Monday, May 18, 2009

AdSense Ads in your RSS Feeds

If you're like me, and most AdSense publishers for that matter, then you have placed your AdSense units into your blog or site's template - ensuring that each page has the maximum number of ad units without the fussy bother of working your content around the ad units. You've probably allready set up your RSS feed so that readers can bookmark your feed to get the latest posts. But if they are reading your blog through a feed aggregator like feedburner, then they aren't getting exposed to your ad units and you're missing out on potential clicks!

If you are new to feed advertising with Google or feedburner, follow these steps to add Google ads to your feeds.

1. Sign in to your AdSense account.
2. From the AdSense Setup tab, choose AdSense for feeds as the product.
3. Your ad units will be automatically named and properly sized for your feeds.
4. Set your ad type, frequency, duration, position, position and color. See tips for these settings.
5. Add a channel and mark it targetable by advertisers. We recommend this to increase the visibility of your ad space.
6. Choose a feed in which you want the feed ads displayed.
a. If you've used feeds in the past, choose one from your list of active feeds that do not yet have the ad units included.
b. If this is your first time setting up feeds with AdSense or FeedBurner, you'll need to burn a new feed first. Click the burn a new feed, then enter your blog or feed. Some platforms may present you with a choice of feeds to use as the source, usually the Atom feed is the best choice. After supplying this information you will be given a new URL for the feed you should promote or redirect to make sure all subscribers are seeing your replacement feed.
7. Save your changes and start using your Google-powered feeds with AdSense.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

AdSense Clicks But No Money

Ever checked your stats, and seen that you had clicks but no revenue was generated? There are a couple of reasons why this may have happened.

Configuration of allowed sites

The Allowed Sites feature allows you to specify a list of sites where your ads can be displayed. If you use this feature, you must ensure that you have entered all the places you want to display your AdSense code.

To check whether this is the case, log into your account and visit the "Allowed Sites" page to your AdSense Setup tab. If the "Allow any site to show ads for my account is complete, you are not affected by this problem, and this isn't the case. However, if "Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account 'is populated, the revision of the list of sites in the box below - are all the sites you own listed in this box? If the answer is' no ', you do not get credit for clicks on sites not listed. Please make sure you add all the sites where you want to display your AdSense code.

Invalid clicks

The Google AdSense program monitors clicks for suspicious activity, such as artificial clicks generated by bots as well as click fraud. Often times, programs which advertise sending large volumes of traffic to your site will instead use bots that will look like visitors in your traffic logs. These bots will click around your site, including your AdSense links, to make it look like you're getting good quality traffic. It doesn't take much to lose your AdSense account, so I would encourage steering clear of any program that promises traffic. Write good content, and the visitors will come. Targeted organic traffic, traffic that has come naturally to your site interested in whatever topic your site is about, is more likely to click an ad than a visitor that got there by misdirection.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Google AdSense Policy Changes

Google has just announced changes to the AdSense policies. Some of the changes are merely superfluous - they made the policy page more navigable to make it easier to find information on what is and is not acceptable. The major changes and clarifications are outlined below:

  • Google Brand Violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we have now brought directly to the "Ad Placement" of the page so that it is easier to find. Under this policy, we do not allow ads or boxes to be placed on pages that Google deviation logos, trademarks, brands or other characteristics of the content of the page or URL, which could lead users to think that the page associated with Google.
  • Encouraging Clicks: We clarified this policy a bit in 'Encouraging clicks "of the program - the ads can not be formatted so that makes them indistinguishable from other contents of the page where they appear. This includes, for example, the formatting of content for mimic the ads, ads with aligning images, and placing ads in a misleading.
  • Placement of ads in email and email programs: This update policy specifies that the Google ads, search boxes, and search results may not be placed in e-mails, and the par-mails.
  • Other Google products policies: With this new policy, publishers are not permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results, within, or with other Google products in a manner that violates the policies of the other product or service. For example, this includes placing ads on sites that allow users to download videos from YouTube, which is not permitted by the Terms of Service YouTube.

If you ask why it is important, it is because the AdSense program policies are officially part of the AdSense terms and conditions. They are official policies that AdSense publishers must adhere to and follow. As AdSense publishers, it is of utmost importance to stay abreast of policy changes, or risk losing your account and/or unpaid earnings.