Working with Adsense is not as easy as it looks. Don't you wish you could just put up a couple of ads and people will click wildly on them? Instead, you have to design your ads to compliment your site. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
When you begin designing your ads for placement on your site, you will begin to ask yourself questions like.
1. Does this color look okay?
2. Is this ad to large?
3. Does this web page look to tacky?
4. Are the ads intrusive?
5. Does the ad look better on the left or on the right?
When you hear yourself asking these questions, you'll begin to wonder if this is like re-arranging furniture -- and it is. You must make it look appealing, unintrusive and clickable -- if relevant to the individual's needs.
Well, with that being said, I'd like to include an article that gives you some suggestions as to the ways you can improve your click response on Adsense -- and it throws in a little of Adwords.
Work Your Google AdSense to the Bone
By John Pignanelli
You got your website, you got your AdSense account, you have updated and published your new pages with AdSense code all over it and you are starting to see a little bit of money trickling through - and it is not what you were expecting!
Like you, I thought I would be rolling in the AdSense money so fast that I already had my resignation letter printed and signed. That did not happen (yet). Well, that does not mean I have to throw that letter away, I will just have to backdate itfor when I can do it.
When you are faced with this predicament, which I think everyone will come to at some point; you will need to separate yourself from the AdSense pack! You will have to transform yourself into an AdSense scientist and experiment with your website to get the best results possible! You might try some of the following:
Let's say that you are getting decent traffic to your website,so therefore you are getting a lot of AdSense impressions, but with little or no clicks. The symptoms could be related to a lack of relevancy with the AdSense ads. Go to your website and view, but DO NOT click on, your AdSense ads. Now, imagine you are one of your visitors to your website; do the ads seem relevant to your site? If you think there is a relevancy problem, you can do two things to combat it:
Look for a common thread among the AdSense ads and see if there is a term in your keywords or content that relates to it. If so,you might want to change the words to eliminate the connection.
Look at the web addresses at the bottom of the AdSense ads, you might consider blocking those web sites from your AdSense account, by doing this you will eliminate that ad from showing up again, but realize that you may get a similar ad to take its place.
Create more pages and add more content that is relevant. Make your website stickier. Make the visitor want to stay on your site longer. Try not to think of AdSense first when putting your content together, think of your visitors and giving them something worthwhile, the AdSense stuff should just be a bonus, that is why it is considered passive income, it means you are not supposed to think about it!
Make sure you have positioned the ads well, do not hide them, do not be ashamed of them, you got them there for a reason! Ensure that your site is well optimized - that everything it pointing to one thing - your targeted subject matter.
The problem could be that your keywords are just not that"lucrative", get yourself a listing of top paying keywords to ensure that you are using appropriate keywords that will bring in more money per click.
If you are consistently making a couple of bucks, a day or a week then replicate it. Create other web sites on different topics, different keywords. Make a couple of bucks a day or week with that one, and then continue to make another and another.Compound your efforts until you are making the kind of money you want to make.
Look for ways to increase traffic to your site, but keep it targeted and keep it relevant for your visitors and for your AdSense ads.
Make sure that the pages within your website are well linked; there is nothing more frustrating then not knowing where to go or where you came from.
Open a Google AdWords account and run ads to direct traffic to your site. Make sure that the margin between what you are spending on AdWords and what you are making on AdSense is significant enough to make this worthwhile. The great thing about traffic from your AdWords is that the visitor has shown a tendency to click on these ads already; they have pre-qualified themselves to do it on your site. You will hope that they will repeat their efforts on your site.
That is it, do whatever strategy you can to work your AdSense to the bone! Make sure you do things legitimately, don't scam your visitors or manipulate them to make a few dollars with AdSense or any related program, the internet society has grown far too sophisticated to fall for anything like that, your site will be ignored and forgotten. Therefore, be a professional, treat your website like a business, and give your customers something relevant - then as an added bonus your AdSense ads will work with you.
About the author:John Pignanelli makes it easy to learn what it takes to make money with AdSense. Learn more tips and secrets about GoogleAdSense and Adwords at http://www.tuttos.com
For your convenience I have two basic tutorial on Adsense and Adwords Basics on my website for you to review at your leisure.
Read more...
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Monday, November 14, 2005
Affiliate Marketing And The Learning Curve
I encountered the concept of Affiliate Marketing after trying to work online. But I encountered too many of the wrong kinds of work at home opportunities -- that took my money and ran. I happened upon a forum that was talking about affiliate marketing, and I liked the concept. But, when I first started, I did not truly know what I was up against. But I learned fast -- Affiliate Marketing gives you a full spectrum of emotions. Exhileration, frustration, confusion, satisfaction, determination, persistence. You name it, you will feel it -- if you are committed.
If you are expecting Affiliate Marketing to give you a quick return with little or no work, then this type of business may not be what you are looking for-- On the other hand, if you have realistic expectations, you're willing to work hard and build your Affiliate business -- you will see long term returns.
Here is an article I wrote -- that will give any beginner an idea what to expect.
Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve
By Vickie J. Scanlon
When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think that once your website is up, and you have put your links in place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect.
The Begin of the Begin
You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience.
Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself -- where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you can begin by:
1. Writing articles
2. Optimizing your site for the search engines
3. Putting Adsense on your site
All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put Adsense ads on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site.
My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:
It’s a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.
Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you’re paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.
What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period
First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel. Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change.
Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.
And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.
In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research. All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level.
To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally, if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you’ll make it.
Read more...
If you are expecting Affiliate Marketing to give you a quick return with little or no work, then this type of business may not be what you are looking for-- On the other hand, if you have realistic expectations, you're willing to work hard and build your Affiliate business -- you will see long term returns.
Here is an article I wrote -- that will give any beginner an idea what to expect.
Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve
By Vickie J. Scanlon
When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think that once your website is up, and you have put your links in place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect.
The Begin of the Begin
You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience.
Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself -- where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you can begin by:
1. Writing articles
2. Optimizing your site for the search engines
3. Putting Adsense on your site
All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put Adsense ads on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site.
My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:
It’s a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.
Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you’re paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.
What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period
First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel. Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change.
Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.
And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.
In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research. All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level.
To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally, if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you’ll make it.
Read more...
Friday, November 11, 2005
Affiliate Marketing, Adsense or Both
When you are working on the Internet, you, of course, are trying to find a way to etch out a living, be it from Affiliate Marketing or now, just from an Adsense site.
In my opinion, I believe you can give both, it may take a little longer -- but you will have a long term income -- and hopefully, a quality place where people can get quality products, services and content.
Granted, an Adsense site is passive--and you can kick back and do nothing -- but it is always wise to have more than one stream of income. I have an article, by Scott Patterson, that I ran across. It tosses these two type of income steams against themselves.
I do not really feel that Adsense is a short-term form of income -- but I do feel that if you only have content without a web theme, you can lose your direction-- your visitors and your income.
My view, as well as the author's, is to incorporate both-- and look for longevity.
Affiliate Marketing Vs. Google Adsense: Let The Battle Begin
by Scott Patterson
Lately there has been a lot of discussion on how to make tons of money with Google Adsense. In fact, many people are making the claim that Adsense sites can earn a higher revenue then an affiliate-marketing site.
So that brings us to an important question: Which is a better online business - Affiliate-Marketing sites or Google Adsense sites?
Let's explore each one and then find out which online business is better option:
Google Adsense
How do you like the idea of earning money without dealing with customers or answering emails. This is possible when you run a Google Adsense site. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining. But is this the best option for an online business?
Here are the positives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product
· You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.
·Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.
Here are the negatives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth. Related ArticlesThe Truth about Google’s Adsense affiliate program.The New Google Ad LinksAdSense Is Stupid When . . .Hidden Way To Increase Your Adsense Revenue - Your Newsletter6 Easy Ways to Increase your Adsense Revenue
· These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.
Affiliate Marketing
Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come.
But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?
Here are the positives of affiliate marketing:
· A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.
· With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits..
· Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.
Here are the negatives of affiliate marketing:
· You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.
· Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.
So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense?
The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.
Here is how you can do this:
1) Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.
2) Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.
3) Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.
4) Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.
5) Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of m*ney from your subscribers while giving them good content.
By focusing on both affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be building both short-term and long-term profits.
Scott Patterson is a self-proclaimed Dunce, yet last month he earned $12,124 from one of his online businesses. Find out how YOU can do the same, download his fr*e ebook- A Secret Guide to Online Businesses http://www.duncemoney.com/new-years.html
Read more...
In my opinion, I believe you can give both, it may take a little longer -- but you will have a long term income -- and hopefully, a quality place where people can get quality products, services and content.
Granted, an Adsense site is passive--and you can kick back and do nothing -- but it is always wise to have more than one stream of income. I have an article, by Scott Patterson, that I ran across. It tosses these two type of income steams against themselves.
I do not really feel that Adsense is a short-term form of income -- but I do feel that if you only have content without a web theme, you can lose your direction-- your visitors and your income.
My view, as well as the author's, is to incorporate both-- and look for longevity.
Affiliate Marketing Vs. Google Adsense: Let The Battle Begin
by Scott Patterson
Lately there has been a lot of discussion on how to make tons of money with Google Adsense. In fact, many people are making the claim that Adsense sites can earn a higher revenue then an affiliate-marketing site.
So that brings us to an important question: Which is a better online business - Affiliate-Marketing sites or Google Adsense sites?
Let's explore each one and then find out which online business is better option:
Google Adsense
How do you like the idea of earning money without dealing with customers or answering emails. This is possible when you run a Google Adsense site. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining. But is this the best option for an online business?
Here are the positives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product
· You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.
·Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.
Here are the negatives of Google Adsense sites:
· They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth. Related ArticlesThe Truth about Google’s Adsense affiliate program.The New Google Ad LinksAdSense Is Stupid When . . .Hidden Way To Increase Your Adsense Revenue - Your Newsletter6 Easy Ways to Increase your Adsense Revenue
· These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.
Affiliate Marketing
Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come.
But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?
Here are the positives of affiliate marketing:
· A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.
· With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits..
· Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.
Here are the negatives of affiliate marketing:
· You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.
· Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.
So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense?
The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.
Here is how you can do this:
1) Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.
2) Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.
3) Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.
4) Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.
5) Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of m*ney from your subscribers while giving them good content.
By focusing on both affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be building both short-term and long-term profits.
Scott Patterson is a self-proclaimed Dunce, yet last month he earned $12,124 from one of his online businesses. Find out how YOU can do the same, download his fr*e ebook- A Secret Guide to Online Businesses http://www.duncemoney.com/new-years.html
Read more...
Monday, November 7, 2005
Learn What Splogs, Scraping and Adsense Fraud Is
New terms and new events -- good and bad -- are always happening at a record clip on the Internet. The first and most important element of any affiliate business or website is to stay informed at what's going on, on the Internet.
Have you been hearing words like, splogs and scraping? Do you know how it can affect you, and your website and blog? The article by Jim Hedger answers these questions for you.
If you are supplying quality content, then this article is important to know about and to learn from, because if your site is scraped, it can adversely affect your website/blog in the search engines and everything that you have honestly worked hard at achieving. So read, and store the information in your memory banks. As you know, awareness is one step toward prevention.
Splogs + Scraping + AdSense=Fraud
The other day, an article appeared in Search Engine Journal suggesting webmasters monetize theirsites using Google AdSense. While the article neglected to mention an alternative webmaster advertising program offered byYahoo Search Marketing, the idea of using one's website as a commercial medium (if possible or practical) makes good sense and can provide a minor side-income. Such minor side-incomes ar often the first ingredients in making the gravy craved by all small business owners.
Since the advent of Google's AdWords grassroots distribution program, AdSense, several webmasters have built businesses outof taking content off of other people's websites and using that content to build pages designed specifically to attract ad-clicks. As the average commission earned by sites running AdSense generated advertising is approximately $20/month,webmasters working this type of scheme need to create hundreds, if not thousands of pages to make a living. In order to create those pages and attract ad-clicking visitors, content must be created, begged, borrowed, or most commonly, simply stolen. Known as Splogs, these sites only exist to game Google in one way or another, mostly for money but also for increased search rankings or as a means of manipulating search spiders.
Splogs most often get their content by scraping, the process of sending an electronic copying bot to take everything it sees, recreating it on an unlimited number of instant documents. By running advertising generated through the AdSense program, the owners of the splogs make money when visitors click on the ads. In other words, literally millions of instant sites have sprung up over the past twelve months, most of which are free-hosted Blogs, containing content scraped out from the original sites.
Before continuing, I would like to make it clear that there are several publications that request permission to reprint content. That's ok. Chances are, this article is being read in one of those publications. Online business runs on such agreements.
Splogs are bad business and the practice is finally getting the notice it deserves. Several search heavyweights have weighed in on Splogs over the past two weeks and a flame-war (the virtual equivalent of fisticuffs) broke out between members of two well-known SEO/SEM forums. As a result, the practice of producing AdSense revenues from stolen content on spammy sites got a little bit harder, starting today.
Matt Cutts, Google's spamfighter and quality assurance czar, has taken an obvious and positive interest in Splogs. In the SEO/SEM community, Cutts' name is as widely known as Page, Brin, and even Gates' names are. Cutts is "the man" when it comes to explaining the state of Google's various indexes and how they work. He is referred to as the Chief Spam Fighter at Google. In a posting to his Gagets, Google, and SEO blog earlier today, Cutts invites Google users to report Splogs displaying AdSense driven advertising.
"You see a low-quality site that is running AdSenseIf you run across a site that you consider spammy and it has AdSense on it, click on the "Ads by Goooooogle" link and click"Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw". Enter the words spam report and jagger1 in the comments field."
The name, "Jagger1" is the reference name given the Google algorithm update that is currently causing the present shuffling of Google's search results.
Splog fraud is a big problem for Google and a growing concern for the other major search advertising providers such as Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN. It is also a problem for others working on the Internet. The way content is taken from one site and replicated to dozens of others can cause no end to technical and financial issues for honest webmasters.
Content, incidentally, is not always limited to what the viewer sees on the screen. Stolen content often includes source-code and as anyone familiar with code can tell you, there's a lot of domain and document specific information embedded in source-code.
Over at Search Engine Journal, a funny posting shows how one poorly executed scrape made an honest webmaster afraid of being branded a click-fraud artist by Google. After scraping the site, the splog-artist apparently forgot to remove the AdSense code from the stolen content. That's how the honest webmaster found out he had been stolen from. He was moved to contact Google before his AdSense account status was affected. If the webmaster hadn't been paying attention, he might have been badly branded by Google, burned by someone else's scam.
That's not the only way that scrappers could adversely affect honest webmasters however. The content webmasters create, or have created for them, is the attraction that prompts visitors to their sites. Attracting lots of site visitors is a pretty important step to making money from AdSense or the YahooPublishing Network. If someone is stealing that content, they are also stealing potential visitors. For the webmaster, that content represents investment. For the content creator, it represents product. Either way, the scraping of content is theft.
The stolen product is then used to create what is essentially duplicate content on another site. Duplication of content can have an adverse effect on the search engine placement of all documents containing the similar items. Imagine losing your placements because someone else took the material you laboured over. Fortunately, Google's historic record of documents is fairly good at weeding through which source first displayed specific content.
Search engines have several other reasons to be concerned about splogs. As many of them are created using the free-blog software offered and hosted by most of the major search engines, the proliferation of so many splogs consumes a lot of resources.They also gum up search results with sites not actually relevant to search engine users. Lastly, they devalue the legitimate uses of blogs as communications and marketing tools, which might lead future blog readers or users away from the growing blogosphere. Citizen's publishing is seen as a major revenue source for both Google and Yahoo. Having invested so much time, energy and money into the establishment of blogs, the major search engines would be loath to let their investments go the way of the dodos without a fight.
Now that the web development community is talking about the issue in earnest, some forms of protections might evolve. As it stands currently, there is little a webmaster can do to protect his or her content from being stolen for profit. You can use Copyscape to see if your material has been nabbed but after doing that, there is little one can do except write angry letters to the thief and a lawyer.
Google is inviting users and webmasters to report splogs running AdSense whenever they are seen. In a just universe, not only would the AdSense accounts of those scrappers be closed, their bank accounts would be emptied after Google sues them for fraud.
=================================
Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing expert based in Victoria BC. Jim writes and edits full-time fo StepForth and is also an editor for the Internet Search Engine Database. He has worked as an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunity to share his experience through interviews, articles and speaking engagements. He can be reached at"jimhedger@stepforth.com"
Check out my Scam Report Site, which gives a listing for where you can report scams or spam, online or off-line.
Read more...
Have you been hearing words like, splogs and scraping? Do you know how it can affect you, and your website and blog? The article by Jim Hedger answers these questions for you.
If you are supplying quality content, then this article is important to know about and to learn from, because if your site is scraped, it can adversely affect your website/blog in the search engines and everything that you have honestly worked hard at achieving. So read, and store the information in your memory banks. As you know, awareness is one step toward prevention.
Splogs + Scraping + AdSense=Fraud
The other day, an article appeared in Search Engine Journal suggesting webmasters monetize theirsites using Google AdSense. While the article neglected to mention an alternative webmaster advertising program offered byYahoo Search Marketing, the idea of using one's website as a commercial medium (if possible or practical) makes good sense and can provide a minor side-income. Such minor side-incomes ar often the first ingredients in making the gravy craved by all small business owners.
Since the advent of Google's AdWords grassroots distribution program, AdSense, several webmasters have built businesses outof taking content off of other people's websites and using that content to build pages designed specifically to attract ad-clicks. As the average commission earned by sites running AdSense generated advertising is approximately $20/month,webmasters working this type of scheme need to create hundreds, if not thousands of pages to make a living. In order to create those pages and attract ad-clicking visitors, content must be created, begged, borrowed, or most commonly, simply stolen. Known as Splogs, these sites only exist to game Google in one way or another, mostly for money but also for increased search rankings or as a means of manipulating search spiders.
Splogs most often get their content by scraping, the process of sending an electronic copying bot to take everything it sees, recreating it on an unlimited number of instant documents. By running advertising generated through the AdSense program, the owners of the splogs make money when visitors click on the ads. In other words, literally millions of instant sites have sprung up over the past twelve months, most of which are free-hosted Blogs, containing content scraped out from the original sites.
Before continuing, I would like to make it clear that there are several publications that request permission to reprint content. That's ok. Chances are, this article is being read in one of those publications. Online business runs on such agreements.
Splogs are bad business and the practice is finally getting the notice it deserves. Several search heavyweights have weighed in on Splogs over the past two weeks and a flame-war (the virtual equivalent of fisticuffs) broke out between members of two well-known SEO/SEM forums. As a result, the practice of producing AdSense revenues from stolen content on spammy sites got a little bit harder, starting today.
Matt Cutts, Google's spamfighter and quality assurance czar, has taken an obvious and positive interest in Splogs. In the SEO/SEM community, Cutts' name is as widely known as Page, Brin, and even Gates' names are. Cutts is "the man" when it comes to explaining the state of Google's various indexes and how they work. He is referred to as the Chief Spam Fighter at Google. In a posting to his Gagets, Google, and SEO blog earlier today, Cutts invites Google users to report Splogs displaying AdSense driven advertising.
"You see a low-quality site that is running AdSenseIf you run across a site that you consider spammy and it has AdSense on it, click on the "Ads by Goooooogle" link and click"Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw". Enter the words spam report and jagger1 in the comments field."
The name, "Jagger1" is the reference name given the Google algorithm update that is currently causing the present shuffling of Google's search results.
Splog fraud is a big problem for Google and a growing concern for the other major search advertising providers such as Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN. It is also a problem for others working on the Internet. The way content is taken from one site and replicated to dozens of others can cause no end to technical and financial issues for honest webmasters.
Content, incidentally, is not always limited to what the viewer sees on the screen. Stolen content often includes source-code and as anyone familiar with code can tell you, there's a lot of domain and document specific information embedded in source-code.
Over at Search Engine Journal, a funny posting shows how one poorly executed scrape made an honest webmaster afraid of being branded a click-fraud artist by Google. After scraping the site, the splog-artist apparently forgot to remove the AdSense code from the stolen content. That's how the honest webmaster found out he had been stolen from. He was moved to contact Google before his AdSense account status was affected. If the webmaster hadn't been paying attention, he might have been badly branded by Google, burned by someone else's scam.
That's not the only way that scrappers could adversely affect honest webmasters however. The content webmasters create, or have created for them, is the attraction that prompts visitors to their sites. Attracting lots of site visitors is a pretty important step to making money from AdSense or the YahooPublishing Network. If someone is stealing that content, they are also stealing potential visitors. For the webmaster, that content represents investment. For the content creator, it represents product. Either way, the scraping of content is theft.
The stolen product is then used to create what is essentially duplicate content on another site. Duplication of content can have an adverse effect on the search engine placement of all documents containing the similar items. Imagine losing your placements because someone else took the material you laboured over. Fortunately, Google's historic record of documents is fairly good at weeding through which source first displayed specific content.
Search engines have several other reasons to be concerned about splogs. As many of them are created using the free-blog software offered and hosted by most of the major search engines, the proliferation of so many splogs consumes a lot of resources.They also gum up search results with sites not actually relevant to search engine users. Lastly, they devalue the legitimate uses of blogs as communications and marketing tools, which might lead future blog readers or users away from the growing blogosphere. Citizen's publishing is seen as a major revenue source for both Google and Yahoo. Having invested so much time, energy and money into the establishment of blogs, the major search engines would be loath to let their investments go the way of the dodos without a fight.
Now that the web development community is talking about the issue in earnest, some forms of protections might evolve. As it stands currently, there is little a webmaster can do to protect his or her content from being stolen for profit. You can use Copyscape to see if your material has been nabbed but after doing that, there is little one can do except write angry letters to the thief and a lawyer.
Google is inviting users and webmasters to report splogs running AdSense whenever they are seen. In a just universe, not only would the AdSense accounts of those scrappers be closed, their bank accounts would be emptied after Google sues them for fraud.
=================================
Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing expert based in Victoria BC. Jim writes and edits full-time fo StepForth and is also an editor for the Internet Search Engine Database. He has worked as an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunity to share his experience through interviews, articles and speaking engagements. He can be reached at"jimhedger@stepforth.com"
Check out my Scam Report Site, which gives a listing for where you can report scams or spam, online or off-line.
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Thursday, November 3, 2005
Adwords, Adsense, SEO – Common Denominator, Keywords
When you first get on the Internet and put up your website, you are amassed with information. To sort through the information, determine what is useful for you and for your website is another thing. In addition, the Internet is a constant evolving and changing medium that you need to keep abreast of everyday.
If you are wanting to have multiple streams of income, you need to know the basics, and build upon them. With that being said, here is an article that I have written that shows the interrelationship of Adwords, Adsense, SEO and Keywords.
Adwords, Adsense, SEO – Common Denominator, Keywords
If you have just put up a website, you probably all ready have heard words like:keywords, Google Adwords, GoogleAdsense, SEO. Adwords, Adsense, SEO have one thing in common – Keywords. How important are keywords? Very Important.
Google Adwords
Adwords, be it through Google, Miva, or any pay-per-click search engines, you need keywords. With Adwords, you create a three-line ad – 25 word title, with two 35 word lines of ad copy – then you create your keywords. To get the hits, you have to brainstorm for different keywords, that are different but relevant to your target audience. Sound easy? It’s not. It takes time, patience, constant tweaking, and hoping that the product you are selling is not already saturated -- to much competition, makes it a little more difficult for the novice to make a profit.
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is an advertising program created by Google, and which is beginning to be explored by other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN – that allows you to put targeted ads on your website. If someone clicks on the ad, you earn a small amount of money. These ads are keyword driven and are relevant to your web page or website. Sounds simple? Well, not really. There is more too it than just putting an ad on your website and expecting someone to click on it. What’s involved? Let’s see – color, position, style, to name just a few.
SEO
Search engine optimization – this for me has been a time-consuming process – since I am still learning. SEO is keyword driven – the search engines pull the keywords from your web copy – not, to my surprise, from the meta keywords tag. Granted, I still use the meta keywords tag, but maybe in the near future, I will slowly eliminate the tag from my web pages… The search engines do, however, pull information from Meta Description, Meta Title, and the content of your webpages. Thus, content does reign supreme. Since content reigns supreme, each page should contain useful content and most importantly, your most relevant keywords that you want to emphasize. Secondly, it is best to try and base your keywords around a central theme. I have found that when the keywords diverts away from the main theme – that sends a red flag to search engines. So, if you want to look at your keywords and the density of the keywords on your webpage or webpages – You can get a quick rundown at: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html . It’s a free tool, and very helpful.
To conclude, keywords is one of the main ingredients that leads people to your website, product, service and/or ad. …AND, keywords based around your quality content will help with your positioning on your website.
Read more...
If you are wanting to have multiple streams of income, you need to know the basics, and build upon them. With that being said, here is an article that I have written that shows the interrelationship of Adwords, Adsense, SEO and Keywords.
Adwords, Adsense, SEO – Common Denominator, Keywords
If you have just put up a website, you probably all ready have heard words like:keywords, Google Adwords, GoogleAdsense, SEO. Adwords, Adsense, SEO have one thing in common – Keywords. How important are keywords? Very Important.
Google Adwords
Adwords, be it through Google, Miva, or any pay-per-click search engines, you need keywords. With Adwords, you create a three-line ad – 25 word title, with two 35 word lines of ad copy – then you create your keywords. To get the hits, you have to brainstorm for different keywords, that are different but relevant to your target audience. Sound easy? It’s not. It takes time, patience, constant tweaking, and hoping that the product you are selling is not already saturated -- to much competition, makes it a little more difficult for the novice to make a profit.
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is an advertising program created by Google, and which is beginning to be explored by other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN – that allows you to put targeted ads on your website. If someone clicks on the ad, you earn a small amount of money. These ads are keyword driven and are relevant to your web page or website. Sounds simple? Well, not really. There is more too it than just putting an ad on your website and expecting someone to click on it. What’s involved? Let’s see – color, position, style, to name just a few.
SEO
Search engine optimization – this for me has been a time-consuming process – since I am still learning. SEO is keyword driven – the search engines pull the keywords from your web copy – not, to my surprise, from the meta keywords tag. Granted, I still use the meta keywords tag, but maybe in the near future, I will slowly eliminate the tag from my web pages… The search engines do, however, pull information from Meta Description, Meta Title, and the content of your webpages. Thus, content does reign supreme. Since content reigns supreme, each page should contain useful content and most importantly, your most relevant keywords that you want to emphasize. Secondly, it is best to try and base your keywords around a central theme. I have found that when the keywords diverts away from the main theme – that sends a red flag to search engines. So, if you want to look at your keywords and the density of the keywords on your webpage or webpages – You can get a quick rundown at: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html . It’s a free tool, and very helpful.
To conclude, keywords is one of the main ingredients that leads people to your website, product, service and/or ad. …AND, keywords based around your quality content will help with your positioning on your website.
Read more...
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Keywords and How To Use Them
When you're looking for ways to get traffic to your website, you must look at your webpages and optimize. I found a great article by George Peirson, who goes through the 5 ways in which you can optimize your site for better search engine placement. It's a great how to with optimizing your site.
The Five Ways You Should Be Using Keywords
by George Peirson
We have all read lots of articles on how to gather keywords, how to compile a huge keyword list, how to make these keywords relevant to our web site. But exactly what do we do with all these keywords once we have them?
Knowing where and how you can use your keywords will greatly improve the efficiency of your search engine optimization.
There are 5 places in a web page where you can use keywords:
The Title Tag
The Keyword Meta Tag
The Description Meta Tag
Alt Tags for images
Body copy on the page
Of these the page Body Copy, the readable text on the page, is the single most important place for your keywords. More about this later.
Let’s first take a look at the Title Tag. This is one of the tags in the head section of the html code of your web page and lists the title that is displayed in the web browser. For instance, Internet Explorer displays this tag in the top bar of the browser window. But there are other uses for the Title Tag as well. Most search engines will index this tag for information about your site and many search engines will use this tag as the title of your listing.
In general you can use from 60 to 115 characters in a Title Tag. The Tag can include the company name, especially if it is a well known company, and should include your most important keywords. Consider this a short description of your web page. One more thing, the Title Tag is also used as the link when the URL is saved into a web browser favorites list.Sponsored Links
Related Articles
Sneaky (But Legal) Places To Insert Keywords For Higher Rankings
Creating Keyword Rich Pages
8 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Website
Search Engine Basics: Title And META-Tags
Keywords and SEO. The Facts.
The Keyword Meta Tag used to be the main way search engines indexed your page. Now-a-days many search engines will simply ignore this tag, but that may not always stay the case. Some search engines still take s look at this tag to help categorize your site. There is no reason not to have this tag on your page, just in case. You are not penalized for including a Keyword Meta Tag.
The keywords should be separated by a comma. Put more specific keywords first then put the less important and general keywords later on. Search engines no longer pay attention to the case of a keyword, so the keywords can all be lower case. I have seen recommendations of 25 keywords or 1000 characters in the list. In general Keyword pairs or triplets are better than single keywords. I try to have one or two lines of keywords if I use this tag.
The Description Meta Tag is slowly joining the Keywords Meta Tag on the lack of support list. But right now it is still a valuable place to use your keywords. Many search engines will look at the description Meta tag for keywords to compare against your body copy. Yahoo goes one step further and will use your description tag as the description of your site in their listings.
Consider the description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep it to a short paragraph, under 50 words.
Alt tags are text descriptions that are included with the code used to display images on a page. Basically an Alt tag is the Alternate Text version of the image in case the image is not displayed. Alt tags are important for creating a fully accessible site for people who use screen reader technology that reads the page out loud through their computer speakers. Obviously an image cannot be read aloud, but the Alt tag can.
Alt tags are also displayed as a quick popup when you “hover” your mouse pointer over an image. Many search engines, including Google, will index the Alt tags along with the rest of the body copy, making these ideal places to slip in a few more keywords. Just keep in mind that the text should accurately reflect the content of the image. Plus don’t use Alt tags on images that would not normally be read out loud, such as separator lines or bullets.
This brings us to the main place to use your keywords, the body copy on the page, the text that your visitors are reading when they visit your site. The major search engines will no longer give you a top placement just for having the most instances of a particular keyword on your page. They will give top listing to what they believe is the most relevant page on a topic.
Your job is to work your keyword into the text frequently, but appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make the page specifically about those keywords. Think of yourself giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience of your best customers. Your PowerPoint slides will be your paragraphs. They should be concise and to the point, using your keywords to drive home your point. And, just like in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use bulleted lists to call out the several benefits of your site or product, each time relating it to your selected keyword.
So use your keywords appropriately on your site and use them where you can. This will greatly increase your search engine effectiveness.
George Peirson is the CEO of How To Gurus. He is the author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles. To see training sets and other articles by George Peirson visit How To Gurus
Read more...
The Five Ways You Should Be Using Keywords
by George Peirson
We have all read lots of articles on how to gather keywords, how to compile a huge keyword list, how to make these keywords relevant to our web site. But exactly what do we do with all these keywords once we have them?
Knowing where and how you can use your keywords will greatly improve the efficiency of your search engine optimization.
There are 5 places in a web page where you can use keywords:
The Title Tag
The Keyword Meta Tag
The Description Meta Tag
Alt Tags for images
Body copy on the page
Of these the page Body Copy, the readable text on the page, is the single most important place for your keywords. More about this later.
Let’s first take a look at the Title Tag. This is one of the tags in the head section of the html code of your web page and lists the title that is displayed in the web browser. For instance, Internet Explorer displays this tag in the top bar of the browser window. But there are other uses for the Title Tag as well. Most search engines will index this tag for information about your site and many search engines will use this tag as the title of your listing.
In general you can use from 60 to 115 characters in a Title Tag. The Tag can include the company name, especially if it is a well known company, and should include your most important keywords. Consider this a short description of your web page. One more thing, the Title Tag is also used as the link when the URL is saved into a web browser favorites list.Sponsored Links
Related Articles
Sneaky (But Legal) Places To Insert Keywords For Higher Rankings
Creating Keyword Rich Pages
8 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Website
Search Engine Basics: Title And META-Tags
Keywords and SEO. The Facts.
The Keyword Meta Tag used to be the main way search engines indexed your page. Now-a-days many search engines will simply ignore this tag, but that may not always stay the case. Some search engines still take s look at this tag to help categorize your site. There is no reason not to have this tag on your page, just in case. You are not penalized for including a Keyword Meta Tag.
The keywords should be separated by a comma. Put more specific keywords first then put the less important and general keywords later on. Search engines no longer pay attention to the case of a keyword, so the keywords can all be lower case. I have seen recommendations of 25 keywords or 1000 characters in the list. In general Keyword pairs or triplets are better than single keywords. I try to have one or two lines of keywords if I use this tag.
The Description Meta Tag is slowly joining the Keywords Meta Tag on the lack of support list. But right now it is still a valuable place to use your keywords. Many search engines will look at the description Meta tag for keywords to compare against your body copy. Yahoo goes one step further and will use your description tag as the description of your site in their listings.
Consider the description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep it to a short paragraph, under 50 words.
Alt tags are text descriptions that are included with the code used to display images on a page. Basically an Alt tag is the Alternate Text version of the image in case the image is not displayed. Alt tags are important for creating a fully accessible site for people who use screen reader technology that reads the page out loud through their computer speakers. Obviously an image cannot be read aloud, but the Alt tag can.
Alt tags are also displayed as a quick popup when you “hover” your mouse pointer over an image. Many search engines, including Google, will index the Alt tags along with the rest of the body copy, making these ideal places to slip in a few more keywords. Just keep in mind that the text should accurately reflect the content of the image. Plus don’t use Alt tags on images that would not normally be read out loud, such as separator lines or bullets.
This brings us to the main place to use your keywords, the body copy on the page, the text that your visitors are reading when they visit your site. The major search engines will no longer give you a top placement just for having the most instances of a particular keyword on your page. They will give top listing to what they believe is the most relevant page on a topic.
Your job is to work your keyword into the text frequently, but appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make the page specifically about those keywords. Think of yourself giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience of your best customers. Your PowerPoint slides will be your paragraphs. They should be concise and to the point, using your keywords to drive home your point. And, just like in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use bulleted lists to call out the several benefits of your site or product, each time relating it to your selected keyword.
So use your keywords appropriately on your site and use them where you can. This will greatly increase your search engine effectiveness.
George Peirson is the CEO of How To Gurus. He is the author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles. To see training sets and other articles by George Peirson visit How To Gurus
Read more...
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Take the Sting Out Of Podcasting
Podcasting has been coming into it's own since, I believe, 2004. It's a new concept, and a new way to reach your customers, and for your customers to get to know you, as well, as about you. They realize that the owner of the website they frequent is real, and has a voice.
If you want to do some podcasting, want to learn, and don't want to invest a lot, then read on. How about, just the cost of an ebook?
Podcasting – Is It Right For Your Website?
By Vickie J. Scanlon
I have been seeing the word podcasting floating around the Internet for a while. And actually read an article that stated it’s arrival. However, it never really gave me any information about Podcasting. And yes, my curiosity got the better of me. I decided it was time to find out more about podcasting, and learn the what and how—and if it could help my business. And, most importantly, how much I would have to spend to partake in this new technology.
What is Podcasting?
Podcasting is simply a web blog that is in an audio format. And the audio portion is presented by way of an MP3 file. In essence, it is your own radio broadcast, relating to anything you want. The transmission of the podcast is through an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) technology.
How Can I Use It In My Business?
How Can I Use It In My Business? To me, that is the most important question to answer. Why get the technology if it is not going to be of any use to you. Right? Well, I feel that it can be of use to any business. For example: let’s say that your site is based around a niche market, say cats. You could base your podcast on your niche market, supplying them information and tips about cats, with an audio, and then tell them to follow up to your website or blog, for that matter, for additional information.
What can audio do for your business? It puts a voice behind the website, and makes you a real person. And, by also supplying the same information, with follow-up material in your blog, you have made a connection. You are now a real person, with a real voice, and not a façade.
Where can I get a Podcast?
If you’re new to podcasting, know very little about it, and want to see if it can fit your needs on your site-look at my articles Podcasting Overview to give you information on podcasting and how you can make money with it. And Mechanics of a Podcast , which gives you the basics of starting a podcast.
Read more...
If you want to do some podcasting, want to learn, and don't want to invest a lot, then read on. How about, just the cost of an ebook?
Podcasting – Is It Right For Your Website?
By Vickie J. Scanlon
I have been seeing the word podcasting floating around the Internet for a while. And actually read an article that stated it’s arrival. However, it never really gave me any information about Podcasting. And yes, my curiosity got the better of me. I decided it was time to find out more about podcasting, and learn the what and how—and if it could help my business. And, most importantly, how much I would have to spend to partake in this new technology.
What is Podcasting?
Podcasting is simply a web blog that is in an audio format. And the audio portion is presented by way of an MP3 file. In essence, it is your own radio broadcast, relating to anything you want. The transmission of the podcast is through an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) technology.
How Can I Use It In My Business?
How Can I Use It In My Business? To me, that is the most important question to answer. Why get the technology if it is not going to be of any use to you. Right? Well, I feel that it can be of use to any business. For example: let’s say that your site is based around a niche market, say cats. You could base your podcast on your niche market, supplying them information and tips about cats, with an audio, and then tell them to follow up to your website or blog, for that matter, for additional information.
What can audio do for your business? It puts a voice behind the website, and makes you a real person. And, by also supplying the same information, with follow-up material in your blog, you have made a connection. You are now a real person, with a real voice, and not a façade.
Where can I get a Podcast?
If you’re new to podcasting, know very little about it, and want to see if it can fit your needs on your site-look at my articles Podcasting Overview to give you information on podcasting and how you can make money with it. And Mechanics of a Podcast , which gives you the basics of starting a podcast.
Read more...
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