About Adsense for beginners
There are more and more Adsense beginners every day, and many of them have the same questions. Hopefully, you'll find answers in this overview of the Adsense program. Joining Google and Getting Paid
When you sign up with Google Adsense, make sure you give them all of the personal information they request. This includes Name, Payment Name, Address, Bank Account and Social Security number (if applicable.)
The first milestone with Google that you'll hit is the $10 amount. At $10, Google should send you a post card with your pin number. I can't tell you how many people never see that first card. Google has a predetermined amount of days before they'll allow you to request the card be sent out again. I can tell you that our second card wound up in our recycling pile, even though we were both looking for it.
It's a small, easy to miss card. And it will most like be stuck in with your weekly circulars, where it's easily lost. Once you find/get the card, key in the pin number. You'll never have to worry about it again.
If you missed keying any information, it should show up under the screen in Adsense, under the "My Account" tab. When you key in your pin, that's a great time to double check that your information is complete.
Your next milestone for Adsense will be achieving $100 in clicks and all Publishers will tell you that the first $100 on Google is the hardest.
$100 is the first level at which Google will release funds to you. Some publishers have reached their first hundred to find that Google has discovered click fraud and closed their accounts.
Others realize they need to supply Google with payment information, which in the US includes a Social Security number.
If you double-check your information at the $10 mark, hopefully you will avoid any hiccups in getting paid.
Google Requirements
There are a few things that Google requires from their Publishers. You, as an Adsense Publisher are responsible for checking out Google's Terms of Service (TOS.) Following are a few things I try to make sure I do on my own sites
The first thing is to never click on your own ads. It's called click fraud. While Google says you don't have to report yourself when you click on your own ads, I do. I believe it shows them good faith.
Google has complex algorithms they use to analyze clicks. Since you probably use Google's GMail, Toolbar, Analytics, etc., you can spend half your online time logged into Google systems. If my statistical program can give me a user's IP address along with their latitude and longitude, I'd imagine Google pretty much knows your underwear color and size.
Number two on my list is the Privacy Policy, linked from your homepage. You can use a cookie cutter Privacy Policy for all your sites. Just change the site name in the policy from site to site. This link is to a generic privacy policy on one of my sites, just change the name of the site, to the name of your site. And note, under "Email," this has a provision for e-business, you may want to change or delete.
Third, do not try to modify ads beyond what's allowed in Google's ad setup. When you set up your ads, Google allows you to customize the colors and you can change your initital decisions in Adsense. Don't try using a third party program to change a background color to a graphic, to add interest or make your ads stand out more.
Fourth on the list are pop-ups. Do not have Google ads in pop-ups.
Fifth is to avoid the words "click here" anywhere near your ads.
The next two issues are misunderstood by a lot of Publishers.
Do not have your ads directly under an article title that's asking someone to click on the ads. "Click Here to Find Hemorrhoid Relief" is a bad title, while "Hemorrhoid Relief Products" is fine. Many Publishers think that you cannot have ads under titles at all, and that's not true.
Another false perception is that you can't have ads near pictures at all. You can't have ads next to pictures without delineating the ad from the picture. I have galleries on some of my sites; and make sure the ads have a border around them. Make sure you have space between the ad border and the pictures. Never put ads next to, above or below pictures without including borders and try to make sure they don't seem to be attached.
Flashing arrows pointing to your ads, even if a border separates them is a no-no. It's the equivalent of "click here."
If you ever have a situation where you are not sure if what you are doing violates Google's TOS, email them with specifics and ask. It sometimes takes several weeks to get a reply, but it's better to show that you're concerned enough to ask. Save the email response in case someone from Google comes back to question your practices.
Placement
While Google has a heat map demonstrating where people are more likely to click on ads, with the left column and the top of articles being the "hottest" spots, the heat map placement did not work on my sites.
So, what do you do to get your click through rate to the 5% to 10% rate?
Experiment with placement. Change your ad placement every week, with the exception of the last week of the month. Adwords advertisers tend to run out of money the last few days of the month and your Adsense revenue will not necessary reflect your average earnings.
Make sure you write down what you've done, especially if you make radical changes. And when you find ad placements that work for you, stay with them.
Ad Size
Many Publishers prefer the 336X280 ad size in their articles, with a full Leaderboard on top in their header. Following are the ad sizes for Google ads.
Ad Units
728 x 90 Leaderboard
468 x 60 Banner
234 x 60 Half Banner
125 x 125 Button
120 x 600 Skyscraper
160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper
120 x 240 Vertical Banner
300 x 250 Medium rectangle
250 x 250 Square
336 x 280 Large Rectangle
180 x 150 Small Rectangle
Ad Link Units
728 x 15
468 x 15
200 x 90
180 x 90
160 x 90
120 x 90
You are allowed to have 3 Ad units, 3 Link units and 3 Search units on a page. Don't add more than the allowed amount of advertising units.
Ad Types
Ad units are the ads, which have a title, a description and a URL at the end. The title and the URL are clickable.
When it comes to Ad Units, what you need to keep in mind is that the highest paying unit is the first ad unit that appears in your html. I say that because depending on how your site is set up this may or may not be the first ad on your page. If your first ad unit is a leaderboard or skyscraper, the highest paying clicks will be in this unit. However, if your most clicked ad is the rectangle in your article, you may want to think about changing your leaderboards to link units or to reduce the size to smaller rectangles, which have less ads.
Link units are the one-liners.
Link units, which pay less, do very well on some sites. I get a large amount of click-through on them on one site. (Link units bring up secondary choices, which must be clicked before you get paid. Since they require a second click, they are not a popular choice with webmasters who know that getting a first click is difficult enough.) While most of my ad links pay a penny to $0.10, a few pay $0.59, which is very high for my niche.
Ad Appearance
Try to blend your ads into your site. You can customize the ad background, border, and type colors, including separate colors for the title, description and URL. If you don't know your background color, you can look up the hex code of colors on the net and make an educated guess.
Blend your ad, but make sure your title and URL are another color. Preferably the color you use for your links. You want your visitors to easily spot what's available to click.
Clicks, But No Money
After you've set up Adsense on your site(s), you eagerly start looking at your numbers and sooner or later, you'll run across a click with no money.
If it's a link unit, it may be because nobody clicked on the second set of ads that opened up.
Or, it may be that Google determined that the click on an ad unit was a fraudulent click. Or someone clicked on an ad and then immediately clicked on another ad. You'll only get monetary credit for one click, but both clicks will be in your click statistics.
Clicks Changing Value
One day an ad click is worth $0.25. The next day the click is worth $0.01. No, Google is not trying to cheat you.
Remember that the first ad, in the first ad unit is worth the most. If you're running three ad units on a page, with a total of nine ads, there can be a huge difference between the value of the first ad and the last ad.
Adwords Advertisers pay a premium to show up the first ad position. The next advertiser can pay a lot less for the second ad position and the third advertiser can pay pennies in comparison to the first two. If there are not a lot of advertisers for your keyword, and if there are many websites optimized for the keyword, the value of your clicks will be low to begin with and the further down in the ad block the clicked ad is, the less you'll be paid.
In addition to this, if you get a lot of page hits and not a lot of ad clicks, Google can and will "smart price" your sites. If they decide even one of your sites is not providing value for the program, they will "smart price" your entire network of sites. Smart pricing equals lower amounts paid per click.
I'm not sure if Google admits to smart pricing, but Publishers know it exists and feel the effects, especially when they launch new sites.
Also, clicks from visitors outside the US, Canada and UK are paid at a lesser amount.
Google's catch phrase is "value" for the Adwords advertiser. And you, as a Publisher, get paid accordingly.
Hey! What Happened to Google?
Once a month, on a Saturday, Google runs maintenance. While they are still collecting your click information, you won't be able to get it. If you have a GMail account, you'll receive notification in advance of the date they're running maintenance. After the system is back online, it will take a while before your page views and clicks are accurate.
Once in a blue moon, Google will go down. It doesn't happen often and they assure the Advertisers and the Publishers that their accounts are being accurately kept and that all clicks will be counted correctly.
As every once and a while I find clicks and money not attributable to my sites, I have no reserve that Google is correcting information where my clicks were shorted because they were researching them. It's reassuring.
Getting Banned by Google
Google bans either a Publisher or a site. If a site is banned, you can easily take it out of your portfolio of sites and keep going.
If you, as a Publisher, are banned, you should be warned that it's very difficult to get reinstated. Google will not necessarily tell you why you were banned; you have to figure it why yourself. 99% of the time, it is the Publisher's fault that they were banned and you will find very little sympathy from other Adsense Publishers.
Since Google is notorious for banning Publishers as they hit their first $100 plus payout, it seems to indicate they complete a click and site review as you hit this benchmark. Once you get banned, whatever money you had will not be paid and any checks Google has sent you will not clear your bank. Even if you get reinstated, you'll lose all the money in your account.
Let's go over some reasons Publishers get banned.
Terms of Service (TOS) Violations
Google might actually send you a warning instead of banning you outright for a TOS violation. Take the warning seriously, correct what's wrong, and contact Google that you have taken action. It is your responsibility as an Adsense Publisher to read and understand Google's TOS, which are updated constantly.
Click Bombing
You normally get 30 clicks a day. One day you get 150. Notify Google that you think you've been click bombed. Save the email. Try to download your statistical information from your site for that day. If you don't know how to access this information, contact your hosting company and ask them to show you how, or do it for you. Being able to show Google that you contacted them about the problem and that you did not click on your own ads may save you from a permanent ban. Be prepared to lose your earnings for that day.
Also, if you've done something that will significantly increase your visitors, let Google know. Did one of your articles make the front page of Digg.com? Is your site being featured in the news? Report this to Google so they know to expect a notable increase in your clicks.
Arbitrage
Google has been cracking down on this practice. Arbitrage is buying an advertising campaign with low cost keywords to drive traffic to site and get higher paying clicks from this traffic. If you're selling a product or an ebook and you're buying traffic to sell that product, that's fine. If your buying traffic to increase Adsense clicks, that's not.
MFAs
MFA stands for "made for Adsense" site. These are the sites you see with very little content and a lot of ads. Sometimes, the ads resemble site menus. Google frowns on MFA sites and will ban the site sooner or later.
Remember that you are competing with other sites for search engine position and your competition will have no problem reporting you to Google for violating the TOS.
As some Adsense Publishers are also Adwords Advertisers, it's in their best interest to report what they see as violations. If they're reporting a competitor as well, it's a double benefit for them.
Contacting Google
It's fairly easy to contact Google, but Google reacts at the speed, of well, Google. It can take two weeks to get a question acknowledged. It can take six weeks to get a question on reinstatement acknowledged.
The reason I say, "acknowledged" is because you might get a form response that basically says that you need to read the terms of service, or that your site is not in the best interest of Google's Advertisers.
That's when it's time to ask a webmaster forum, (no, I won't recommend any in this article, but there are plenty of free forums available, including Google's,) for a site review.
The reviews might be scathing, as Publishers can be notoriously blunt and cutting in their views, but many responses will have valuable and constructive criticism.
Hopefully, this overview of Adsense will help you understand some of the concepts and terms you hear the "old-timers" tossing around and give you some grounding on the way the program operates.
It's a small, easy to miss card. And it will most like be stuck in with your weekly circulars, where it's easily lost. Once you find/get the card, key in the pin number. You'll never have to worry about it again.
If you missed keying any information, it should show up under the screen in Adsense, under the "My Account" tab. When you key in your pin, that's a great time to double check that your information is complete.
Your next milestone for Adsense will be achieving $100 in clicks and all Publishers will tell you that the first $100 on Google is the hardest.
$100 is the first level at which Google will release funds to you. Some publishers have reached their first hundred to find that Google has discovered click fraud and closed their accounts.
Others realize they need to supply Google with payment information, which in the US includes a Social Security number.
If you double-check your information at the $10 mark, hopefully you will avoid any hiccups in getting paid.
Google Requirements
There are a few things that Google requires from their Publishers. You, as an Adsense Publisher are responsible for checking out Google's Terms of Service (TOS.) Following are a few things I try to make sure I do on my own sites
The first thing is to never click on your own ads. It's called click fraud. While Google says you don't have to report yourself when you click on your own ads, I do. I believe it shows them good faith.
Google has complex algorithms they use to analyze clicks. Since you probably use Google's GMail, Toolbar, Analytics, etc., you can spend half your online time logged into Google systems. If my statistical program can give me a user's IP address along with their latitude and longitude, I'd imagine Google pretty much knows your underwear color and size.
Number two on my list is the Privacy Policy, linked from your homepage. You can use a cookie cutter Privacy Policy for all your sites. Just change the site name in the policy from site to site. This link is to a generic privacy policy on one of my sites, just change the name of the site, to the name of your site. And note, under "Email," this has a provision for e-business, you may want to change or delete.
Third, do not try to modify ads beyond what's allowed in Google's ad setup. When you set up your ads, Google allows you to customize the colors and you can change your initital decisions in Adsense. Don't try using a third party program to change a background color to a graphic, to add interest or make your ads stand out more.
Fourth on the list are pop-ups. Do not have Google ads in pop-ups.
Fifth is to avoid the words "click here" anywhere near your ads.
The next two issues are misunderstood by a lot of Publishers.
Do not have your ads directly under an article title that's asking someone to click on the ads. "Click Here to Find Hemorrhoid Relief" is a bad title, while "Hemorrhoid Relief Products" is fine. Many Publishers think that you cannot have ads under titles at all, and that's not true.
Another false perception is that you can't have ads near pictures at all. You can't have ads next to pictures without delineating the ad from the picture. I have galleries on some of my sites; and make sure the ads have a border around them. Make sure you have space between the ad border and the pictures. Never put ads next to, above or below pictures without including borders and try to make sure they don't seem to be attached.
Flashing arrows pointing to your ads, even if a border separates them is a no-no. It's the equivalent of "click here."
If you ever have a situation where you are not sure if what you are doing violates Google's TOS, email them with specifics and ask. It sometimes takes several weeks to get a reply, but it's better to show that you're concerned enough to ask. Save the email response in case someone from Google comes back to question your practices.
Placement
While Google has a heat map demonstrating where people are more likely to click on ads, with the left column and the top of articles being the "hottest" spots, the heat map placement did not work on my sites.
So, what do you do to get your click through rate to the 5% to 10% rate?
Experiment with placement. Change your ad placement every week, with the exception of the last week of the month. Adwords advertisers tend to run out of money the last few days of the month and your Adsense revenue will not necessary reflect your average earnings.
Make sure you write down what you've done, especially if you make radical changes. And when you find ad placements that work for you, stay with them.
Ad Size
Many Publishers prefer the 336X280 ad size in their articles, with a full Leaderboard on top in their header. Following are the ad sizes for Google ads.
Ad Units
728 x 90 Leaderboard
468 x 60 Banner
234 x 60 Half Banner
125 x 125 Button
120 x 600 Skyscraper
160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper
120 x 240 Vertical Banner
300 x 250 Medium rectangle
250 x 250 Square
336 x 280 Large Rectangle
180 x 150 Small Rectangle
Ad Link Units
728 x 15
468 x 15
200 x 90
180 x 90
160 x 90
120 x 90
You are allowed to have 3 Ad units, 3 Link units and 3 Search units on a page. Don't add more than the allowed amount of advertising units.
Ad Types
Ad units are the ads, which have a title, a description and a URL at the end. The title and the URL are clickable.
When it comes to Ad Units, what you need to keep in mind is that the highest paying unit is the first ad unit that appears in your html. I say that because depending on how your site is set up this may or may not be the first ad on your page. If your first ad unit is a leaderboard or skyscraper, the highest paying clicks will be in this unit. However, if your most clicked ad is the rectangle in your article, you may want to think about changing your leaderboards to link units or to reduce the size to smaller rectangles, which have less ads.
Link units are the one-liners.
Link units, which pay less, do very well on some sites. I get a large amount of click-through on them on one site. (Link units bring up secondary choices, which must be clicked before you get paid. Since they require a second click, they are not a popular choice with webmasters who know that getting a first click is difficult enough.) While most of my ad links pay a penny to $0.10, a few pay $0.59, which is very high for my niche.
Ad Appearance
Try to blend your ads into your site. You can customize the ad background, border, and type colors, including separate colors for the title, description and URL. If you don't know your background color, you can look up the hex code of colors on the net and make an educated guess.
Blend your ad, but make sure your title and URL are another color. Preferably the color you use for your links. You want your visitors to easily spot what's available to click.
Clicks, But No Money
After you've set up Adsense on your site(s), you eagerly start looking at your numbers and sooner or later, you'll run across a click with no money.
If it's a link unit, it may be because nobody clicked on the second set of ads that opened up.
Or, it may be that Google determined that the click on an ad unit was a fraudulent click. Or someone clicked on an ad and then immediately clicked on another ad. You'll only get monetary credit for one click, but both clicks will be in your click statistics.
Clicks Changing Value
One day an ad click is worth $0.25. The next day the click is worth $0.01. No, Google is not trying to cheat you.
Remember that the first ad, in the first ad unit is worth the most. If you're running three ad units on a page, with a total of nine ads, there can be a huge difference between the value of the first ad and the last ad.
Adwords Advertisers pay a premium to show up the first ad position. The next advertiser can pay a lot less for the second ad position and the third advertiser can pay pennies in comparison to the first two. If there are not a lot of advertisers for your keyword, and if there are many websites optimized for the keyword, the value of your clicks will be low to begin with and the further down in the ad block the clicked ad is, the less you'll be paid.
In addition to this, if you get a lot of page hits and not a lot of ad clicks, Google can and will "smart price" your sites. If they decide even one of your sites is not providing value for the program, they will "smart price" your entire network of sites. Smart pricing equals lower amounts paid per click.
I'm not sure if Google admits to smart pricing, but Publishers know it exists and feel the effects, especially when they launch new sites.
Also, clicks from visitors outside the US, Canada and UK are paid at a lesser amount.
Google's catch phrase is "value" for the Adwords advertiser. And you, as a Publisher, get paid accordingly.
Hey! What Happened to Google?
Once a month, on a Saturday, Google runs maintenance. While they are still collecting your click information, you won't be able to get it. If you have a GMail account, you'll receive notification in advance of the date they're running maintenance. After the system is back online, it will take a while before your page views and clicks are accurate.
Once in a blue moon, Google will go down. It doesn't happen often and they assure the Advertisers and the Publishers that their accounts are being accurately kept and that all clicks will be counted correctly.
As every once and a while I find clicks and money not attributable to my sites, I have no reserve that Google is correcting information where my clicks were shorted because they were researching them. It's reassuring.
Getting Banned by Google
Google bans either a Publisher or a site. If a site is banned, you can easily take it out of your portfolio of sites and keep going.
If you, as a Publisher, are banned, you should be warned that it's very difficult to get reinstated. Google will not necessarily tell you why you were banned; you have to figure it why yourself. 99% of the time, it is the Publisher's fault that they were banned and you will find very little sympathy from other Adsense Publishers.
Since Google is notorious for banning Publishers as they hit their first $100 plus payout, it seems to indicate they complete a click and site review as you hit this benchmark. Once you get banned, whatever money you had will not be paid and any checks Google has sent you will not clear your bank. Even if you get reinstated, you'll lose all the money in your account.
Let's go over some reasons Publishers get banned.
Terms of Service (TOS) Violations
Google might actually send you a warning instead of banning you outright for a TOS violation. Take the warning seriously, correct what's wrong, and contact Google that you have taken action. It is your responsibility as an Adsense Publisher to read and understand Google's TOS, which are updated constantly.
Click Bombing
You normally get 30 clicks a day. One day you get 150. Notify Google that you think you've been click bombed. Save the email. Try to download your statistical information from your site for that day. If you don't know how to access this information, contact your hosting company and ask them to show you how, or do it for you. Being able to show Google that you contacted them about the problem and that you did not click on your own ads may save you from a permanent ban. Be prepared to lose your earnings for that day.
Also, if you've done something that will significantly increase your visitors, let Google know. Did one of your articles make the front page of Digg.com? Is your site being featured in the news? Report this to Google so they know to expect a notable increase in your clicks.
Arbitrage
Google has been cracking down on this practice. Arbitrage is buying an advertising campaign with low cost keywords to drive traffic to site and get higher paying clicks from this traffic. If you're selling a product or an ebook and you're buying traffic to sell that product, that's fine. If your buying traffic to increase Adsense clicks, that's not.
MFAs
MFA stands for "made for Adsense" site. These are the sites you see with very little content and a lot of ads. Sometimes, the ads resemble site menus. Google frowns on MFA sites and will ban the site sooner or later.
Remember that you are competing with other sites for search engine position and your competition will have no problem reporting you to Google for violating the TOS.
As some Adsense Publishers are also Adwords Advertisers, it's in their best interest to report what they see as violations. If they're reporting a competitor as well, it's a double benefit for them.
Contacting Google
It's fairly easy to contact Google, but Google reacts at the speed, of well, Google. It can take two weeks to get a question acknowledged. It can take six weeks to get a question on reinstatement acknowledged.
The reason I say, "acknowledged" is because you might get a form response that basically says that you need to read the terms of service, or that your site is not in the best interest of Google's Advertisers.
That's when it's time to ask a webmaster forum, (no, I won't recommend any in this article, but there are plenty of free forums available, including Google's,) for a site review.
The reviews might be scathing, as Publishers can be notoriously blunt and cutting in their views, but many responses will have valuable and constructive criticism.
Hopefully, this overview of Adsense will help you understand some of the concepts and terms you hear the "old-timers" tossing around and give you some grounding on the way the program operates.
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