Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have been with Adsense for a long while and I have seen my share of success and my share of losing. For the past year, Adsense was parked somewhere in the back of my mind. Other stuff in life occupied my thoughts.
For years now I have the idea of developing a website about a certain travel niche I happen to know a lot about. I really would like to make this site and I feel there are chances of monetizing it with Adsense. Yesterday I couldn't resist the temptation no longer. I got me a fancy domain name, I designed the very first basic structure of my new site. I wrote a first article and uploaded some pictures. I included my Adsense code to see if everything was working OK. About 15 hours of work and I had the first outlines of something that could be explained as a website.
My plan is to inform you about the (Adsense) achievements of this site. I must warn you this could prove to be a boring thread because the last few websites I developed were extremely unsuccessful both in the case of traffic and profit. This is also not going to be a spectacular or emotional from rags to riches story. I am not some poor chap who will be homeless if he doesn't manage to make $100 a day in three months. I don't even need the money, this is just for the fun of it.
After one day I already can report my first findings:
Much to my surprise, Google indexed my 'site' within a day! I didn't expect that to happen because I didn't even create a backlink from one of my other sites. The site contains 2 articles and 10 pictures now and the ads are targeted rather well.
I have 2 questions:
- Google Adsense prohibits to put Adsense codes on sites that are under construction. In my opinion, about every serious website is 'under construction' because one is putting new content on it permananently. Do you have any idea what Google means by sites that are 'under construction'?
- Google Adsense doesn't want us to pay for links to our site and might penalize publishers for that. Is applying for Yahoo Search Submit (basically paying for a link) considered to be good practice or not? Did any of you apply for Yahoo Search Submit and if so, what does it do for your Adsense earnings?
Thanks for your thoughts!
[edited by: BrandNewDay at 4:03 pm (utc) on May 26, 2008]
In my opinion, about every serious website is 'under construction' because one is putting new content on it permananently.
I can't agree with you on that one. A website that is under construction is a lot different from one which is updated on a regular basis. For example the BBC website is updated by the minute but you would hardly say that it was under construction.
Google Adsense doesn't want us to pay for links
You're confusing Google AdSense with Google Search, two different animals, AdSense does not care if you buy links, but cares that your traffic is not artificially boosted by landing bought traffic onto pages containing AdSense.
Google search will drop you (or in your case not index you) if you buy links (Yahoo directory is not considered a bought link), but that's a discussion for another place not here.
Do you have any idea what Google means by sites that are 'under construction'?
When you see one you know it, no content, it's that simple.
Don't confuse under construction with site development in progress, all good sites are under continuous development, so don't worry if you have some content already, the bot needs food, keep feeding it.
One final note, I advise you to hold back on the ads till you've grown the site and obtained good links, AdSense can hinder your link acquisition in the early stages.
Recently I applied all I've learned on a new website and the traffic is working ok, I still don't put any Adsense code on it, this goes with Hobbs comment, I agree with that. Myself and other webmasters are likely to doubt on others intentions asking for links if the site has little content but already has ads.
Good luck
I'm also starting up a niche travel site at the moment. It will get published in mid-June. I will leave it for a month after that before I put Adsense on it. Any results I have will get posted here and I very much look forward to hearing your experiences. I have a few sites which are successful in varying degrees, none of them have been total failures. But I do have a couple of sites from past years that I have abandoned because income was so low.
Good luck, keep us posted.
NOMIS5
I understand that you may have concerns about using online advertising to promote your site. When doing so, simply remember that you should comply with the spirit of Google's Page Quality Guidelines, which you can find here: [adwords.google.com...]
I wish you success with your new site, and look forward to hearing your feedback on the AdSense programme.
I was weary at first, but this topic has been ASA approved.
I was weary at first, but this topic has been ASA approved.
;-)
Yesterday my site had its first few visitors, and...
Today I had my first Adsense click! And it was a solid 30 cent click! This is a real lucky shot because I had no more than 5 pageviews today.
Although I have been succesful with Adsense in the past, I never managed to built a site that received its first click so fast!
My site is about a certain travel niche. However, this 30 cent click comes from a channel that for some reason shows real estate related ads.
My question to fellow travel niche webmasters is:
Do you consider my 30 cent click a decent click for the travel business?
But one click is truly meaningless, wait until you have had Adsense up and going for a bit longer.
Develop that niche, make yourself number one in that niche, spend money on taking pictures and going to the places you are writing about for that niche. Don't expect a quick return, forget the 30 cnets click, go for the long term.
Travel is a great subject to have a site about because you can go there at the tax man's expense and enjoy it.
second the suggestion that you take ads off until you've grown the traffic to a decent level
But then it wouldn't be an "Adsense" website. Cheers to BND and his first click; the rags to riches story has just begun.
