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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.
BTW, the best thing would be to put the adsense code in just a portion of the site and compare it to Tribal's CPM model. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I know I am.
does this mean i can't have both 468x60 and 120x600 on the same page? should i use only one of them, but never together?
Is there a contact point for querying specific pages with Google to get a Y/N? This single page gets 200,000+ visits a month so it's kind of a key point...
Has anybody come up with a simple table yet?
100,000 page impressions a months on average = $X
200,000 " " " " " = $Y
etc?
(Yes i know it varies from sector to sector but some gut feels would be interesting.)
- REPORTS AREN'T IN REAL TIME
When I surfed a few of my own pages, I checked my AdSense stats a few minutes later. No impressions registered. Hmm.
- GENERALLY EXCELLENT TARGETING AND COOL ADS
I am pleased overall with the ads being served! Though there are some inexplicable instances of wacky choices being made. I have one section on my blog about (surprise surprise) Blogging, and for some reason AdSense has decided to put all coffee ads there. Maybe they think that people who blog are often times up late and drinking coffee to fuel their habit? ;-)
- ACK... I WANT TARGET="_BLANK"!
In general, I have links to external sites from mine open in a new window, especially all affiliate links. Amazon.com finally wised up and let publishers select whether clicks on their ads would open up a new window or not. I'd really love to see Google do the same! I really hate having to make the choice: 20 cents, or keeping a visitor on my site? :¦
- WHAT EXACTLY IS THE DEFINITION OF "TEXT ADS"?
On the top of most of my pages (though not on my blog now where I've implemented AdSense), I have a little box that says, "Recommended by Adam:" followed by some custom-written text linking to an affiliate partner. For example, "Hey, Amazon.com is offering their new goodie boxes for free after rebate! _Get one now before_ before they're all gone!" These aren't served by an ad network. Do they still count as text ads? More specifically, is there a way I can officially learn whether it's permissible for me to keep these blurbs on top and still run skyscraper AdSense boxes?
- ON MINIMUM PAYOUTS: GOOGLE'S STANCE SHOULD BE REVISED
I can understand Google not wanting to pay to mail miniscule checks, but I'm not aware of ANY other entity that has a $100 minimum payout. Most firms I've done business with (as an affiliate / publisher) put a $50 or $75 minimum on check payout BUT offer a $10 or $25 payout by direct deposit, which I'm guessing is significantly cheaper for them. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's as little as 20% of the cost of mailing paper checks, which suggests that Google could set a direct deposit threshold of $20 and make folks happier :)
And hey, GoogleGuy, I know that we all appreciate you and other Google folks reading this topic! May I ask if you recommend any other avenues for the expression of suggestions regarding the AdSense program?
Just an FYI, my personal priority is the default ads. That is 99% of my concern and it would remove many of my other quibbles with the service.
It would also allow you to loosen up on some rules (like no placement on a "log in " page. Because you can always serve up a default.
If the default option is enabled and extensive (e.g. ability to specify several defaults and weighted campaigns) I would make all my efforts to monetize my sites revolve around AdSense.
I had a few other MINOR (by that I mean VERY MINOR!) suggestions:
1) Allow webmasters to define the background color of the table. I am designing a new site and have left out a place for a Google skyscraper because of design complications.
Since we are paid CPC it's not like we'll try to hide the links with a black background or anything.
2) Allow target="_blank". I personally would prefer to make less money and have the links open in a new window. Throughout my sites there is at least one consistent theme. External links open in a new window.
3) Allow us to provide a log in or cookie to spider areas that require that the visitor be logged in (this could be tricky).
4) Remove the "Ads by Google". That smacks of a banner exchange (except for the fact that everyone knows Google is no banner exchange).
If it is to stay we should be paid for clicks at the very least and ideally an affiliate commision.
5) The Ability to sell ads on our own sites. I would be happy to give Google a cut if:
a) Google handles the collection from the person buying the ads.
b) The ads can be used as default ads.
In any case, good work! After a day of testing it is by far the best ad network I have used. The qualms I have are whether it's better than all the others put together and if default ads are implemented that would not be an issue (I'd just serve up the other network's banners and skyscrapers through the AdSense default).
[edited by: cdkrg at 4:32 am (utc) on June 21, 2003]
Would you accept a fee for this? Fastclick charges $2.50 if you want a payment before you reach the payout threshold.
I personally liek the payout as it is.
This sounds like a way to drive traffic to my e-commerce clients. Too bad it's traffic from junk sites.
AdWords ads were showing up on some funky sites to begin with. This just opens the flood gates and will degrade the quality of the AdWords program.
But hey, it's news. Have fun with it.
> a) Google handles the collection from the person buying the ads.
> b) The ads can be used as default ads.
Yes, that's a SUPER idea, CDKRG! Let me tell you, I've been tempted to check out the text-ad exchange from FC (and, ahem, not Fast Company), but I refuse to enrich the coffers of a site and a Webmaster that I find generally repugnant.
I like Google, I like what they do, and even if it means a little less money for me, I'd like to support them over other players in the arena.
About ThatAdamGuy:
REAL TIME REPORTS...I think it's real time for a web process.
EXCELLENT TARGETING...Agree.
I WANT TARGET="_BLANK"!... Me too.
Direct deposit...Please, that would be great!
About cdkrg post:
Allow webmasters to define the background color of the table...Agree.
AdSense team...Congratulations!
GoogleGuy...Thank you!
This sounds like a way to drive traffic to my e-commerce clients. Too bad it's traffic from junk sites.
Hey, I'm just as concerned about sending traffic to junk sites. Fortunately, AdSense allows filtering of up to 200 URLs, so I can block e-commerce sites that don't meet my standards.
I think concerns about quality of sites and ads is overstated here.
There are few ad networks that can approach the subdued relevancy of Google advertising standards.
I'm not a Google phycophant but I think network quality is a missplaced knock on Google.
Can you see AdSense sites in the referer field when people click through ads?
Google does not allow us to serve their ads through any ad management
I can confirm this, but where did you read this - I couldn't see it in the guidelines.
Susprisingly this wouldn't even work when my ad agency(Burst) redirects to a page on my own site to serve the ad - it just displayed some defaults.
I think this is a major drawback of the software. I have a site with 6 million impressions/month, and Burst leaves a good 1 million+ unsold, which would be ideal for AdSense, but I can't redirect them. Of course, if I just serve 5/6ths of my ads with Burst and the other 1/6th directly to Adsense, I lose 1/6th of my Burst income, and they still serve me a million or so defaults.
Get on that blower GoogleGuy!
Separate Reports for Subsites
- I got approved for Adsense, and use the same code on 2 of my sites. It works perfectly fine, but the biggest drawback is that it doesn't show separate reports for my 2 sites.
GoogleGuy, it would nice to see a breakup of statistics site-wise, rather than having a combined report.
Internet Master
I would like to hear from Advertisers.
What happened,did they get more clickthroughs and more sales...?
I am curious to listen from guys out there doing adwords and noticed they appeared on their friends sites.
Adwords advertisers, have you seen any significant improvement in quality traffic if you appear among some of the categories here webmasters have sites in.
I hope this is the final test.If advertisers gets more sales it's the knockout punch.
Looking forward to hearing from you advertisers.
Aravind
<edit> Typo </edit>
The main improvements I'd be looking for are with the reporting, I already find myself unwilling to run ads on a second site because I will have no way of judging how they are performing.
Also it would be quite nice to see an hourly breakdown of what is happening - with my site I am clearly earning more for UK clicks than US clicks, my CPC is 3 times higher this morning than it was overnight.
If I create a new page, and give it some promotion, it will only bring me some money when Google crawls/caches it. It could be a month later, when my users donīt want to read about it... and when I wonīt have any visitors on it.
This is really important for news sites.
I think we will really need AdSense to check our keywords meta tag, or a new adsense meta tag as it was suggested here.
Without this, we will have sites, who will not direct visitors to some pages, until they get crawled, because only then they will make some revenue from them... we will create "Crawling dependents/addicts"
bluelook: I put up a new page yesterday and it was showing targetted ads right away. No defaults. Then again, I am using old fashioned html with php includes for the top, right and bottom navigations. Do you think that the problem of not cacheing comes from using dynamic content pages (php, asp, phpnuke content management or something like that)?
On the other hand, my site is like 75 pages of static content and the message boards and it is fairly small so that could be it. Frankly, I have not even put the code on the boards yet as I fear that the session ids generated will throw off Google. This limits the number of pageviews, but not by much.
First of all I would like to thank this board for bringing AdSense to the attention of all users. Without the knowledge of the AdSense program I received from this board who knows how long it would have taken me to find out about this "so far" wonderful program. Thanks to you I was able to get in on the ground floor and have had satisfactory results.
I don't see the concern about not knowing the percentage of payout. If you knew it were 20%, you still would not know what ads were clicked and not know what you were getting 20% of. The best way to determine the payout is the old fashioned way. How much have I earned compared to how many impressions and clickthrus? From my stand point Google seems to be very generious with payments.
I find the ads to be very targetted to the subject matter on the page. When there are no ads for the subject matter of the page the ad defaults to the overall sites theme.
The $100.00 minumum seems very fair. I really don't see any problem with making this amount on a monthly basis. If it takes two months to achieve, it is still $100.00 more than I had before.
As far as the banner saying Google Ads. I think Google has a great reputation with their users and think with the Google Ads showing on the banner it only adds to the credibility of the AdSense ads. They won't just see it as a banner ad that we have all come to distrust. This could bring more clickthrus because people know and trust google for supplying relevant content. I quess that remains to be seen at a later time.
One ad per page is sufficient. You don't want to look like a billboard for Google. Keep it simple and in view, preferrably the first fold if possible. If they don't click on a targeted ad they can see, why would having more ads make a difference. You still have other things to convey to the customer.
This is only my view and I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. For now, for today, this is how I see it and I'm sticking to it.
Given that I wonder what the attitude of other search engines will be to indexing pages that include an ad for Adwords, which basically the "Ads from Google" link is? There are a few search engines that would see that as direct competition, including ATW and AV (Overture properties) and some as less direct competition (MSN etc).
On first thoughts, it would seem unlikely as it would reduce the number (or ranking) of indexed pages signficantly in time, decreasing the utility of their indexes. But the whole area to me is a fascinating unknown.
