RUMOR: Google to allow AdSense publishers to specify own ad formats?

I don't usually like to take part in surveys. My time is pretty valuable and I find them tedious. But when Google asks, I ALWAYS take their surveys. Why? Because I get an insight into what features they're planning to roll out by the questions they ask.

Take the latest AdSense Publisher Feedback Survey for example. Under the question "Which of the following AdSense features would you like to see Google implement in future?", they listed:

1. Selecting ad categories to appear on your site
2. Selecting the types of advertisers that appear on your site
3. Managing other publishers' AdSense accounts for them
4. Specifying your own ad formats and sizes
5. Paying for phone support
6. Applying AdSense earnings towards AdWords marketing
7. Gathering information about your visitors

Wow! Some of those made me sit up and pay attention, especially # 3, # 4 and # 6. I manage AdWords accounts for clients now so it makes sense to offer a similar service for their AdSense accounts. The ability to choose your own ad formats would be awesome, as would the ability to transfer AdSense earnings to an AdWords account.

Now this is all speculation on my part. But if enough publishers request these features, I wouldn't be surprised to see Google roll them out quite quickly. Watch this space!

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Q and A: Why have my Google ads disappeared from my site?

Dear Kalena...

What does it mean when your google ads disappear from your blogs and website?

Marc

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Marc

I'm assuming you are an AdSense advertiser and all your ads have disappeared? Sounds like:

a) Your AdSense account has been cancelled due to non-compliance with AdSense policies (or)

b) Your AdSense code has been corrupted and is no longer displaying ads

Survey says a). Have you emailed Google to ask what the problem is? Have you been warned that your account may be cancelled? Better follow these instructions and get the news from the horse's mouth.


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Q and A: Does Google favor sites running AdSense?

Dear Kalena...

It's nice to see language I can understand! You make instructions very clear thank you. I have a new website with Google ads on it. If I get 10 clicks per day on my ads, does Google favor my site over and above others that may be in the same category that don't run Google ads? I was thinking to some extent they might, so they can make more money. Do you know anything about this? Thanks, and I look forward to your reply.

Dean

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Dean

When AdSense first launched, there were many sceptics in the industry who predicted that Google's algorithm would favor successful AdSense advertisers. Thankfully, they were wrong. I've never seen any indication that Google gives any type of ranking boost or favoritism to sites running AdSense. The only possible technical advantage to having AdSense units on your page would be that Googlebot might visit more often. But even that is not proven.

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Q and A: Why haven't I profited from my site?

Dear Kalena...

This is Parthiban from India. I have a site which is relating to home based business and about personal loans, because I'm working in a private finance company.

My question is why I haven't I profited from my site, even though I have a Google Adsense account? I get very few visitors to my site. Please tell me how to increase my site's traffic and how to add meta tags to my site. What is search engine optimization? How do I add my site to get listed in Google's search engine? Please guide me to get some income from this site.

Thanking you
Parthiban

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Parthiban

I've had a look at your site and I'm not surprised it hasn't made you any money. Let me take your questions one by one:

1) Why I haven't I profited from my site, even though I have a Google Adsense account?

Because you don't take the site seriously. For starters, your site is hosted on a free hosting service and doesn't even have it's own domain. Next problem is that it's covered in ads. I can't see the content at all because it's totally buried in AdSense units and referral links. Visitors aren't going to try to find your content amongst all those ads.

2) Please tell me how to increase my site's traffic and how to add meta tags to my site.

Get your own domain. Search engines won't take the site seriously until you do. Clean up the site and put some real useful content on there. Delete 80 percent of those ad units, they are putting people off. Build links from sites in your industry. Write articles. Start a blog. Download this free SEO lesson. It will teach you how to develop title and meta tags from scratch.

3) What is search engine optimization?

How long is a piece of string? Why is the sky blue? All these questions have endless answers. Best if you take our SEO 101 course to learn the answers for yourself.

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Q and A: What can I do if I think my AdSense account was cancelled unfairly?

Dear Kalena...

I was recently banned from AdSense for 'invalid clicks' however I have never clicked my own ads, I have emailed AdSense however I seem to get the same generic response each time. It was a great way for me to make some extra cash each month and they have just snatched that from me with no explanation. Is there anything I can do? Also do I still get a check for clicks that were not 'invalid'?

Thank you for your help

Ross

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ross

From what I understand, you generally receive a warning email from Google long before your AdSense account is cancelled. Did you receive this? That is your opportunity to contact the AdSense team, claim innocence and ask them to review their data. If you failed to do that, then you could try contacting them now but you should gather information (from your log files etc.) to support your case for unfair account cancellation.

The invalid click data Google collects from AdSense is pretty accurate - my guess is they would probably have witnessed at least 2 clicks on your ads from your own IP address or one in the same direct vicinity. Either that or they have discovered your use of pop-ups or perhaps your site was taking part in a traffic exchange program where people are awarded points or cash for clicking on sites or ads. Review the AdSense Program Policies relating to invalid clicks to see if your site was breaking any of the rules.

If none of the above applies to your site, or you didn't receive the warning email, I suggest contacting Google directly to appeal their decision. Google actually encourages AdSense account holders who believe their accounts have been unfairly cancelled to contact them.

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Another new "Ads by Google" format

Remember earlier this week I spotted a new "Ads by Google" format for AdSense ads? Well today I spotted another one. Check it to the left. This one has the Google's "G" symbol next to the traditional "ads by goooooooooogle" text by-line.

Anyone else seeing it? Or seeing other versions?

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Google testing new "Ads By Google" format

While updating some web pages tonight, I noticed that Google seem to be testing some new AdSense formats for their "Ads by Google" by-line so I took a screenshot (see the example on the right). Lucky I did because I haven't see the new format again since I grabbed it.

It appears they are testing an image integrating the Google logo to replace the plain text previously used. I knew they were rolling out new Google Checkout badges for AdSense, but I've never seen the new "Ads by Google" format before. Have I just missed them until now?

Anyone else seeing it? Is this a new thing?

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Q and A: How can I increase my site traffic and my AdSense commission?

Dear Kalena...

My site is www.shopitonline.co.uk, and it's been up since November 2005. The traffic I am getting now is near enough to 3000 visitors per month.

I would really like to increase this traffice substantially, and also increase the Google Adsense commission. The Google Adsense has been on for just about a month, and the commission is next to nothing. How can I improve these 2 areas?

Thanks
Saleem

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Saleem

I no longer see Google AdSense ads on your site - perhaps you've removed these since you submitted your question? There are a lot of ways to increase your AdSense commissions. Most of them are listed in my article: Top 10 AdSense Tricks to Boost Your Commission. But be warned, Google has changed the rules for AdSense publishers since this article was written so you should check with their revised AdSense Policies before using any of the suggested tips.

Now, about bringing more traffic to your site, I would start with correctly optimizing it for target keywords. Here are just a few of the many problems with your site:

1) Your Title Attributes are too long, incorrectly formatted and stuffed with too many keywords. Your Title Tag should be a grammatically correct sentence of no more than 15 words, containing 2 or 3 target search keywords/phrases.

2) Your META Keywords Tag is too long and stuffed with too many keywords and contains keyword repetition which may trigger search engine spam filters.

3) Your META Description Tag isn't enticing enough and contains highly generic keywords which won't attract buyers for your individual products. Your Description Tag is often used by search engines and directories to list your site so you want to ensure it is written in a way that attracts clicks.

4) You use the same Title and META Tags on EVERY page of your site! You should create tailored Title and META tags for each and every page of your site, based on keyword relevant to the page content. That way you are creating multiple entrances into your site instead of relying on the front door.

5) Your site contains query strings and presents dynamic content for each page (e.g. http://www.shopitonline.co.uk/default.asp?cat=43), meaning some search engines will have difficulty finding all your content and treat your site as having a single page. If you don't want to redesign the site, you should consider using flat HTML pages for your most important category content or integrating a parameter workaround to switch the dynamic URLs into static ones.

6) I know your site is a directory, but you are trying to target too many generic products and categories with a single set of Title and META Tags. This is a complete waste of time. You should be dividing your content into various themes and optimizing each area for keywords relating to that theme.

In relation to gaining more traffic - I notice your link popularity scores are pretty low. You probably need to conduct a long term link building campaign and attract one-way incoming links from high quality sites and other directories. Try contacting sites that contain large lists of directories and search engines and asking them to link to you. You could also try a Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign on Google AdWords and/or Yahoo! Search Marketing to promote your free directory submission.

Good Luck!

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Q and A: How do I change the font in AdSense ads?

Dear Kalena...

I'm delighted to have an agony aunt for my seo woes! I've been enjoying your Google AdSense Tips and I've followed them to the rule, except . . . I need some instructions in order to make the FONT in the ads match my site design. Is CSS the way to do this? Many thanks!
The Webwoozle

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Webwoozle

Thanks for your positive feedback. I'm glad you're making use of your SEO agony aunt!

Unfortunately, there is no current way to change the font of AdSense ads. It seems to be set at Arial for link units and courier new for text units. I'm not aware of a way to make this text follow a CSS and Google specifically instructs advertisers not to alter the code in any way. Perhaps you can change the font of your site to match the ads?

You should also experiment with different ad palettes. A change in ad color can make a huge difference to how it blends in with your site, regardless of whether the fonts match.

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Q and A: How can I increase my AdSense commissions from Google?

Dear Kalena...

I have read your interesting article about Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission in Site Pro News. And would like to ask you, what you think we need to ask the visitors of our sites to do; that there will be a high Pay Per Click-commission by Google?

Nestler

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Nestler

I'm not sure I understand the question, so let me re-phrase it. Do you mean "What can I do to increase the AdSense commission I am currently receiving from Google?"

If so, then I recommend the following:

1) Increase the number of pages on your site and add AdSense code to them.

2) Opt-in for Google's Referral Program where you can earn USD 100 per converting referral.

3) Optimize your pages for keywords and phrases that are hot topics or write articles about those subjects and add AdSense code to the article pages.

4) Add new content to your site each and every day and make sure you submit the new pages to Google Sitemaps using an XML Sitemap.

If I've misunderstood your question, please add a comment to this post.

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Q and A: You misunderstood the question

Dear Kalena...

I think you misunderstood the question. I was wondering how does Plentyoffish show adsense about mortgages if the only content is about dating.

I don't own plentyoffish.

Peepersmall

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Peepersmall

Ah I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I don't see mortgage related ads on that site now, but it is likely that some of the text on the page related to mortgages or housing or someone discussing house prices or something in their article/blurb. That would be the only way I'm aware of to trigger related ads.

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Q and A: How do I display AdSense ads relating to a particular theme?

Dear Kalena...

How does plentyoffish.com display AdSense ads about credit repair and mortgages?

Peepersmall

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Peepersmall

AdSense is contextual advertising, meaning ads display that relate to the context of the content on the page you are displaying them on. While you don't have a lot of control over what ads appear, you can improve your chances of triggering ads about credit repair and mortgages by using articles or body text relating to these issues on your pages.

Learn more from Google's own AdSense optimization tips. Also get some more ideas from my article Top 10 AdSense Tricks to Boost Your Commission.

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Q and A: Why was my AdSense account cancelled for no reason?

Dear Kalena...

You wrote in an article:

"7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions on this search engine article library page - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm - at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads."

and Google banned one of my sites, their excuse:

"Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads or bring excessive attention to ad units. For example, publishers may not use arrows or other symbols to direct attention to the ads on their sites, and publishers should not place ads in such a way that users are likely to inadvertently click on those ads."

The funny thing is that was a text only site and all the adverts had the title "sponsored links"! So be careful cause they consider it wrong, just if you want to investigate the banned site is www.anabella.com.ar that was a exact copy of my other site www.awebcamgirl.com only that the advert was inside the white square in the middle (the iframe). Do you see anything wrong? I don't but they just banned it!

Sorry to bother you, I just wanted you to tell this to prevent more people to be banned for nothing.

Ana

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ana

Thanks for your email. You are quite correct in that the use of arrows or symbols to draw attention to AdSense ads goes against Google's TOS. When I first wrote that article, I was not aware of this and it was not specifically mentioned in their AdSense program policies.

But, like you, I received an email from Google advising me of the problem and asking me to remove them. I did so immediately and re-wrote my article to avoid confusion. See my recent blog post about the whole saga. Unfortunately, my article had already been picked up and syndicated by several sources and although I tried to alert as many publishers as I could about the revised article version, the old version is still floating around in places.

When you say Google has "banned" your site, do you mean cancelled your AdSense account? From my understanding, Google should have given you 72 hours notice to comply with their AdSense policies before they cancelled your AdSense account. If you promptly removed any arrows or symbols within this timeframe, your account should have remained open. However, you mention the use of iframes with AdSense code - I believe that is against the AdSense program policies so that and the fact that you had two identical sites on two different domains showing AdSense ads has probably contributed to one of them being disallowed.

If instead you mean your site has dropped from Google - if you had two sites with identical content, it is more likely that they are simply ignoring one of the sites, rather than having banned it entirely. The fact that both domains are showing a Toolbar PageRank of 4 out of 10 supports this theory.

Hope this helps!

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Optimizing with AdSense Channels

The Google AdSense team sent out an email to account holders today, advising them of some new features of AdSense. Catch up here.

For those of you who haven't yet tried URL channels or custom channels for your AdSense account, or thought they were too tricky to set up, there are no more excuses. Google has created a new help area dedicated to channel optimizing. Even more educational is the extended number of successful AdSense case studies Google has published.

So what are you waiting for? Go tweak that AdSense code.

Google Clarifies AdSense Program Policies

A little humble pie never hurt anyone. And today I'm eating it.

In my recent article Top 10 AdSense Tricks to Boost Your Commission, I suggested using arrows or images next to the AdSense code on your pages to draw attention to the ads.

Overnight, the Google AdSense team sent me an email advising me that the use of arrows or symbols to draw attention to ads is NOT in compliance with their Program Policies. So please make sure you avoid the use of arrows or symbols in this way.

Sadly, this is still not explicitly explained in their Program Policies, but it was specifically mentioned in their email to me. So the arrows are gone from my sites and I've altered my article to avoid confusion. The jury is still out on the use of other images (e.g. photos or clip art) next to ads and I've asked Google to clarify that point.

But given that their own AdSense optimization demo promotes the site AskTheBuilder.com as a succesful AdSense case study and THAT site uses images to draw attention to AdSense ads, I'll let you draw your own conclusion on that one.

Q and A: How do I match the font and color of AdSense ads to my page?

Dear Kalena...

In your article Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission, you mentioned matching the font and color of the AdSense ads to that of the page. Is that suggesting that the AdSense code can be edited, or is it a case of making the site conform to the ad?

Thanks,
Neil


Kalena's Answer:

Dear Neil

You don't actually edit the AdSense code, you format the ad palette and style within your AdSense account area and then it generates the code ready for your pages.

By entering the exact Hexadecimal (HEX) color values of your site into Google's color palette during the AdSense code creation process, you can format the ads so they blend into and match the existing design of your site.

If you don't know the HEX color values of your site, you can use the eye-dropper tool that exists in most graphic software programs to find out. Simply open your graphic package, select the "paint" or "paintbrush" tool, click on the eye-dropper and hold it over the chosen color on your website. The tool should tell you what the RGB or HEX value of the color is.

If you need to know what your RGB color is in HEX, use the handy RGB to HEX conversion tool towards the bottom of this page.

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Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission

Don't miss my latest article Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission where I reveal all the latest Google AdSense tricks only known to the gurus. Why buy their so-called expert ebooks when my article teaches you all their tricks for free?

Go read it and double your AdSense commissions like I did.

Q and A: What is the best ad format to use for Google AdSense?

Dear Kalena...

I have been using Google AdSense ads on my site for a few months and I'm constantly testing the different formats to try to increase clicks. What do you think of the new link formats and do you know which ad formats are the most effective for earning income for webmasters?

thanks for any advice you can give,

AdSenser

Kalena's Answer:

Dear AdSenser

Because Google AdSense ads are contextual in nature, that is, their content is somewhat determined by the content on your page, it's difficult to measure effectiveness because you are relying on the advertiser's own ad copy to entice your site visitors to click. So no matter what format you use, if the ads displayed are poorly crafted, they will probably be ignored.

But in terms of ad formats, I've personally found the skyscrapers and the 4 link units to be the best performers. You can see both these ad formats on my blog pages. The 4 and 5 link units in particular are effective because they look so unlike traditional banner-style ads. They look just like other links on your site, particularly if you can match their colors and style with your own site design.

Here are some key ad formatting tips I've devised to help you increase your click throughs and commission:

1) Never use the traditional banner format because people recognize it as advertising immediately and tend to look "around" it.

2) Place your ads in the known hot spots on your page where visitors are known to look first. Use this Eye Tracking Study or Google's own heat map as references.

3) Never use visible borders around your ads.

4) Always match the ad background and border to the *exact* color of your page background. The handy RGB to HEX conversion tool on this page should assist you.

5) Always match the ad heading, text and link text to the same style as used throughout your page copy. Again the RGB to HEX conversion tool comes in handy here.

6) Set up different channels for each ad placement area in your site so you can closely monitor click throughs and response to changes.

7) Tweak, test and tweak again! There is always another tweak you can make that will boost conversion rates slightly. Your job is to find it.

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