Search Do's and Dont's

Tactics to make search more profitable

[hyperkik]

I have never had enough luck with AdSense for Search to maintain it on my pages. I am also not particularly fond of the lack of ability to customize output. That said, obviously some people find it profitable.

At the same time, some people seem to find profit by engaging in conduct which appears to be forbidden.

There have been some recent posts about search, with a few people noting that they have been slapped on the hand by Google for pre-filling the AdSense search box. So, while the benefits of inserting valuable keywords into the search box seem obvious, that's presumably not a path to take.

I've also seen somebody who created an entirely custom, pre-filled search box, rather than using Google's. That would presumably not only violate their policy against pre-filling the box, but would also constitute tampering with the code.

I recently saw a site which, rather than using the search box, was directly linking to results pages. I think that technically avoids the pre-loading and tampering with code issues. That tactic appears to be expressly forbidden by the terms and conditions.

Beyond that... Is it the luck of the draw?

What are people doing to improve the performance of search, while respecting the AdSense terms and conditions?

[ganeshcp]

I harldy make any money from the search program probably because users just don't search for the right thing!

As for tips to improve the search program all I can think of is to make the search more visible on your page and put it on every page on your domain. Beyond that there is very little you can do...

[jetteroheller]

My AdSense revenues climb up, the search revenues go down.

While AdSense slightly improves this month,
search is nearly 50% down.

For luck, 99% of my revenues are AdSense and only 1% search.