Forum Moderators: martinibuster
[google.com...]
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.
Every other ppc with content ads - Sprinks, goClick, searchfeed just let the webmaster choose the keyphrase on each page. Seems to be a pretty straightforward approach, you can see the current top listings, how much they pay, etc.
As a publisher, I wouldn't want to make up lists of AdSense keywords for all 3,500 or so pages on my current site. That would be a huge project, and it would be a distraction from my job of writing and publishing editorial content. I'd much rather let Google's AdSense crawl my pages about rail travel and determine that rail-whatsit.com or train-widgets.com would be a perfect advertising match. Computers were invented, in part, to automate drudgework--and I can't think of a better term than "drudgework" for the process of assigning keywords to several thousand pages.
IMHO, the combination of AdWords and Google's search technology is what makes AdSense unique--and it's why I submitted an application earlier today.
figment88, I appreciate your point, but automating the semantic analysis can be a nice win as well. For one, webmasters might not always pick the right words. And for another, webmasters may be too busy to pick words for each page (I think europeforvisitors is making this point as I post. :)
For those who haven't seen it, here's an interesting post from someone (Luckenbach) who had content ads show up via syndication several months ago:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Check out messages #2 and #6. The guy was so happy to have relevant, unobtrusive ads that make him money. I checked out his site back then, and it worked really well. He also had a page that solds parts, and if you read the thread, it didn't cause conflicts for his site.
So: each webmaster's mileage may vary. But if you try it and don't like it, you can always just remove the JavaScript--no harm done. :)
Also, what part of the paper is performing best, income-wise? Where is your traffic going: sports, news, lifestyle, whatever?
Sounds like you need a travel section! ;-)
I think the ads work so well because it's up to the advertiser to both pick the keywords and write an ad that attacts clicks.
I tried adword myself a few times and let me tell you that it's tough on the advertiser because they kick you out if the ad doesn't get clicked enough.
I don't need a team of PhD's with statistical algorithms guessing that text ads around the key phrase "auto parts" might get clicked on.
Brilliant statement, figment88.
but automating the semantic analysis can be a nice win(GG)
And we spent days speculating why the semantic acquisition took place. geez.
Man! It just amazes me what G is doing to us. For the first time, there is a side of G that is difficult to trust. GG you are killing me. I know that you personally have been working on *this* side of things for some time, but please please please stop talking to webmasters like Adsense is in any way related to search in terms of quality and G leadership. And please webmasters, don't think that ADsense is going to be your answer to profits. If you want to serve ads then *you* need to think carefully about who *your* target market is and their demographic, behavioral and geographic predispositions and work out an arrangement to serve ads that makes sense for you and your advertisers. G is not, and will not be to ad serving (outside of SERPs/adwords) what they have been to search. Don't get confused, as this is nothing new that G is pitching. This is the side of G that is hungry for revenue that their own search properties aren't providing enough of. This is the side of G that will dominate our views in the years to come. This is the side of G that is different from that of which we are conditioned to.
And finally, never, but never, for a second, think that a content ad will have a CTR or an ROI near the level of search prospects (rank dependant). If you build a content site and you serve Adsense, you will find yourself counting a handful of dollars, whilst leading customers off your site to ad destinations. Man! Just say it G, you care deeply about ad revenue and you *know* the second you are leaving the G SERPs you are talking about degradation in quality. And you are trying to pull this off with the G brand of old. This has got to change, and I am willing to take a stand to help force out the truth of G's intentions.
Seems pretty strange:
- A Forbes "Best of the Web" editorial site in a highly desirable category (travel)...
- Page views in the seven figures (most of which I'm willing to make available to AdSense)...
- Pages that do well in Google, which means they're obviously easy for the AdSense spider to crawl...
...And it's not good enough for AdSense?
All I can think of is that somebody at Google feels that my affiliate links are "text ads." If that's the hangup, so be it. I'm not about to ditch my main source of income for a promising but unproven ad program, even if it's from Google!
Looks to me like the site in your profile does have text ads. Am I wrong?
Well, it has affiliate text links--just like InfoPlease, one of the "case studies" on the AdSense site.
However, it doesn't have paid text ads like Broadcast Wireless Exchange, the other "case study."
I remember when About.com launched its Luna Network back in the late 1990s, then revamped the whole thing after a few months. Sprinks also went through a trial-and-error phase (and maybe still is, for all I know). Google's AdSense looks considerably more promising than either Luna or Sprinks, but I'm sure we'll see changes in their terms of service and policies if they want penetration in categories where content sites are already making money.
Chicago, I've seen the sort of page analysis that we've developed in AdSense. There's a lot of smart stuff going on there, and I expect some of the technology that we've developed will help us in understanding page content for regular search results. I think document summarization/document-as-query is a good technology for Google to develop for several reasons. So I'll stand by what I said earlier.
I showed some adwords ads through their RON buys on two networks, and the ads were not nearly as well targeted. Strange, maybe the way the ads were in an iframe? Curious. Haven't picked it apart yet. This stuff was dead on from page view #1. Damn.
The keywords are definitely tied with the content of the page and not the url like the A.S. stuff I've seen before.
Really, realy cool stuff!
Chicago:
Business wise, you can all argue over models and what is best to monetize your visitors, but for those of us who were already showing banner ads, this is a very welcome improvement. You have to give them props for making such a graceful entry into this market.
Interesting, europeforvisitors. Let me know if anything new develops with your sites and AdSense.
I sent the AdSense support team an e-mail in which I echoed some of the comments I've made here and requested clarification of what the problem might be. It would seem to me that Google would be better off having highly targeted AdWords run on my site than the only somewhat targeted AdWords that Tribal Fusion is serving. No big deal, though--affiliate revenues are my bread and butter; I was just interested in trying a different flavor of AdWords jam. :-)
It's not economic to have the overhead of writing out hundreds and thousands of very small cheques each month.
This part of the business plan.
Of course it is, and it makes perfect sense.
To send you out 8 very small cheques over a period of 8 months would cost *you* more than $18!
TJ
The sites that normally join Adsense will have it, or not?
... a link saying "Ads by Google", on top of the ad boxes, but the sites on the case study don´t have it. The sites that normally join Adsense will have it, or not?
I think you'll find new sites running the ads will have the "Ads by Google" link on the ads.
To send you out 8 very small cheques over a period of 8 months would cost *you* more than $18!
I mean, I'm French, I don't have a company and I don't have any tax-id number. Maybe it would be better to add that the tax-id is required only for some kind of people :-/
Thanks for your replies.
From a business standpoint it is always better to have money in your pocket, no matter the sum because of lost potential.
Yes, absolutely correct.
But what you don't seem to follow is the cost in administration of sending out many small payments.
This means that google have to set a limit (they've chosen $100) to make it worthwhile, not only in terms of having the benefit of cashflow (as you quite rightly point out), but also to keep the profit margin high enough that they can offer subscribers a reasonable PPC.
The cost of that administration, if they sent out $15 cheques every month would cost you, the webmaster subscriber, more than $18 over an 8 month period I would bet (you don't actually think that google would pay for the cost of sending out large quantity small value cheques?).
So you are actually better off forgoing the interest to google, and getting a better rate of PPC.
Who cares what google makes - what is more important is what the webmaster makes from the system.
We will only know for sure google's costing structure when they say what they will be paying PPC - or subscribers comment on that.
I would add that if you expect to only get $100 every 8 month period, its surely not worth you bothering to subscribe to Adsense anyway?
TJ
If you build a content site and you serve Adsense, you will find yourself counting a handful of dollars, whilst leading customers off your site to ad destinations.
This is also part of the dilema.
The way I look at it is like this. I have one totally content/non-profit site which has never made a bean but is popular in it's niche.
Being content/non-profit, the retailer/profit websites are not my competition.
So if I go sending users off to retail sites, I am not losing a "customer" - I also have enough confidence in the quality of the site to know that they will be back anyway, even if they then find another content site via the link.
So, I think Adsense, in theory, suits sites like this one perfectly.
The only question that really needs to be answered is *how much $$*.
I'm not sure if this is the case in the US, but in Europe, it's cheaper to host websites on "non-commercial" servers. Our content/hobby site is on such a server (obviously). If we subscribed to something like Adsense, we would actually have to move over to a commercial server, at some expense to us (or risk the ISP finding out and chucking us off).
Google expect us to do that without even being able to make a guess on the level of payment we would receive.
I guess the best policy is wait, let others be the guinea pigs and wait for them to come and report on here what kinds of PPC rates they are getting?
TJ
Googleguy, the css file is still stalling my browser i'm using win2000 and ie 6.0.28 .
I don't think it's the CSS file. I have had an intermittant problem with the actual ads, of them stalling the whole page in IE 6.
I know that IE 6 has problems with certian HTTP headers, but not sure of the specific fix. Even if the CSS file was stalled it would not effect the display of the page.
However, the stalling of javascript will. There is a trick that some web desigers use that goes like this :
<script></script>. Simple, but what it does is stall the page loading untill all extra files are loaded - preventing a flash of ( css ) unstyled content.
If anyone has seen this HTTP weirdnes please help Google fix this!
I guess the best policy is wait, let others be the guinea pigs and wait for them to come and report on here what kinds of PPC rates they are getting?
Nope. It's against Google AsSense T&C to disclose clickthrough rates.
Furthermore I'm not very happy about hte whole cloak'n'dagger about the CTR rates. It doesn't bode well. the fatct is that realistic CTR on website ads is always lower then what people think and I can imagine why google doesn't want them disclosed. But I believe playing with a closed hand will ultimately harm them.
Another thing is that even the google spider cannot categorise my site very well at times. It's a local directory, and for example the category "widgets" ranks #1 for "widgets" on google, which is inappropriate because it is a national site for "country" so it should rank # only for "widgets country" and somewhat lover on "widgets" behind sites about widgets in general and internationally.
I'm afraid Adsense will also not be able to pick up on that. After all I'm not going to repeat "country" on each page when teh page is called "widget directry for country". no human would mistake it. It'd be like askinbg hotmal to say its an email system on each page.
How can I give these kinds of hints to the AdSense system, to ensure it delivers ads relevant for my visitors?
On hte other hand I want to give some valuable content to out-of-market visitors, so therefore it might be a good thing if AdSense targets jsut the same as the google SERPS. After all I'll get those people from SERPS that searched for "widgets" and they realise it'S a localised directory, and perhaps click the AdWord ads.
I just think there are still some issues to AdSense, and like AdWords, it would benefit from several more features and points of control, both for Google as well as their Adwordtizers (tm) ;)
SN
But what you don't seem to follow is the cost in administration of sending out many small payments.
The affiliate programs that I affiliate with all have minimum payouts in the $10 to $25 range with commissions I see as fair. So I don’t see why Google can't do the same.
So I don’t see why Google can't do the same.
Because they don't need your business. Google is big enough to start something like this in the way that they mean to carry it on.
They're obviously aiming their structure at the >$100 a month/2 months worth of click-through sites.
As I have stated, it's impossible to know if this will work for you without knowing the fee scales. It may be a case of suck it and see.
But you're right, it's a waste of time for you if you have to wait 8 months for a cheque. That's the part I need to calculate and work out for myself also, but we can't do that within any reasonable guess without knowing what the PPC fee's are.
The problem with my site is to run Adsense I need to switch to a commercial server and it's impossible to tell if that's worthwhile or not.
Very tricky call.
What are your other affiliates like? Can anyone recommend something similar to Adsense, but where you know where you are financially?
TJ
I have a page about a band who share a name with a type of computer. Lots of surfers arrive at that page despite never having heard of the band (they are pretty obscure) - obviously looking for the computers. Adsense will probably serve adverts for the computer connection which will be a service for the surfers.
On the other hand, most of my traffic is from Google serps. Surfers will possibly be served exactly the same adverts that they just saw on the Google page they just left - will they react negatively to this?
