Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Now I can host AdSense on my search results pages and make more than that lousy nickel a day... hopefully...
Does anyone know if there is anything else I have to do to remove myself from the "AdSense for Search" option besides just removing the javascript from the pages where I had Google Search?
I don't think you have to do anything my adsense account tells me that I'm still signed up for search - but I don't use it at all.
Hope it all works out ok.
is anyone using this technique and getting good relevancy? if so, are you employing some tricks?
and I heard rumors of poeple manipulating it to get revenge on publishers.. searching for meso ads and what not
I heard from other publishers that adsense for search has miserably low CTR. Does anybody actually make any money on Adsense for Search?
AdSense for Search has outstanding CTR and eCPM on my site.
Content-ad revenues are much higher, though, since my users have always preferred menus and internal links over search.
Just make sure not to show adsense on empty search result pages.
Taps: How would I do this? With a script? Any help would be appreciated.
When you put adsense on a search result page, how is the relevancy?
Elsewhen: So far the relevancy looks great. I had my first 47 cent click yesterday. One click a day at "normal" EPC blows away about 20 clicks at a penny the old way.
Vabst & Jenkers: How would I program a "get" request and cause the query to be written into the delivered results page title? Might be over my head... but I'd love to do this. Maybe it is an option with the program I got? So far the ads are very relevant... so maybe I don't need to look into this, but it is interesting to me.
I heard from other publishers that adsense for search has miserably low CTR. Does anybody actually make any money on Adsense for Search?
AdSense for Search has outstanding CTR and eCPM on my site.
AdSense for Search gave me outstanding CTR, too, but only 1 or 2 pennies per click on results page ads. I will sacrifice lower CTR for higher EPC any day when the difference is SO great. Search is a necessary evil on my site, as it is hard for visitors to find what they want at this site (ie: almost no navigation and so many pages could be indexed according to different topics that I have never tackled it!) Since most searchers came to my site on a 5 cent AdWords click, I cannot afford to have them leave on a penny click. Removing AdSense for Search is a smart move for me, but may not be for everyone.
when you use a form in html the action is either a get or a post. If you are getting good and relevant results then don't worry about that.
Your script will more than likely have a results counter so that it knows how many loops to perform to display each new result.
Question - if you perform a search and there are no results do you get a message - e.g
'no results found' etc.
You want your adsense ads to be shown when the condition that causes the above message is false.
Not knowing how your script works I can't really offer much more advice than that - except that is should be pretty easy to perform.
When I did, though, the CTR was outstanding: the payout, however, was not. A few pennies, and always under $3 a month.
Then I got a clue; better to send my traffic to other places on the site than to have them exit on a penny click ad. I replaced the search boxes with "for related articles..." and we did better overall.
I've test site search a number of times over the years on our sites. Really, a very small number of surfers ever used it. Maybe 5% at best?
I've test site search a number of times over the years on our sites. Really, a very small number of surfers ever used it. Maybe 5% at best?
Yes, but why not provide search for users who do want it, as long as it doesn't cost you anything? And if you can earn a few dollars with zero effort from something that you're providing strictly as a user convenience, so much the better.
if we can get a "normal" CPC, then any clicks derived through this system are worthwhile.
Question - if you perform a search and there are no results do you get a message - e.g'no results found' etc.
You want your adsense ads to be shown when the condition that causes the above message is false.
Yes! I do get that kind of message when there are no results returned, so that would work. I guess I just need to know the format for writing the conditional statement. I can contact support for this site search I bought and see if they will send me the code.
And you just gave me an idea! When there are no results I should also be able to display an alternate ad or perform a redirect, right?
...because instead I would funnel at least some of those people through higher-paying "Relevant Article" listings. Google Search was taking them off my site for almost no pay.
I end up with more page views if they have to click around, too.
Google can't possibly have crawled it, I think they are basing the ads on keywords in the url.
For example, if I have an article at http://www.example.com/widgets/ then when I'm updating the page I have my browser set to [localhost...] Google then serves ads for widgets. Similarly if the file is [localhost...] I get ads for new and used dog biscuits at eBay.
This is very new, before I only used to get PSA when serving ads on my own machine.
Once the pages have been uploaded and google has crawled them, the ads will be based on keywords in the content rather than the URL, and so will often change.
I suspect that the reason google now allows adsense in search results is that they figured out how to do it effectively and have installed software to handle it, not just because we all wanted them to. Had they allowed it before, the relevancy probably would have been very poor.
I have a question though - is adsense for search worth the bother of adding to my pages? I'm not talking about running my own search engine, but adding the google search boxes using the HTML that google supplies.
I've added it to some pages that together get about ten thousand hits a month, and as a result have earned less than fifty cents in several days. I was excited to see that the search results had a very high CTR on the ads, but it seems very few people bother with the search boxes on my pages. There have been less than a few dozen searches performed in total, and the pay per click is very low.
Now, its not hard to add the search boxes to all my pages, and maybe having them consistently everywhere on my site would get visitors to use them more frequently, but I have so much to do that I am *sure* will pay off that I don't know if rolling out adsense for search is even worth my time. The main reason I still might do it is that having the option to search my domain might draw traffic to my other pages.
My site is very cheap to run, as it is all hand-coded static HTML. I pay twenty bucks for hosting and $50-$100 per month for advertising. But making global changes across my site is very laborious. I know I could use PHP includes but so many of my pages are still such a rats nest that I need to clean up the markup on my whole site before I move to PHP.
Thanks for you advice.
Yes, but why not provide search for users who do want it, as long as it doesn't cost you anything?
Because we're sending traffic to other sites and to google without them paying for it. I'm thinking I might instead install htDig or some other open source search engine to allow people to search my site only, rather than search the web.
Here's how google sticks it to the little guy. You ready?
1. The AdSense Terms of Service forbid altering the search box markup. Doing so can get you kicked out of AdSense.
2. The Google logo in the search box is a non-affiliate link to [google.com...] If anyone clicks the logo, they get to perform their search at google's main site and we don't get paid even if they do click an ad.
3. Even if someone uses the search box, if they are searching the web rather than our own domains, if they click the regular search results rather than the ads we don't get paid, but we *do* lose a visitor. It's only when they click a search result that's one of our own pages that we retain the visitor.
It is helpful to our visitors to provide search for our own domain, but I think Google's solution is too costly. Even if you don't want to set up your own site search, it's not hard to mark up a search box yourself that restricts a google search to your own domain. Google *will* get the ad revenue rather than you, but at least you can provide search to your visitors and limit it to your own pages. It's only fair to google to let them make the ad revenue in that case.
No, I'm going to take AdSense for search off my site. Once I'm able to set up my own search function, I'll have it set up only to show my own site, and put regular AdSense in the search results.
I could use your advice on the best way to do this. My hosting service has MySQL hosting, cgi scripting and a few other web application support services.
Thank you for helping me reach this decision. I was very excited to try out AdSense for Search, but when I saw how poorly it was doing, I thought *I* might be doing something wrong, and thought that maybe it would do better if I rolled it out to my entire site.
Because we're sending traffic to other sites and to google without them paying for it.
Other sites and Google send me free traffic all the time. So why should I be greedy when I can return the favor? :-)
Seriously, AdSense for Search is a great solution for many sites because:
1) It's a no-effort, no-cost way to provide search and make money in the bargain.
2) It offers users an interface that they're familiar with if they use Google (as the majority of searchers do).
If a site gets a lot of search traffic, other solutions may be better, but for sites that get most of their internal traffic from links and menus, AdSense for Search is an excellent choice.
Just wondering, did you quit your job at Micosoft and get a job at Goofle:)?
BTW, in response to the post about linking to "most relevant articles," I link to related articles on my site all the time. But if a user is reading an article on Elbonia and is also planning a visit to Slobovia, search is a nice way to help that reader find my unrelated article on Slobovia (assuming that he or she is among the minority who use internal search). And since my readers use Google more than they do any other search engine, offering them a familiar Google search interface is just common sense (whether or not it yields extra income, which--I'm happy to say--it does).
if someone searches for "big red widgets" in a built-in search script (not adsense-for-search) and you have results (along with some text snippets) about "yellow widgets" and "old widgets"... what will the ads be about?
i assume that you ensure that the <title> is "big red widgets" and you also include an <h1> at the top of the page with "you searched for big red widgets"... but is this enough to ensure that the ads are about big red widgets as opposed to being related to the snippets in the results.
displaying the keyword in the <title> and the <h1> feels natural to me, but any more would be keyword stuffing IMO.
if these two techniques are sufficient to provide ads relevant to the query, then this should theoretically provide a nice income boost.
It does come across on almost every single one of your posts like Google is somehow rewarding you for being here and making positive comments.
I love Google! I'm thrilled with the AdSense opportunity! I just have been personally disappointed with the amount of traffic I have sent through "AdSense for Search" that is leaving my site on only a penny or two income for me.
Changing to a private site search program and running AdSense regular ads on my results page is giving me a much better ROI on those visitors who DO choose to leave through an ad at that point.
I have had Google site search for over a year on this site, with income of less than $10 a month. Now I have purchased a simple program for a one-time cost of about $50 that has the potential to bring in hundreds a month.
In the T&C, Google states that it will have the right to advertise itself FREE on my sites. I interpret this as the ad that says "Ads by Goooogle" or even the ability to fill in our ad blocks with ads FOR Google and they are not required to pay us for. Google gets plenty of free exposure on my site. I don't think the search box also needs to be advertising Google. In other words, I don't feel as if I'm doing them *any* harm by not choosing to run their search program, seeing as the AdSense block is still appearing on search results, albeit with a lower CTR (I have more control now!)
Although I know you don't work for Google, it seems like most of your posts encourage behavior that borders on unrestrained near-worship of the great G.
I do appreciate Google... but I can't go so far as to treat them like more than just another business. A business with which carefully partnering can benefit my bottom line. Business is business!
I believe treating my relationship with Google as "business" is not unethical. There is a balance.
Maybe you aren't meaning to come across this way but it does seem like you actually have a more extensive relationship with Google than the rest of us. Your posts just seem out of balance compared to everything else I read here.
Do you actually get some benefit from Google for being here at WebmasterWorld?
I remember an earlier post you wrote that seemed to say you have special permission from Google to share more than the usual information with us about your site... can you disclose your entire relationship with G so that we can put your posts here in perspective?
1. The AdSense Terms of Service forbid altering the search box markup. Doing so can get you kicked out of AdSense.
You can, you need to ask for permission, they gave me the right to alter the search box code. I made it validate ;>
Personally I'm now using a php script and the google API to do site searches and put adsense on the results page, so i get the best of both worlds, better CTR, results pages to my design and a site search with google.
It earnt me enough to pay my hosting a couple of times over per month on the site it was on - before I put it on I did not get that money - it was essentially money for nothing.
However, I can now make more money using my own search facility.
It earnt me money I otherswise would not have had.
If you aren't using a site-search then use Google's offering - at least until you can/want to use a different search. Money is money.
