Forum Moderators: martinibuster
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Not sure if this should be in Google News or adwords. I guess this forum should really be the one for AdSense questions as it's about advertising.
Also, it seems that the site hangs in IE. Mozilla ( as usual ) works perfectly so use that.
Unlike the exising content targed ads you do not need 20 million visitors to put these ads on your site.
for me this doesn't look like an attractive business case
I'm not running a business, though - mine is just a hobby site. And as someone else suggested, AdSense is largely a way of covering my hosting costs, which I'd never found a way of doing before.
But anyway, while things HAVE settled down now, there are still many instances in which "honest" affiliate programs (and their affiliates) still make sense.
I'm doing very well with certain types of affiliate programs--hotels, for example--and the presence of AdWords banners on my pages (whether from AdSense or from the Tribal Fusion ad network) doesn't seem to have had any major impact on affiliate sales. So, for my site at least, both affiliate sales and AdSense should coexist nicely for the foreseeable future.
The great thing about AdSense is that it lets me monetize pages that normally don't generate revenue. On an editorial site, there will always be pages that help to bring in readers but don't lead directly to affiliate sales.
Articles on cruises are a good example: I don't belong to a cruise affiliate program, partly because cruising isn't a major focus of my site but also because most cruises are sold by travel agencies (which either don't have affiliate programs or pay lousy commissions). Now, with AdSense, an article about a cruise on Caviar Cruises or Rubadub Rhine Cruises can generate revenue directly through AdWords for travel agencies that sell cruises on those cruise lines. This is great for me because it's incremental income. It doesn't take away from my other revenues; instead, it's a whole new revenue opportunity.
Even in the hotel category, where I do very well with affiliate sales, there are countries or cities where my affiliate partners don't represent many (if any) properties. An article on Honfleur or Bergen might be a loss leader in the normal scheme of things. Now, with AdSense, I may actually make a few bucks as a direct result of those articles and other articles whose topics were dictated by editorial, not financial, considerations.
muesli wrote:
but what about an average mom&pop website? eg. a website or discussion board not focused on anything commercial, a site commercially unspecific?
It's going to be tougher for people to make money with AdSense in less easily monetized subject areas, but AdSense still may be a better source of revenue than an affiliate program in many cases. Let's say you have a site about Mormon theology. I don't know if there are any Mormon affiliate programs, but--assuming that there aren't--AdSense could come to the rescue with ads for Mormon books that aren't in Amazon, shelving systems for storing a year's worth of food, genealogical research services, and other products or services that are of interest to Mormons.
In any case, AdSense is easy to try. Put the code on your site and see what happens. If it makes money for you, great. If not, pull the code, and you're no worse off than you were when you started.
Advertisers have shunned forums in the past for several reasons. The biggest reason is CPM payment. Forums get huge amounts of page views and generally have less reach (i.e. more traffic from repeat visits than from large audience).
When paying CPM this is a horrible situation.
Another issues is the quality and content of the site. Forums have a bad rep for being kiddie playgrounds with foul language and the like.
I run an "Ask an expert" forum that is large and growing quickly. The content on the forums is excellent as it is well moderated.
Ad networks have made exceptions to their no forum rule for my site in the past. Their reviews have been favorable without exception.
AdSense, IMO, highlights the best that there is of forums with little of the downside.
First of all, they pay CPC, so no need to worry about paying for impressions of little value.
While there is still the issue of content being vulgar etc, on a well moderated intellectual forum there are some needs met.
On my forums the users talk and ask advice about many things. AdSense has done well in serving well targeted ads.
A user asked about camcorders and got a recommendation. AdSense started displaying ads for the exact make and model discussed and the member was thrilled.
She wrote to me saying "not only did your experts answer my question but I didn't even have to search for the camcorder" or some such.
On another discussion people were talking about trimming their nether regions. Soon the talk turned to the depilation products ads. They marveled at how technology is better targeting advertisements and the ads actually became a point of discussion.
I have already bought a product that was displayed in an AdSense ad. It was targeted at forum webmasters and it was an excellent find (it was an addon that improved email notification of forum posts).
Many of these niches do not have many static HTML pages wherin they are discussed and AdSense would tehrefore find fewer avenues to display those ads.
I think AdSense highlights the strength of forums quite well as they can target the varied subjects well. I think forums help AdSense because there are some keywords that rarely have static pages built about them but often have interactive discussion about it.
My one concern is that AdSense is serving too many ads that are targeted at me, the webmaster. AdSense is spidering my page and because my site uses PHP, MySQL etc and says so I get many ads targeting web developers. Even though web development is currently a very small part of my site.
I wish that with AdSense certain keywords could be blocked in addition to blocking sites.
For example, I do not want to lose a member of my site to another forum over 20 cents. Thus far the forums that have been advertised on my site are small forums and my members generally take a look and don't migrate. But I'd like to have the ability to block ads for forums. Ad well as ads about MySQL etc. Just because my site uses MySQL and states as much (to support teh open source community) does not mean many of my visitors are interested in it.
I do wish there was a better way to "guide" AdSense sometimes.
Is there anyway "Ads by Google" could be removed?
Also, it would be wonderful if there was a choice of adding "_blank" in the Ad Code, as many publishers prefer outgoing ad clicks to open in new window.
Thanks for the help.
I just spotted a site that is not a premium partner, but an Ad sense publisher, and managed to remove the "Ads by Google" statement. After checking the site's code, I noticed that it had the following line removed from the code.
google_ad_format = '120x600_as'; [in case of a skyscraper banner]
The Google Program Policies says that the "The AdSense ad code must be pasted, without modification, into websites". I am wondering if google would be able to track such issues.
And along those lines, why WOULD anyone want to remove the Ads by Google tag? I can understand wishing to receive a commission for referrals (frankly, I think that's reasonable), but given the caché of the Google name (compared to, say "Ads by AOL" :snicker:!), it seems self-defeating to remove the tag.
But that's just me. At 1:36am after a tiring Monday. With just chips and mango salsa for dinner. Argh.
If you edit the code, google might not pay you so thats a silly thing to do!
Not especially after the kind of payout I am seeing ;)
Need Scripts
Firstly I am assuming two things, Adsense will propel new sites to be developed and published faster.
I don't know I was little worried about this, But I have a feel that DMOZ might be started to be abused in the near future.Since there could phenomenal increase in new site submissions in various dormant categories just to make that little extra buck.
I personally have great respect and regard for all the DMOZ editors,one day I would also join the team of DMOZ editors.
But I am looking for responses from DMOZ editors about Adsense program. Could you through somelight on what is happening at your end of editing.
With Regards
Aravind
