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Google AdSense: Facts, FAQs and Tools

March 22nd, 2007 in How-To | 150 Comments

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Google AdSense is probably one of the most popular revenue generators in the Web. We hear the stories about bloggers-genies, who manage to turn their blogs into cash machines overnight. However, it’s not that simple to find the actual tips, which stick to Google policies, might increase your revenues and don’t try to trick out the readers of your weblog.

We’ve spent several hours, trying to find out, what might increase your Google AdSense income and which tools you can use to observe and track your revenues. We’ve selected the key-points of successful stories and useful tips as well as Google AdSense sites and services you can use on a daily basis. Let’s take a look.

Things You Probably Don’t Know About Google AdSense

  • “AdSense Earning = Impression-count x Click-though-rate x Cost-per-click x smart-pricing-factor. Viewing your on website will not get you banned. Just make sure you don’t click on the ads.
  • However, repeatedly reload your page to jack up page impressions can get you banned. Click-through-rate (CTR) is ratio of clicks per impressions. It can range from 0.1% to 30%, but most commonly around 1% to 10%.”
    [100 Google Adsense Tips]
  • “First impressions count: make sure the ad unit with the highest CTR is the first ad unit in the HTML code of your page. Keep in mind that the first ad unit in the source code is not always the first ad unit that your users will see when the page finishes loading in their browser.”
    [Inside AdSense: First impressions count]
  • “Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. on pages where users are typically focused on reading an article, ads placed directly below the end of the editorial content tend to perform very well.”
    [Where should I place Google ads on my pages?]
  • “Format is important for multiple ad units, display your ad units where repeat users will notice them, place a leaderboard immediately after the last post.”
    [Six AdSense optimization tips for forums]
  • “The middle, above the fold location performs the best. Best performing ad format is the large rectangle, 336×280. So the wider ad formats are doing better than the other ones and the reason is that they actually take up fewer lines. And so with every additional line, you have a chance of losing that interested user.
  • So the wider formats do best so specifically, the top three formats are the 336×280 that you see on the page; the 300×250 medium rectangle; and then the 160×600 wide skyscraper.
  • We have a feature in the AdSense account where you are able to multi-select different color palettes that blend with your site to add some variety and freshness to the ads. And that also will help decrease ad blindness.”
    [Google AdSense Optimization Webinar]
  • “The second most active placement in terms of click-throughs tends to be the right-hand rail or margin”. “Skyscrapers” and vertical banners do well when placed next to the content in the main body. Square and rectangle ads placed within the center column also do well, provided they are placed in context to the content. Ads placed below the fold tend to perform least well, although that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.”
    [Yahoo! Publisher Network: Location, location, location…]
  • “I found the most success in placing the Google Adsense medium rectangle either right in the middle of the page or in a middle right column as long as it has content above and below the ad unit. Its is fine to use Adsense Ads on a forum however expect a very low CTR.”
    [Google Adsense Tips for Webmasters]
  • “Post Adsense ads on text rich pages, avoid titles like the approved ‘Sponsored Links’ and ‘Advertisements’, place Ads above the fold, Match the colors of your ads with the colour scheme of your site, Blend ads with your page - remove the borders by having a similar color as your background.”
    [How to Increase Google Adsense CTR]
  • “To remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense develop sufficient good content with keywords, Ensure that META tags like ‘title’ & ‘description’ and the headings tags like h1, h2 etc. have content which matches the rest of your site.”
    [How to Remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense]
  • “You can now run AdSense on the same page as other contextual ad programs.” (January 2007)
    [It’s official! You can now run AdSense on the same page as other contextual ad programs]
  • “Google AdSense Policy: We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads.”
    [Inside AdSense: Ad and image placement: a policy clarification]
  • “Section targeting uses certain html tweaks to force the google adsense bot to focus on specific content. Section targeting is the latest and most effective addition to AdSense”.
    [Display Relevant Adsense Ads Using Section Targeting]
  • “Over the weekend, I decided to change the number of ads units on my blog based upon where the traffic is coming from. I have a small PHP function that checks to see if the referrer is a search engine, and if it is, I display and additional 2 ad units. My Adsense revenue increasing by 284% on Saturday, Sunday and Monday!”
    [Positive Adsense Experiment]
  • “Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. Never change the Adsense code. Do not run competitive contextual text ad (2006) or search services on the same site. Do not mask ad elements. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing.”
    [ 15 Common Mistakes that Violate Google Adsense TOS ]
  • “Putting ads on your site won’t hurt your traffic. There are 6 sorts of bloggers’ income: Google Adsense, Donations (e.g. PayPal), Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month), Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click), affiliate programs like Amazon, Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)
    [How to Make Money From Your Blog - a VERY extensive article]
  • “A number of factors come into play when AdSense tries to determine what the page is about: The URL of the page, the page title, the anchor text of links, the keywords that appear most frequently within the page, search engine queries that lead to the page or to another page that links to the page”.
    [How to Get Relevant AdSense Ads (Especially For Bloggers)]
  • “Ask yourself if you are willing to compromise your blog’s layout and over-all feel by adding ads in them. Look at your traffic and see if it’s enough to draw the crowd. Make good use of the Ad Channels. Give it time.”
    [Tips on Blog Adsensification]
  • “You can put upto 3 AdSense units on a page. For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content. For long articles, CTR improves if ads are placed somewhere in middle of the content. Go Wide - the large rectangle 336×280 is the best paying adsense format.”
    [Adsense Tips, Layout Optimization Tricks for HigherCTR]
  • “Google AdSense folks have unveiled another useful feature for Adsense publishers - Section Targeting. The concept is simple but the advantages and possibilities are endless.”
    [Display relevant Ads in Blogs: Just suggest Google]

Google AdSense: Google’s Information and Tools

  • Google AdSense FAQ
    the Adsense support for official guidelines.
  • Google AdSense Help Page provides a very detailed FAQ about Google AdSense. Learn optimization essentials, how to design successful ads, savvy ad placement and how to use features wisely.
  • Google Adsense Program Policies.
  • Google AdSense Ad Formats
    an overview.
  • Google AdSense Success Stories provided by Google itself. Many interesting insights in concrete decisions, which helped to increase Google AdSense revenues.
  • Google AdWords: Keyword-Tool
    The Keyword Tool generates potential keywords for your ad campaign and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and seasonal trends. Start your search by entering your own keyword phrases or a specific URL. You can then add new keywords to the green box at the right.

Google AdSense Tools, Services

Google AdSense Tips, Resources

Advertisement
  1. 1.

    Philip Arthur Moore (March 22nd, 2007, 9:36 am)

    You’ve outdone yourselves this time around guys.

  2. 2.

    Dave (March 22nd, 2007, 10:34 am)

    Excellent references, thanks for the compilation!

  3. 3.

    Keith (March 22nd, 2007, 12:13 pm)

    Smashing Magazine rules. Thanks

  4. 4.

    Uzbek (March 22nd, 2007, 3:22 pm)

    Great compilation.

    PS. Adding a del.icio.us button to your posts would make my life so much easier :))

    Thanks yet again.

  5. 5.

    Michael M (March 22nd, 2007, 8:57 pm)

    Thanks for gathering all this useful information in just one place.

  6. 6.

    Chris James (March 22nd, 2007, 9:41 pm)

    Your lists rule :)

  7. 7.

    Avinash (March 22nd, 2007, 10:53 pm)

    Awesome! It’s nice to see so many great tutorial links on a single page!

    Thanks for your great efforts!

  8. 8.

    deepimage (March 22nd, 2007, 11:10 pm)

    Thank you for the fantastic information and links. This site is one of he first rss feeds I read every day. Keep up the good work.

  9. 9.

    H Man (March 23rd, 2007, 12:45 am)

    While this article is about where to place your google ads to get the most clicks, it also promotes the most annoying usability issue on the web right now (besides those annoying ads the float into the content area) people who place there google ads front and center on the top of the page, in the middle of the content area with a white background are just trying to attempt to get people to mistakenly click on the google ad verses actually finding the content they come to the page for in the first place. It’s annoying, silly and sadly done by this very site :(

    Great another .05 to annoy your users, GREAT!?

  10. 10.

    Mac (March 23rd, 2007, 2:27 am)

    Great… there goes my productivity for the rest of the day… Thanks a lot.. :)

  11. 11.

    Teletronic (March 23rd, 2007, 4:19 am)

    I may switch to google ads after reading this, I just wonder which is higher Google Adsense, Chikita, Adbrite

  12. 12.

    Veign (March 23rd, 2007, 7:11 am)

    You forgot about one great tool called AdsenseLog (http://www.metalgrass.com/adsenselog/). This is a great way to easily monitor your Adsense account.

  13. 13.

    Sherif Mansour (March 23rd, 2007, 7:58 am)

    Smashing Magazine, thanks once again. Great list

  14. 14.

    Pensador (March 23rd, 2007, 8:50 am)

    Great list–I shall apply these tips to my own blog!

  15. 15.

    SellerX (March 23rd, 2007, 9:08 am)

    This is a lovely little resource. Not huge like all of your other smashing articles. Just the right size this, nice and clean! Bookmarked!

    Link [www.sellerx.com]

  16. 16.

    Hoowa! (March 23rd, 2007, 9:14 am)

    I wonder what the mysterious “smart-pricing-factor”… is?

  17. 17.

    Sergio Gandrus (March 23rd, 2007, 2:21 pm)

    Very good tips.
    I didn’t know about the Firefox extension

  18. 18.

    Bastiaan (March 23rd, 2007, 4:37 pm)

    Awesome tips. Means i have to start coding again. Nevermind.

  19. 19.

    Cruz (March 23rd, 2007, 5:49 pm)

    Thanks for the tips!!!

  20. 20.

    Chris (March 23rd, 2007, 7:49 pm)

    Aww… I’ve been waiting for this Adsense list from you guys for a while - really was hoping that you would have included my Link [adclustr.com] site. Great Job anyway!

  21. 21.

    Domester.NET (March 24th, 2007, 1:10 am)

    GREAT TRICK but it’s many to learn. I think great content must been create before the adsense & SEO is following when u have many great contents.

  22. 22.

    DG (March 24th, 2007, 4:42 am)

    Mind blowing workout, thanks for the detailed input.

    DG…
    Link [www.ditii.com]

  23. 23.

    geekMethod (March 24th, 2007, 10:20 am)

    Great resource for just about any AdSense user, beginner or not. We’ll be passing this along to our listeners.

  24. 24.

    Milan Kryl (March 24th, 2007, 10:04 pm)

    Nice bunch of links and all information about Google AdSense. I prefer especially tip - to modify page for visitors from search engines.

  25. 25.

    Peter Grandolf (March 25th, 2007, 11:54 pm)

    And another good free tools to instantly get traffic - no waiting for indexing robots - is Link [www.linkshouter.com]

  26. 26.

    Everyday Weekender (March 26th, 2007, 2:57 am)

    wow!.. great post!

  27. 27.

    siddhartha (April 16th, 2007, 2:26 am)

    Hi everyone. I made a website i.e. on google adsense. It is very nice website regarding all the important steps that should be taken for proper earning through google adsense.

    Link [www.sidjobs.info]

  28. 28.

    Vern from Blog Simply (April 18th, 2007, 6:36 pm)

    Great tips - I’m still reading them - only 30% done! I like the theme of your site - is it a custom?

  29. 29.

    Motorcycle Guy (April 22nd, 2007, 11:19 am)

    This is a really good list. I’m still debating on whether to try out adlogger. I’m not really sure if the data it provides will be worth it, or if it’ll be just another pointless set of data I analyze often.

  30. 30.

    Barry (April 26th, 2007, 2:51 am)

    Link [adsensemeter.com]
    This tool provide an easy way to calculate revenue from Google AdSense for any site.

  31. 31.

    www.angellica2017.com (May 2nd, 2007, 12:43 pm)

    Great resources, but I will ignoring several articles since I’m doing experience by my self about AdSense and write about it at my “AdSense World” site (www.angellica2017.com) which perform better than just a tips.

  32. 32.

    Pablo Rosales (May 6th, 2007, 10:18 am)

    Wow, great collection, love this web site, just smashing

  33. 33.

    popov (May 15th, 2007, 6:29 am)

    Very interresting content ! Not easy to understand all of it for french people, but very interresting !

    congraculation !

    Sylvain !

    Link [www.accessoire-piece-moto.fr]

  34. 34.

    Francois (June 5th, 2007, 5:48 am)

    Some of the best tips I have ever read concerning Google Adsense sponsored ads ! I will try some of them on my weblog right now !

  35. 35.

    Baldai (June 6th, 2007, 5:03 pm)

    Very good tips, but if some one want to make money from adsence it need a lot of work.

  36. 36.

    suno (June 8th, 2007, 4:47 am)

     Check out Link [www.sharogle.com]
    its a revenue sharing search engine based on adsense that works.

  37. 37.

    J.F. Lucero (June 17th, 2007, 11:18 am)

    I am having problem making Adsense Injection work for my blog and looking for a tutorial. Look what I have found…. lots of great stuff that I can use and refer to… Great compilation!

  38. 38.

    androo (June 22nd, 2007, 12:48 am)

    awesome and interesting content… good post!

  39. 39.

    CL (June 24th, 2007, 1:37 pm)

    Bookmarked…this is invaluable - thanks!

  40. 40.

    ink (July 4th, 2007, 8:00 pm)

    this site allow me to use my google adsense account:

    Link [www.saleswall.com]

    1) what do you think about this way to use adsense?

    2)do you know others pages like that?

    3)where would you place this link?

    thanx!
    Edit/Delete Message

  41. 41.

    moto (July 21st, 2007, 4:06 am)

    Thanks for the tips!
    see u

    Link []

  42. 42.

    tibnee (August 7th, 2007, 11:19 am)

    hi,

    can you please refer me to a URL or give me tips on how to add adsense ads on webpage like you have added one infront of text on this page.Thanks

  43. 43.

    Robotics (August 17th, 2007, 6:40 am)

    very good tips.

    now, I know why I had not been genrating revenue from my site

    Thanks smashingmagazine.

  44. 44.

    Mark's Backup (September 1st, 2007, 9:52 pm)

    This is a Smashing article witch I bookmarked! I have been using Adsense now for a few months and the suggestions from Goolge are in contradict of some of these above. I just integrated some of these suggestions and hope to see the revenue rise. Thanks!

  45. 45.

    yosax (September 8th, 2007, 3:27 am)

    The article and web sources is a good source for me.

  46. 46.

    tuvie (September 14th, 2007, 4:33 pm)

    the wider format doesn’t work quite good in my case, the CPC is very low, after replaced it with smaller ads, then I see an increasing on the per click revenue

  47. 47.

    tobey canobie (November 13th, 2007, 9:41 am)

    i cant believe the plethora of free information you provide this is awesome! a person could save alot of time going thru trial and error trying to figure out what you already know. and its in easy to learn english, unlike the online2income one i read, was confusing, but this ones for dummies. thanks!

  48. 48.

    good for beginner (January 9th, 2008, 6:54 am)

    good for beginners

  49. 49.

    Google Adsense Tips (January 11th, 2008, 11:09 am)

    Excellent tips. Thanks!

  50. 50.

    momoy (January 12th, 2008, 1:48 am)

    Yeah I’m the adsense beginner and I read this useful articles thanks.

  51. 51.

    Alex (January 16th, 2008, 11:00 am)

    What about the tres funky (and freeware) Link [www.singerscreations.com]?

    Description from the website:
    SysSense is your personal desktop Google AdSense monitor. It keeps your current Google AdSense information in the Windows system tray. You can monitor an unlimited number of Google AdSense accounts. A sound and/or system tray icon balloon can be configured to alert you when your statistics have changed.

    I’ve used it for years, it’s an excellent tool and it’s always being updated.

  52. 52.

    Rajeev Edmonds from Adsense Primer (February 2nd, 2008, 1:34 am)

    The clarification of not repeatedly refreshing the web pages is very important tip for new Adsense publishers. Although if your site or blog is new or in the process of revamp the page impressions may increase, but Google is smart enough to detect that.

  53. 53.

    anglictina (February 7th, 2008, 12:50 am)

    Very nice for begginer with adsense, thank you

  54. 54.

    G.Suvorov (February 13th, 2008, 7:00 am)

    Hi. you forgot moneyquake - a FireFox addon for adsense stats tracking.
    Link [addons.mozilla.org]
    regards

  55. 55.

    Chriss Tools (February 15th, 2008, 9:43 pm)

    Great post… I’ve also written up a free Adsense tutorial if anyone is interested - Link [thewebtrafficco.com]

  56. 56.

    azlio (March 5th, 2008, 12:44 pm)

    Already bookmarked !
    Thanks

  57. 57.

    cexut (March 5th, 2008, 12:48 pm)

    I’m adsense beginner too and I think it’s very useful articles.

  58. 58.

    earn money with google adsence (March 13th, 2008, 10:51 pm)

    Start your own Massive Google AdSense Empire
    150 Content Rich AdSense Web Sites

    Special Offer: Free Hosting for 12 Months

    ALL 150 web sites below are included and are ready for you to DOWNLOAD INSTANTLY

  59. 59.

    Bjorn (March 14th, 2008, 1:54 am)

    Alot of great info to find here on this website, such as this adsense stuff!
    I’m working on a website too that contains heaps of info about Google, Adsense, Internet and such
    Link [www.icantinternet.org]

  60. 60.

    goldy (March 15th, 2008, 8:08 am)

    As an AdSense newbie I found these articles very inspiring! Thanks

  61. 61.

    Supplements Canada (May 5th, 2008, 8:16 pm)

    I find Google adsense and pay per click advertising to be an invaluable marketing tool. Great post!

    That google is a monster hey?

  62. 62.

    jimmychen (May 12th, 2008, 10:20 am)

    adsense does work. it just needs some patience and resources. from making websites to maintaining them. also with this, i have done a lot of sites that can be used for adsense and make money. Money that can be earned passively is always a good thing, once you have made your empire of sites, you can outsource the job to others and maintain it.

    adsense is really a good way to get more out of your site, making money where it is virtually easy to make them.

    with getting help, there are lots of help online which ca be search with just a few clicks, giving some nice info on how to start up with nothing and maintain a well-paid adsense embedded site.

    there is really more to this. as it is now the trend to make money online, this is the easiest way to do it. just start some blogs or even make a site, you can easily earn some serious cash only if you do your homework properly. it isn’t the guaranteed path but this can be usually great if you done the instructions right.

    GO [URL=”http://www.theadsenseking.com”]HERE[/URL] For Free PDF, MP3 and Video Adsense Training worth $97

  63. 63.

    RONZAN (May 13th, 2008, 4:27 pm)

    me too!

  64. 64.

    Nowfal (May 15th, 2008, 9:30 pm)

    Make money through online part time job

    We have lots of opportunities to make money through online or any other ways, Please try this link
    Link [you.can.earn.extra.money.googlepages.com]

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