Back From The Dead

Back To The Future?

[farmboy]

First, let me say a great big THANKS to Netmeg and IncrediBILL.

Hello to those of you who I've never met but I consider friends. It's good to be back in the Internet world,

For those reading this, I used to be a "regular" on Webmaster World.

I've spent a year dead, or at least very close to it.

I hope to write some things everyone will find useful as far as preparing for your death.

And I'm writing this on the AdSense board, I am a "former" Publisher who hasn't been paid in a year and has great difficulty contacting someone with AdSense.

It's good to be back.

I hope you take seriously what I write and prepare for what might happen to you any moment now.

FarmBoy

[lammert]

www or non-www for search engines is something completely different compared to www or non-www for humans.

A redirect between www to non-www may fix some issues on the search engine sides, so it is always good to have one in place. If you redirect to the www or to the non-www version doesn't matter much for small sites. But, if you are thinking of promoting your site in offline media, or thinking of expanding your site to span more servers or IP addresses, there are some things to take into consideration.

A non-www version in advertisements may make it easier for people to remember. When people see a domain name in an offline ad, it should be as easy as possible to remember, and the shorter the better.

But a www version as the end result version in the browser may be better to give your website some status, and be prepared for a bright future. Ever noticed that Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Microsoft redirect their non-www queries to a www version? This is not so much for marketing or search engine reasons, but simply because if you are using more IP addresses for your domain, use cloud hosting, caching, load balancers etc, creating a setup with a subdomain like www.example.com is much more flexible than using the main domain example.com.

So if you want to become a big player with your site and plan to use billboards, print publications etc, use the non-www version for advertising, but the www version as end result in the browser.

[RedBar]

But a www version as the end result version in the browser may be better to give your website some status, and be prepared for a bright future.

Whoosh...what the heck are you talking about?

You cannot seriously be saying that www.example.com has more status than example.com? If so that's the biggest myth I have ever read about the World Wide Web.

The www is not necessary whatsoever, it never, ever has been, T B-Lee wishes he'd never used it, it was a marketing gimmick, nothing more, nothing less.

[lammert]

The www is more flexible because you can add CNAME records to it, using it to point to CDNs, cloud hosting etc. With non-www you can only add fixed IPs to the domain which limits your scalability in the long run. This flexibility is why you won't see large companies using a non-www domain easily.

As a consequence people see large companies on the web most of the time associated with sites starting with www. Why estrange yourself from the big boys if you want to be one of them? It's the psychological aspect which counts.

We as advanced computer literates know that the only difference is some technical thingy under the hood, but for many people www is similar with the web.

[RedBar]

And there I was thinking we were going to get into an argument about load-balancing that plainly failed spectacularly on Black Friday!

Yes, you can do other things using the www however the vast majority of sites in the world will, never, ever have the need for it.

Why estrange yourself from the big boys if you want to be one of them?

I am one of the top ten in my worldwide industry, not one, absolutely not one company has ever found any necessity other than using example.com. We meet and talk on a regular basis about such things since many, many companies within my industry trade with one another all the time.

However no one, I mean absolutely no one because of the nature of our widget business, has an ecommerce site therefore no one has any experience of operating such sites which, I would guess, may alter my view if issues occurred.

It will be interesting since I am actually in the process of trying to construct the first ecommerce demo site, it is extremely difficult I can tell you since this is not a drop-ship operation, and to even consider more than a few customers per day actually buying is a bit of a nightmare already, hundreds and we would not even cope!

I can tell you, some of you really do not know how easy you have it, but then again you also may also have a helluva lot of competition simply because it is so much easier...swings and roundabouts.

[farmboy]

Thanks! I'm convinced.

With print mail advertising, billboard advertising, magazine advertising, etc., the non www version is often cheaper to advertise and doesn't result in unwanted hyphenations anyway.

FarmBoy

[netmeg]

All my sites are non-www now. There's no need for it. When evaluating a client's site, if it's indexed and doing well as www, I'll leave it, but for new sites, I usually go non-www there too.

[farmboy]

AdSense has this function where you can delay getting a payment until some future date.

Has anyone found a good reason to delay getting a payment until some future date?

To not ask for a delay?

FarmBoy

[netmeg]

Only reason I can think of might be if you wanted the revenue to be reported in the next tax year. And personally, I would never do that, but I guess some folks might.

Or maybe if you're in the process of switching banks or something.

[farmboy]

Only reason I can think of might be if you wanted the revenue to be reported in the next tax year. And personally, I would never do that, but I guess some folks might.

If I recall correctly, you need to decide in any month by the 15th day in the month?


FarmBoy

[ken_b]

AdSense has this function where you can delay getting a payment until some future date.

Back when I was getting paid by paper check and traveling more I thought about doing that if I was going to be gone when the check was likely to arrive.

Never did it though. Simply had trusted friend pick up my mail.
.

[lammert]

AdSense has this function where you can delay getting a payment until some future date.

I used it in the past when my bank was asking a significant amount of money for clearing checks. Now with EFT it is not an issue anymore and I have stopped using the payment delay feature. You had to change your settings before the 15th of each month, but don't know if that is still the rule.

[physics]

Wow, glad to hear you recovered ... sounds like it was very much a life changing experience.

[farmboy]

Thanks physics.

I should to be able to report some good news in regards to AdSense later this week.


FarmBoy

[RedBar]

Only reason I can think of might be if you wanted the revenue to be reported in the next tax year.

Yep, I did that a few years ago since it was way into a five figure sum and I needed time to "rectify" my position.

Ha, I don't have that "problem" these days with AdSense:-(

[farmboy]

Here's a question from long ago and I don't ever remember getting a clear answer.

Suppose John Doe visits my site using his computer. He sees an AdSense ad for XYZ Corporation. Maybe he clicks and maybe he doesn't.

Does AdSense have a means to keep showing the same ad to the same visitor again and again?

FarmBoy
MYSBIWAC


MYSBIWAC = May Your Site Be Infested With AdSense Clicks

[farmboy]

Here's a question that I risk falls into the "Mind Your Own Business" category.

A lot has been written about large sites, small sites, etc. (Disregarding the amount of traffic)

That said, for a site that has AdSense, what do you consider a LARGE site? 25 pages? 50 pages? 100 pages? 250 pages? 500 pages? more?

FarmBoy
MYSBIWAC

[Edge]

what do you consider a LARGE site? 25 pages? 50 pages? 100 pages? 250 pages? 500 pages? more?

Scope and niche dependent. In my vertical, 3,000 + pages..

[farmboy]

Well, while I'm on a roll, I'll try one more question:

If a site has 3,000 pages, 100 pages or whatever, with each page (except for a few) having at least one AdSense display, how reasonable to expect one AdSense click per day per page? (Assuming there is traffic to each page each day.)

FarmBoy
MYSBIWAC

[RedBar]

I wish I were getting one AdSense click per day per page, that would make a 100% CTR surely?

[Edge]

how reasonable to expect one AdSense click per day per page?

None... in my world.

Most webpages get only a few visits monthly if any and ~ might receive an AdSense click. I have other pages that searchers and direct traffic visit many times a minute and the clicks are numerous.

Please don’t take my experience and observations as representing the internet as a whole.

I think your question is very generic and my experiences and website vertical will have different traffic patterns and garners different levels of interest then other verticals.

Understanding demand for information, size of market for a product or service is the best indicator of what one might expect in terms of visitor traffic and ultimately sales or adverting clicks.

[netmeg]

Suppose John Doe visits my site using his computer. He sees an AdSense ad for XYZ Corporation. Maybe he clicks and maybe he doesn't.

Does AdSense have a means to keep showing the same ad to the same visitor again and again?

AdSense doesn't, but AdWords (the advertising side) does. It's called remarketing ads. They're controlled by the advertiser, not the publisher.

That said, for a site that has AdSense, what do you consider a LARGE site? 25 pages? 50 pages? 100 pages? 250 pages? 500 pages? more?

In my mind, I'd probably set the bar around 100k pages. I have clients with half that, and I don't consider them particularly large sites. Of course, if I had to produce the content for them, that might change my view.

If a site has 3,000 pages, 100 pages or whatever, with each page (except for a few) having at least one AdSense display, how reasonable to expect one AdSense click per day per page? (Assuming there is traffic to each page each day.)

Not very reasonable. I suspect that most sites don't even get one non-bot VISIT to every page every day, let alone an AdSense click.

[shri]

Not very reasonable. I suspect that most sites don't even get one non-bot VISIT to every page every day, let alone an AdSense click.

I agree. Your site is a lot like a bookshop and your content is a lot like a title. (Think long tail etc... just using books as a simplified example.)

Some titles sell a lot, but they're discounted - they bring people in & they're quick and easy to sell. Thats going to be your bread and butter.

However, bookshops have a lot of titles which don't move .. may be one a week or one a month. However, they keep them there - because they're usually not discounted and add to the bottom line. This is your long tail.

Now keep in mind that a book shop has to make money - pay for the cost of the premises, staff and make a profit for the owner. So, not point building the largest collection of titles if the visitors are just not interested in them. (Overhead of bringing the titles in, using up sq footage that is not making money etc etc)

I am old school when it comes to thinking of websites - every page eventually has to make money, just like every bit of sq ft in retail has to contribute.

Think foot traffic, think impulse buys, think of the math behind your website (costs vs income - just a lot lot deeper).

I could go on... :)

[farmboy]

Is AdSense traffic related to the weather?

For example, if it's snowing heavily in Boston (US Massachusetts), are the people in the Boston area more likely to visit sites and click?


FarmBoy

[netmeg]

Maybe. If they have power.

Since I deal in outdoor events, I definitely get a spike when the weather is iffy, because people want to know if the events are still on, or if there's a rain date.

[farmboy]

When I log in to AdSense, I see some information and then suggests I try an experiment as it might increase my revenue.

Anyone have experience with this? Good, bad, or indifferent?


FarmBoy

[netmeg]

Some of 'em have been useful. Right now they're going through old ads that aren't even active for me, but I've taken recommendations before that worked, and some that didn't make a difference. Don't think I ever had one that failed miserably, but I don't take 'em unless I think they might have a shot. An experiment shouldn't hurt. That's when they run their suggestion vs your existing ad and after a certain number of clicks, they tell if which is doing better.

[farmboy]

Thanks again Netmeg.

Just FYI, this concerned an ad where I could possibly get an up to X% predicted increase in weekly earnings because the Ad Unit I installed has a different border and background colors.

If these colors match, as they say, that's known to increase ad performance.

They suggested an experiment. I accepted.


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Anyone want to discuss colors?

A man who makes and sells signs once told me that bright yellow almost-neon backgrounds with red text seem to attract attention more than everything else he has tried.

Any thoughts if this applies to ads online/AdSense?

FarmBoy

[RedBar]

Arghhh...My eyes are almost bleeding trying to visualise that!

[farmboy]

It sure attracted attention and was easy to read.

I wish I could stop your eyes from bleeding.

:)



FarmBoy