as add friends, upload photos, and update status messages. Sounds great?

So What’s UrTurn

In short, UrTurn is a rewards program on Facebook. Every time you do something on Facebook, you earn points from urTurn and those points you earned are convert-able to cash.

urPoints have cash value and can be redeemed for prizes like iPhones (30000 points) or sold for cash on the urTurn marketplace.

How to collect points with UrTurn

Upon Facebook registration, add UrTurn application to your Facebook account.

Check out the list below for all the ways to earn points:

How to make money with UrTurn

In order to make real money from UrTurn points, you’re required to trade your points at UrTurn points marketplace.

Users are able to make real deal at UrTurn Points Marketplace like offers to sell and offers to buy. The current price per point is $0.005 – $0.015, depending on traders. For a reasonable price, an offer can be easily attracted by other traders in a very short period (1 – 2 days).

The trading process will be deal as soon as both parties are agreed with the price offered. Payment transaction will be done through PayPal.

Is it real?

Yes. I sold 300 points with USD0.01 price per point and make USD3.00 within 2 days. The money has been cashed into my PayPal account.

By the way, if you wish to know more about me, you are welcomed to add me as your friend in Facebook too.

As I was running through some old articles, I noticed my AdSense large rectangular unit showing something rather odd. There’s total of 4 ads in grid of 2×2 format. It looks weird at first, but if Google were to confirm this format, I think there’s a lot of potential of blending this style. Notice that the ‘Ads by Google’ on only appears on the bottom right; that makes the 1 column’s ad units look really like content. With good placement, this unit can certainly blend well.

I’ve personally confirmed with few bloggers and they all are experiencing the same delay in statistics. And thanks to Jeetblog for showing me the Jensense report on this matter.

Updates #1

There have been an update to the statistics, but I don’t think it’s the latest. Anyway, Google’s Help Center reports that the engineers are aware and working on it. Earnings will not be affected. Thanks Kay.

ClickBank, one of the biggest retailer in Internet goods has now accept registration from Malaysian and a couple of countries they once did not allowed. Fraudulence was the reason that kept Malaysia and few other countries outside the ClickBank door, and results of that, some of us tried getting in by faking the registration information. It is not necessary now, as ‘Malaysia’ is part of the option under the registration form.

Hat tip from Adi Wong.

Author of noktahhitam purchased an e-book from online Internet Marketer ‘AdSense Taiko‘, a book that promises various tips and tricks you can earn money from AdSense. He soon realized the content was inappropriate, couldn’t agree with the techniques and he demands refund but was rejected. The blogger then started revenging against this Internet marketer by distributing the book for free.

The refunding issue

AdSense Taiko ebook cost RM80 or USD $25 and the typical Internet marketer long-page guarantees a refund if you are anyway unsatisfied with what you’ve purchased. Here’s what the website says (no link love from us):

Even promises are made, blogger still failed to get the refund he demanded and that leads him into distributing the AdSense Taiko book for free, to express his unsatisfactory of the product purchased.

The contents, a total scam!

Thanks to the free distribution, it revealed yet another scam of some Internet marketers attempting to make some quick bucks out of Internet newbies. Author of noktahhitam went through the ebooks (4 of them) and summarized what he had purchased as following:

I’ve personally went through the ebook by brief and find the contents inaccurate and unprofessional. First of all these methods will not make you money with Google AdSense; secondly the followers of these methods are dumping garbage into the Internet, and worst of all, you are putting your AdSense account at risk. Here’s the so call techniques you’ll get with this ebook:

But if curious what’s the extra stuff they have in the ebook, download a copy at noktahhitam.

When Google acquires Feedburner, the first good news they brought was turning Feedburner Pro free but the other good news bloggers all been waiting for – Google AdSense in feeds was nowhere near. There are rumors about webmasters getting invitation to test AdSense in RSS feeds, but we weren’t sure if those were real. Official Feedburner blog wrote an entry recently and it is kinda hinting that Google AdSense in feeds will be likely to happen soon.

One of the paragraph wrote something like this:

Following on the footsteps of this account migration, FeedBurner will start to look and feel more like a set of Google services, and we will be completing much tighter integration into other Google services such as Google AdSense. (If you are a feed advertiser, don’t worry: we have some happy surprises coming for you as well, and if you are an advertiser who is not yet a feed advertiser, you too shall be blessed with good fortune.)

If this happens, it’s certainly another source of income, particularly for blogs with large feed readership. However I doubt it’ll be a good conversion rate. I mean, if regular readers don’t click on the AdSense on your blog, what makes a feed reader will? IMHO, CPM ads will be far more interesting :-)

Chitika ad network has just launched their CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) ads and it will be integrated into existing publishers’ websites. If you are earning fairly little from previous Chitika CPC ads, this could be a great news because now all your page impression counts and you will potentially be earning more as a Chitika publisher.

Chitika CPM ad can be turn-off if you believe you are actually making more with CPC, but personally, I think CPM has always been a better option as a ad unit. Here’s more what Chitika has sent to their existing publishers about their new CPM ads.

As you may remember from our blog post on this, we are incorporating these ads when we know that we will be able to make you more money with a CPM ad than our standard ad units. For example, if you are in Canada, and viewing a page with a Chitika ad on it, we will most likely show you a CPM Graphic banner because we are seeing more revenue from graphic ads for Canadian traffic.

Of course – if you are the type of person who does not like graphic ads on their site – you can opt-out of our CPM program by logging into Chitika.com and then clicking on the “Account” tab near the top of the page (on the following page, the opt-out option will be at the bottom). However, we do not recommend doing this, because it will result in less revenue for you.

Sign for for Chitika

Advertlets, a Malaysia ad network will be first among their local competitors to announce text ads, in fact it’s something more interesting; text + image ads. I’ll be showing you some screen shots in a while (which you’ll only get to see it here in hongkiat.com). These text ads will run on a geo-location Cost Per Click (CPC), that means publishers get paid when visitors click on the ads.

Josh, founder of Advertlets has also made it clear that there will be standards in determining CPC and CPM in Advertlets; that is:

• CPM – Banner Ads
• CPC – Text Ads

Is this a good news?

I think yes. As a publisher, you are able to tweak the ad style so it looks blended with your blog. Blended ad create higher click through rates and thus it could potentially create better earnings comparing to image CPC ad. If you think your current CPM ads are doing just fine, at least you’ve got another option now. Here’s some screenshots of Advertlets text ads, in 2 different formats.

Let’s now see from a advertiser standpoint, which is what I’ll most definitely interested in. The minimum budget to become an advertiser will be reduced, with RM100 you can become an advertiser yourself. With the budget greatly reduced, I believe there’ll be lots of advertisers rushing in. And when that happens, it guarantees more variety for the text ads. You don’t want to see the same ad on your site, don’t you?

Conflicts with Google AdSense?

I don’t think so. Gokita (Nufflets)’s text ad has the same problem during their launch where bloggers were worried that it might violate Google AdSense’s TOS but Nabil of Gokita has confirmed with Google that as long as visitors are able to differentiate between these 2 ad networks, it’s fine. So same case applies here, there’s really nothing to be worry about.

Advertlets will likely launch this anywhere in April, so if you are looking of a chance, be sure to keep an eye on the announcement. I’ll keep you guys posted.

BuySellAds is yet another way bloggers and webmasters can pull some moolah into their pocket. It’s model (how it works) is similar to BlogAds, or if you are not familiar with BlogAds, think of BuySellAds as ReviewMe (or SponsoredReview) of banner ads instead of advertorials.

To get listed in BuySellAds’s marketplace, publishers (bloggers and webmasters) fill up a simple form – together with description of the website, as well as banner format and prices and hit the submit button. Website will then be listed in marketplace of advertisers after verification.

BuySellAds’s currently still in private beta. However you can register and wait for invitation.

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?

Blog2u, Singapore

A Singapore ad network startup by Paddy Tan, the founder of Bak2u. Blog2u made public on the 2nd of April, 2008. Here’s how Blog2u works. You install the script, and get paid when advertisers decides to place ads on your site. The more interesting part you should probably know is, Blog2u pays before (or the first day) ads are served, instead of paying when campaign is over. Read more on Blog2u.

KlikSaya, Indonesia

KlikSaya, or in English "Click Me" is ad network startup from Indonesia by David Ciang. KlikSaya’s model is simple, it’s contextual. Think of it as Google AdSense for the Indonesians. I don’t think it’s a ads network you will want to sign up with if you are not Indonesia, as it only pays out to Indon banks.

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?

There is a Kontera hack circling around the blogosphere, a hack where you can change your Kontera text link from double underline to single underline by adding this following into the Kontera code:

• var dc_single_line = ‘yes’;

This made the Kontera text ad links blends perfectly into your content, like a normal content hyperlink. However Kontera officials are not really encouraging this as it would confuse your readers. So by putting single underline into practice, you could have your account suspended. Just a note for those who are eager to try it out.

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