Forum Moderators: martinibuster
So is it too early to talk about what I'd have liked in the new stats? Or perhaps what would be nice in the version 2.0 of "channels"....?
First, some clever people here have come up with a variety of js and other tracking that seems to offer a lot more than the new channels do. It would have been nice if Google provided that. Instead of 20 (or later maybe 30/40/50,000 channels) it would have been nice to have been able to track stats page by page. This is maybe not so useful on the smaller sites but as you move towards sites turning over hundreds or thousands of click-throughs per day it could be quite useful to know how well each page was doing.
Second, it would have been nice to just add a line of code to the SSI rather than having to create separate SSIs for each channel. If you use 4 ad sizes and have 20 channels that becomes 80 SSIs (which kinda defeats the SSI concept).
Third, the 48 hour delay in stats reporting isn't the end of the world but with Google's enormous computing power surely it could be "real-time".
Any others?
I keep hearing about "Google's enormous computing power" as if they were some kind of god with unlimited resources. They're not. They're a business, and they have to buy servers and bandwidth just like everybody else.
Of course it's all possible, but if the return doesn't justify the investment, it's not going to happen.
Oh yes, one more thing--AdSense has no real competition right now, so we have to take what we're given. I'm not complaining, I love AdSense! It was a godsend for my site, but I have nobody else to run to if I don't get what I ask for...
1) as others have mentioned, the UI is pretty bad
2) I can't believe they called the system "channels." User defined groupings are not sales or marketing channels. I do a mental shake everytime I see the word written.
So let me set up a few child accounts, maybe even change my email address, and then we can talk more about channels. :P
Since each Channel is tied to a specific color scheme, and since I am rotating through 4 different color schemes, I have to use 4 channels just to track the activity of one topic on my site (I have basically 12 individual topics). I think for me investigating the java script tracking developed by WebMaster World people is the better solution.
And by the way, sure it's really probably due to some advertiser having reached the end of their advertising budget, but now 24 hours after installing Chanels I am paying the AdSense "Channel tax". EPC is down 50%, the lowest level this month.
1) In the channel data report, have a default grouping for "Unchanneled" ads. (Ads you may be running that are currently not part of a channel)
2) In the Date Range dropdown, have a quick select option for "2 days ago" / "Latest Channel Data", since it lags 2 days behind.
3) For the channel data box, have a select all button, make all channels the default or use all channels when you select none, or have the top select option be "All Channels".
Why would google not be able to auto detect what pages (by url+filename) are showing impressions and generating clicks.
Is this right? It seems as if the color itself is immaterial. Just add the appropriate "ad channel" line in the existing pre-channel code and it should work regardless of the color scheme.
Channels and color schemes are completely independend from each other.
It's just that combining them is the most likely use case, so they made it easy to do that in their configuration interface. But on your site you can combine any channel with any colors you like.
Isn't that a violation of AdSense TOS? I thought you were not allowed to alter the code.
Changing a color from #dfdfdf to #d8d8d8 won't make your code invalid. If you can be reasonably sure that by pressing the right buttons you could have convinced their interface to produce a specific combination, then that combination will count as "unaltered code".
