Top 10 Ways "Inside Adsense" Could Suck Less

I got 1, you supply the other 9

[ronburk]

When I signed up for the "Inside Adsense" newsletter, I didn't expect miracles, but I did think I would get some substantive, factual information at least a couple times a year on subjects that are clearly concerning AdSense publishers. I've been disappointed, to put it mildly.

For example, Inside Adsense could have given some warning about the recent change that screws up click counters. Or even given some post-mortem comment on the "why". Or even just said anything whatsoever. I know the Google emps think they're hip and happenin', but I suspect they have no clue how much Inside Adsense reads like a 1980's IBM salesman trying to "get down" with those PC-using youngsters.

Could they be any less in tune with what publishers are asking, or any more concerned with corporate secrecy? Are there 10 lawyers vetting each word before it goes out, or what. OK, at least they don't say "awesome" every other word (though that may change as they hire more Microsofties away), but still. Let's all pause a moment, face towards the Googleplex, and make an 'L' on our foreheads.

However, in the interests of constructive (albeit almost certainly futile) criticism, I would like to propose some things Inside Adsense could cover that might actually address publisher concerns. I got one, you supply 9 more, then it's an official Top Ten list!

1. What should we do to defend ourselves against "invalid clicks"? I know, fat chance they'll comment on this, but when you know you'll be ignored, might as well ask for the stars. This is one area where Google claims to actually (sometimes!) engage in manual labor on individual events, so it's nuts not to enlist the publisher in data gathering. Google can tell what IP addresses spawned IP addresses, but they're much less likely to know any non-technical details (e.g., "That IP address belongs to a secretary's machine, and should not be in use after 2 am", etc.).

   Although I know well that Google wants to be able to auto-ban without engaging in employee-hour-consuming conversation, there's no reason they cannot retain that behavior and still offer some tips for early detection of fraud, what data to gather in case you want to appeal a banning, etc.

   The point here is that business want to do anything they can to reduce the risk of being banned, and increase the odds of being reinstated if they are banned. Serious publishers are willing to invest in software to aid in that effort -- we just need some clues as to what Google wants or what Google thinks works.
   

[netchicken1]

I feel they just repeat Adsense 101, and never actually cover developing issues that webmasters face.

The posts could have come straight from their help manuals. Look at what we have been through over recent months, declining ecpm, MFA kills, etc etc and all we get are posts that ignore the real world adsense events, while people are crying out for some google explanations, or input.

[zett]

2. How to use the tools provided by Google to track and analyze your statistics?

Even if this sounds like another nightmare question for them (because once they start to answer that one, they would have to admit that they are not providing too much meaningful data to do a thorough analysis), so even considering this, they still could provide some insights on how to use the existing data set. You can educate people on basic statistics (e.g. moving averages, or variance analysis) so that the interested webmasters could stop screaming "why is it that I earned XX% less today than yesterday".