AdSense | WassupBlog

Subscribe To WassupBlog
There are many reasons why you should subscribe to my list, the most important one being you will never miss out on an important update. Then of course you have the added advantage of having your name and site listed on the MyList page and we all know how much Google loves one way links!

Also, if you subscribe to my LIST you will only get updates to new posts. You will never be spammed! Subscribe To WassupBlog's New Posts!

Archive for 'AdSense'

Big Brother Google Opts For Interest-Based Advertising

Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 4:10 am

Comments (34)

I am really interested in how many people have received an email from Google introducing the launch of their ‘interest-based advertising’? According to Google;

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

This raises some privacy concerns as it seems that Google is taking another step towards the ‘Big Brother Is Watching You’ approach. I mean do we as users really want to be categorized depending on our surfing habits. Heck, 90% of the time I am inadvertently directed to porno sites, but does that mean that I will categorized as a pervert or a dirty old man? Then, once I am stuck into a category, does that mean that every time I visit a site, regardless of what that site is, I will be shown ads befitting my so-called depraved state?

It seems that the only way around this is to install a plugin that will allow me to modify my ‘interest’ categories or to even opt out of the system. Damn, another bloody plugin, and then one has to wonder what other information this plugin will leach from my system. As bloggers, this ‘interest-based system’ poses another problem, as we now have to update our privacy policy to reflect the fact that our blogs are using Google’s new system, and these changes have to be made by April 8, 2009! Naturally Google can not help us with the language we use to tell people of these changes because “publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we’re unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.” Gee, thanks so much guys. Still we can opt out altogether by;

Sign in to your AdSense account.

Visit your My Account tab.

Go to the Account Settings page.

In the Interest-based Ads Preference section, click edit.

Select the button marked Do not show ads based on user interest categories and save your changes.

This does also come with a warning saying that by opting out we may be cutting our own throat by decreasing our earning potential. So, tell me my blogging friends, how will this effect you? Are you happy about it? Will you opt out? Is this another invasion of user privacy?

Edit: I’ve just this minute decided to opt out and have started a poll to see the intentions of others towards Google’s latest escapade.

Doing Paid Posts And Not Getting Google Slapped.

Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 10:51 pm

Comments (75)

I reckon it goes without saying that the amount of bloggers making a good living out of bogging via avenues such as Google Adsense or the various affiliates that they promote is quite minimal when compared to those of us who are plodding along trying to make enough to just cover our hosting and other expenses. The thing that these bloggers have over the rest of us is that they have taken the time to create a physical presence on the blogosphere, which has the added advantage of credibility when promoting affiliates, and the huge number of page views adds to their Adsense, Chitika or other PPC revenue. The question arises as to what we can do to ensure our blogs become more profitable.

The answer is a simple as doing paid posts. This is where we, as professional writers take on various tasks offered to us by advertisers who are willing to pay us to do a post advertising a product or service they are promoting. I did a post rating nine paid to post sites that act as a medium between bloggers and advertisers, something you may consider reading at a later date.

The problem with doing these sort of posts is that the almighty Google absolutely frowns on bloggers who decide to go this route and the punishment meted out to them is that they usually lose their Page Rank. It seems such a shame that we are denied a legitimate way of earning an honest income, but perhaps there are certain methods available to us that will allow us to take on paid posts without alerting Google through its sneaky spider bots. What a lot of bloggers have done in the past is to virtually stand there with their hands in the air shouting “Hey, look at me GoogleBots I’m doing paid posts, so there!” Naturally the bots do the thing they were designed for and report to their master resulting in all those bloggers getting Google Slapped.

The following are some of the steps you should take if you want to do paid posts and still keep your PR.

Disclosure Policy: Whilst it is something you should have you should steer away from those generic policies that are copy and pasted into your blog as well as those auto generated ones that are offered by certain websites. Brian of That’s Right I Said It fame did a post on one such service titled Your Disclosure Policy In Minutes. It’s way better to make one up using your own words than to use these prefabricated ones.
Sponsored Post: Many bloggers use these words to show their readers that the post is sponsored, well I reckon you are highlighting it to Google as well. Perhaps something along the lines of, “This post brought to you from our friends at so and so” would be better and changing it every now and again would also be a good idea.
Hire Me Badges: You’ve seen them, bloggers proudly portraying to the world that they are for hire, which is fine if you don’t mind being Google Slapped, but if you do then do not use these or those get paid to posts badges on your blog.

Ok, that’s my top three methods of laying low and not making it obvious to Google that you are doing paid posts. What are some of the methods that you use?

Bloggers, Overworked And Underpaid

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 1:52 am

Comments (29)

Let’s assume that a bloggers main aim is to utilize his blog to make money, with the sole intention that one day he or she can tell their bosses to go get stuffed, as they now have their very own profitable online business. They dream about the look on their boss’s face when they will one day drop the ‘I Quit’, bombshell.

The trouble is that this dream, for the majority of bloggers, is a long way off and there is a lot of hard work ahead of them. Let’s face it, monetizing the old Blog isn’t as easy as we once thought. So much goes into blogging from choosing the host, theme, affiliates and then to consistently provide quality content in order to build a presence on the Web that will hopefully build into a strong readership.

The problem is that content alone will not achieve this. We also have to become marketers and SEO wizards just so that our blogs will become noticed by the big search engines. This in itself takes a lot of time as we sift through all the information available on the Web, trying all the different things we learn, usually by trial and error, hoping that we will hit on the right mix that will suddenly thrust us into blogging fame and glory.

All this to encourage what we hope to be thousands of daily visitors. Visitors that will provide interaction with our posts bringing even more visitors. In the end the plan is that our blogs become so popular that advertisers will beg for a spot on our blogs. The thing is that until that happens all we can hope is that these visitors will click on our Google Adsense ads or on one of our affiliate links.

The thing is that even after doing all the right things, bringing in all those visitors and getting all those affiliate links constantly clicked, unless the landing page of those affiliates are designed in such a way as to encourage a lead or sale, all that hard work has been in vain. I know, because very few of the thousands of clicks that I have sent to affiliates over my blogging career have actually culminated in a sale thereby earning me money.

Does this mean that it has all been in vain? No, certainly not! It just means that I haven’t yet hit on the right mixture of affiliates. This naturally means more work for me as a blogger, as I constantly strive for that lucky mixture of factors that will finally give me the fame, glory and financial freedom that seek.

Yep, no matter how you look at it, unless you are ProBlogger, we are definitely overworked and underpaid.