Adsense Versus Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are often compared by looking at the EPC – earnings per click.
However, if you want to compare affiliate programs commissions with AdSense earnings, a more precise way is to calculate the payout you receive per 1,000 page views (CPM).
Here's how to calculate your CPM:
Let's say you earn $180 in affiliate commissions from 30 thousand (30,000) page views. $180 divided by 30 = $6. You have a CPM of $6. Not very inspiring, but not uncommon.
The AdSense stats disply the effective CPM you earn.
Remember, AdSense doesn't have to replace your affiliate commissions. You can earn affiliate commissions AND AdSense commissions from the same page.
If you have a very efficient site with a high conversion rate, AdSense may not be right for you – or perhaps it would be suitable for SOME pages, but not others. Remember, the more choices you give people, the more likely you are to confuse them.
However, if you're creating a large information site, or if you have a site that does not have a brilliant conversion rate, AdSense could prove to be a very profitable addition to your site

Google AdSense Penalties

Google AdSense penalties list is pure guess. None of them may even exist. This speculative content is for general use, to help you stay out of problems. There is no guarantee that this information is true. Use at your own risk.

1. Public Service Ads

Public service ads or PSAs are displayed when google adsense bot could not find proper ads for your website content (keywords). This adsense penalty is temporary and is easily fixable by infesting more keywords. You won't get any email notification reporting lack of keywords, but its easily understandable from the ads shown on your site. Always non-profit organizational ads are displayed in such conditions.

2. Ads Blocked Due To Content Violations

This Google AdSense penalty occurs when the pages containing adsense ads are not complying with adsense program policies. Hence ads on those pages are blocekd after delivering an email notification. This adsense penalty is fixable by modifying your webpages and sending appology email . Your pages will be reviewed and ads will be allowed again.

3. Account Disabled : Banned From Google AdSense

This is the highest rated adsense penalty, as a result of fraud / invalid clicks. Your adsense account will be terminated permanently for being against google terms and conditions. You will get an email notification saying your adsense account is disabled because of fraud / invalid clicks. This will also result in loss of your earnings. You are banned from google adsense for life.
The only solution in such situations is to apply for adsense with new domain, new user name, new address and possibly from new IP.

Prohibited AdSense Usage

Google AdSense Prohibited Usage list is pure guess. None of them may even exist. This speculative content is for general use and to help you stay out of problems. There is no guarantee that this information is accurate and true. Use at your own risk !
1. As publisher, you are entitled NOT to visit your sponsers.
2. Do not use proxy servers while logging into adsense account.
3. Do not use proxy servers to click your sponsers ads.Google knows every webpage on the web. Same happens to the proxy servers.
4. Do not encourage anyone to click the ads.
5. Do not click repeatedly on ads.
6. Do not click same ads more than once in 24hrs.
7. Do not use any artificial methods to increase page impressions to normalize your CTR.
8. Do not use any other kind of contextual ads on same page.
9. Do not use any artificial clicking tools.
10. Do not label the ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements."
11. Do not infringe any adsense terms or policies. If you have a problem ask them first ! Adsense Team is very helpful.
12. Do not use cafes / browsing centres to click the ads. Google knows the your IP, IP network, ISP and even the geographical location.

Maximize AdSense Revenue

There are many factors that impact the level of revenue generated from your site using the Google AdSense program.
Here is a simple equation that illustrates how the factors each contribute to Adsense revenue.
AdSense Revenue = Traffic + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Customized & Well Placed Ads
Each of the above four elements contribute directly to the total revenue that your Adsense Ads will produce. Don't just work on one of them though because if any one is weak it will hold your potential earnings back.
Getting More Traffic
Traffic - The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them. And it is obvious that your earnings climb up!
Lets see what are the factors necessary to increase your web site traffic.
Quality, Interesting, Useful and Original Content -This is the primary factor every webmaster should be aware of. If the content of your site is same as many other sites in www, you get hardly any interest from visitors. My advice is that create a site that is unique in content.
Update Frequently - Visitors may not comeback if you have n't updated your website frequently. This is important if you are running a site on most dynamic information.
Optimise for Search Engines - Search engines gives you free advertising. Construct your site such that its higly ranked in search engines. If you are unsure about the SEO techniques, you can hire some SEO people to optimize your webpage.
Add a signature to your outgoing email - Learn a lesson from Hotmail who have used signatures on the bottom of their users emails for years to promote their home page and generate interest in their product.
Get involved in other web forums - Forums are the best places to advertise your site. You can add your site as forum signature. If you are an active member in similar themed forums, you will get targetted traffic.

Recommended Web Design Tips

Here are some ideas on how to achieve greater revenue by designing the site :
If you're starting a fresh designing a site specifically for Adsense revenue, you'll want a simple design that makes it easy to paste Google's code into a horizontal or vertical space on the site. For experienced webmasters, that's easy.
To increase your click-throughs, design a simple, uncluttered page with the AdSense ads displayed prominently.
Use white space, so that the AdSense panel catches the eye.
Stick to only one topic per page – that should make it easier for Google to serve up highly relevant ads on your pages.
Plain, bland pages with few competing hyperlinks result in higher click-through rates on the AdSense ads.
If you want to target certain high-priced keywords, use them in the file name, in the heading on the page, and in the first paragraph – in other words, use search engine optimization techniques.
If you change those keywords, Google will change the ads that appear on your page.
Watch out for cases where Google has guessed wrong, and is displaying ads that won't interest your visitors. Figure out which words are involved, and rewrite those words. Help Google by sticking closely to the topic.
Don't worry about losing traffic via those clicks. If you can earn maybe 30 or 50 cents or more per click, you WANT to lose visitors!
You'll also want keyword-rich pages, optimized to rank highly in search engines, so you can serve lots of pages.
Where possible, use ads high on the page. They catch visitors' attention.
Experiment with borderless ads high on the page.
Try using ads at the top of the page and again at the bottom. At first, this wasn't allowed but AdSense changed the rules and it's now OK.
One of the beautiful things about AdSense is that you can now generate revenue from informational sites even if there are no obvious related affiliate programs. With 100,000 advertisers, there's a good chance that Google will find ads that match your pages, better than the big ad networks can.

Adsense DisAdvantages

Irrelavant Ads : One problem is irrelavant ads. You don't want junk advertised on your site. You can filter out 200 URLs, but in some cases that won't be enough.

AdSense Stats :

The stats Google supplies are inadequate. They're easy to understand at a glance. However, they don't tell you which ads people are clicking on, or which keywords are involved. That's frustrating.

Ads by Google :

The ad panels say "Ads by Google" – free advertising for Google. You don't earn anything if someone clicks on that link.

Minimum Payout :

The minimum payout is $100, which is regarded as too high by sites which don't receive much traffic. That won't worry experienced webmasters.

Confidentiality :

Another disadvantage is that Google doesn't want you to share stats with other webmasters. The AdSense Terms and Conditions say:
"Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: ... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to you by Google..."

Google God :

A big disadvantage of the service is that Google doesn't say how much its AdSense partners will receive. You have to treat Google as a god and obey whatever it says. You can accept the unknown share of this income.

Google says:

"How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks."Fraud Clicks : You may receive fraud clicks outside your network sites. As anyone's AdSense ad code can be retreived by viewing source of any page, it is possible to do fraud clicks on any competetor's ad code from any other spam sites.

Strict AdSense Penalties :

If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed.

Showing Competetor's Ads :

AdSense ads have a drawback of displaying competitor ads on your website. There is an option of filtering out the competitors' ads by specifying their site URLs, however, this requires a manual process of weeding out all the competitor ads by locating the correct URLs (using both http:// and http://www) and setting them in AdSense.

Dilution of Ads :

From Sep2 2004 onwards google allowed upto 3 ads per page. But the result of this move was not fruitfull for website publishers. All publishers who used multiple ads found thier revenue decreased drastically. More ads on a page means fewer ads will be highly relevant to that page. Lower relevance means fewer clicks. More ads of lower relevance begins to be anoying to visitors. Anoyed visitors do not click on ads. The strategy, therefore, is to reduce the number of ads in order to increase revenue, not the other way around.

AdSense Advantages

Simple To Join :

AdSense is simple to join. Your site will get accepted if you have original content and if your site is focussed on its subject.

Easy To Implement :

It's easy to paste adsense java script code into your pages.

FREE :

It's free to join. Google approves all websites complying with adsense program policies.

Types Of Ads :

Offers both image and textual ads. Also you can use adsense for search for 'extra' income.

Multiple Ad Units :

Allows usage of multiple ad units . Now 3 ad units & 2 search units can be placed on every web page.

Context Sensitivity :

The ads are all based on your websites keyword rich content. Hence visitors wont get annoyed by the ads, instead they will be compelled to click the ads out of curiosity.

Collapsable Ads :

Your ads get collapsed saving webpage space, if google cannot find a nice ads for that page. This is greatly useful for dynamic websites like forums.

Channels :

You can keep track of all clicks and impressions generated from individual ads using channels.

Ads Optimization :

You are allowed to choose the different color combinations by which ads are appearing on your website. Hence by proper tweaking you can make ads to be appearing as a part of your website content.
One Adsense account for all your web sites. Hence you only need to use the same adsense account for all your websites.

Content Is King :

You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages from advertisers.

Easy To Maintain :

It's suitable for beginners or marketing veterans.
AdSense Stats : AdSense provides simple, easy-to-understand stats. The stats are almost realtime now. You will get the stats with in seconds.

Affiliates :

If you have affiliate links on your site, you are allowed to add AdSense ads. However, with your affiliate links, you must not mimic the look and feel of the Google ads.

URL Filter :

You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for sites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors.

Getting Started With AdSense

Joining AdSense

After you have created your web site completely, go to https://www.google.com/adsense to apply. Most sites are either accepted or rejected within 24 to 48 hours, so you shouldn't have to wait too long to find out if your application has been approved.
Google will review your site before it is accepted into the program. So if your site is too small or does not contain enough original content, it will likely be rejected.
You should have your own domain name . Don't try to create a free Yahoo or AOL site with banners and pop-ups. The freebie web sites have lost a lot of respect over the years, and it may be harder to get your site accepted if it's created on such a shaky foundation.
If you do use a free provider, your site better be exceptionally organized, full of useful content, and cannot have banners and popups all over the place. Free web sites scream "Amateur!" and that may hurt your chances of getting in the program.
Once you're accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you'd like to show the ads. If you've done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page...increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors

Chances Of Getting Rejected

Google has to be very careful about which sites they allow in the program. They don't want to lose the advertiser's dollars.
These are some of the probable reasons making your website rejected.
1) Is your site an "About Me" page? Google does not accept these kinds of personal sites because most of them do not have a specific topic. They are usually just random facts about the web site owner. It would be difficult for Google's technology to display targeted ads on these kinds of pages.
They are looking for "content focused" sites that contain a generous amount of information on a certain topic. It could be anything from sewing tips to hair care techniques. Just make sure there is an obvious theme with original content.
2) Is your site organized? Be sure your site has a neat and clean navigation that's easy to follow. Also ensure all the links work and that there are no typos. Keep the colors to a minimum and make sure each page has a consistent layout.
3) How many pages are on your site? Even though Google doesn't specify a page number requirement, many believe they are looking for web sites with a decent amount of content. Again, it's not likely a two-page site will get accepted. Try to strive for at least 20 pages.
4) Is your content solid? Don't just submit a web site with a bunch of links to other sites. Be sure you have enough original content of your own to make your site unique.
5) Are you receiving enough traffic? Google can get an idea of how much traffic you're receiving by visiting www.alexa.com . There's no solid proof they check on this, but some believe they do.
Plus, if you're not receiving many visitors, it will be hard to make any decent money with this program anyway. Wait until your site is getting at least 100 unique visitors per day, then apply.
6)Make sure you have read the program policy and procedures carefully and verify your site hasn't violated any of the terms or policies.

Adsense Pay Rate

Google does not disclose exactly how much you'll earn per ad clicked. The payment you receive depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular keyword ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I've heard of people earning anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.
So it is logical to believe that the more popular keywords (debt free, money, mp3, etc.) may earn you more since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web. As a result, advertisers generally pay more for these keywords.
In other words, it would be to your advantage to create a site that focuses around the more popular keywords to increase your chances of earning more for the ads you display.
To get an idea of the keywords people are paying the most money for check out high paying keywords list .
Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you've generated that day, week, month, year, etc.
How much you'll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience's interests and of course, the amount you receive per click.
Google pays Web site owners with a monthly check that is sent directly to your specified address.
Keep in mind, the better the ads match your content, the more clicks you'll receive.

High Paying AdSense Keywords

This High Paying Keywords list is obtained from different webmaster forums. None of them may even bear the listed value. This content is for general use and to help you get more out of your websites. There is no guarantee that this information is accurate and true. Use at your own risk !
Note that regional differences exist. The values may differ regionally. Its always recommended to do the research yourself.

Keywords Cost / Click
omesothelioma $84.08
mesothelioma attorneys $80.93
mesothelioma lawyers $69.04
malignant pleural mesothelioma $55.95
Asbestos Cancer $54.17
mesothelioma symptoms $53.66
peritoneal mesothelioma $52.27
trans union $51.91
lung cancer $43.12
search engine optimization $30.19
mesothelioma diagnosis $28.70
home equity loans $20.06
baines and ernst $18.47
consolidate loans $17.74
lexington law $17.68
lexington law firm $16.81
debt problems $16.28
register domain $15.74
home equity line of credit $15.61
affiliate programs $14.33
refinance $14.21
video conferencing $13.63
payday loans $13.21
credit counseling $13.02
asbestos $12.79
debt solutions $12.64
cash loans $12.13
refinancing $12.09
broadband phone $12.08
debt management $11.86
fast loans $11.81
credit card processing $11.75
credit reports $11.59
making money on the internet $11.58
merchant account $11.46
line of credit $11.42
money magazine $11.27
adsense $11.13
credit counselors $11.02
identity theft $11.00
make money at home $10.84
free credit $10.76
cash advance $10.64
consumer credit counseling $10.63
freecreditreport $10.61
make money from home $10.35
free credit reports $10.26
make extra money $10.21
domain registration $10.19
adwords $10.08
citifinancial $10.06
my fico score $10.01
web hosting $09.88
american express credit $09.71
airlines credit card $09.52
credit report $09.52
earn money $09.51
hard drive recovery $09.49
hard money lenders $09.44
credit counseling service $09.44
consolidate $09.41
claims $09.20
debt consolidation $09.10
poor credit $09.09
low interest $08.89
web host $08.64
student credit cards $08.63
secured $08.60
merchant account application $08.59
loans $08.57
send money to india $08.43
discover credit $08.40
merchant accounts $08.39
hosting $08.35
money on the internet $08.34
credit loans $08.33
consumer credit $08.32
money making ideas $08.26
credit card applications $08.23
money lenders $08.10
discover credit card $08.09
money loans $08.08
dept help $08.01
credit card services $08.01
consolidation $07.94
ways to make money $07.84
student credit $07.73
online credit report $07.66
how to make money $07.51
accept credit $07.47
accept credit cards $07.43
student loan $07.43
internet money $07.39
credit repair $07.32
free credit check $07.28
bad credit $07.26
money making $07.21
SEO $07.18
University Degrees Online $07.16
credit card application $07.05
consolidating $07.05
people with bad credit $07.05
car loans $07.05
money fast $07.03
money now $06.88
household automotive $06.76
personal credit $06.73
money at home $06.72
bad debt $06.69
lenders $06.68
auto loans $06.63
making money online $06.61
Point of sale software $06.55
interest credit cards $06.53
credit history $06.53
lending $06.39
business credit $06.32
money to india $06.31
debt $06.17
online credit $06.15
student credit card $06.14
hard money $06.10
webhosting $06.06
credit cards $06.04
make money $05.97
credit application $05.96
online credit card $05.96
chase credit $05.90
interest credit $05.89
equifax credit $05.89
video conference $05.88
credit card offers $05.88
american credit $05.86
credit card fraud $05.82
best credit card $05.82
no credit check $05.79
credit card $05.75
bankruptcy $05.64
best credit $05.59
money market account $05.55
mbna credit $05.54
for credit $05.48
webhost $05.48
pengar $05.47
college credit $05.44
money market accounts $05.43
best credit cards $05.40
credit reporting agency $05.39
credit card debt $05.36
credit checks $05.36
visa credit $05.36
credit check $05.29
secured credit cards $05.26
one credit card $05.25
Credit report $05.24
i need money $05.16
low interest credit $05.15
credit services $05.08
credit reporting $05.06
preapproved $05.04
online approval $05.04
credit card rates $05.02
credit score $05.00

"How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks."Fraud Clicks : You may receive fraud clicks outside your network sites. As anyone's AdSense ad code can be retreived by viewing source of any page, it is possible to do fraud clicks on any competetor's ad code from any other spam sites.

Strict AdSense Penalties

If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed.

Showing Competetor's Ads :

AdSense ads have a drawback of displaying competitor ads on your website. There is an option of filtering out the competitors' ads by specifying their site URLs, however, this requires a manual process of weeding out all the competitor ads by locating the correct URLs (using both http:// and http://www) and setting them in AdSense.

Dilution of Ads :

From Sep2 2004 onwards google allowed upto 3 ads per page. But the result of this move was not fruitfull for website publishers. All publishers who used multiple ads found thier revenue decreased drastically. More ads on a page means fewer ads will be highly relevant to that page. Lower relevance means fewer clicks. More ads of lower relevance begins to be anoying to visitors. Anoyed visitors do not click on ads. The strategy, therefore, is to reduce the number of ads in order to increase revenue, not the other way around.

Adsense Features

The important AdSense features are listed below.

Context Sensitivity,

Google ads are based on your website content. The keyword rich content decides your ads.
Google says :
"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."
Occasionally Google gets it wrong. It places great importance on the file name. So be sure to use important keywords in the file name of each page, such as "contextual-advertising.html" for an article on contextual advertising.

Ad Types,

Google adsense allows you to display either textual ads or image ads or both.
Example Adsense Ad Formats,

Multiple Ad Units,

Google adsense allows upto 3 ad units per webpage. These ad units can be of same kind or different type.
leaderboard (728x90)
banner (468x60)
skyscraper (120x600)
medium rectangle (300x250)

Multiple Search Units,

Google's Search is also available to adsense users in the name of adsense for web search. Google adsense allows 2 search units per web page. Adsense for search can be both as web search and site search.

Relevant Ads Only,

Google adsense is backed by google's unique keyword matching algorithm. Thus the ads coming on your site is based on the keywords in your sites content.

Live Statistics,

From your adsense control panel you can view the live statistics of the clicks, impressions , CPM ( Earnings per 1000 impressions), CTR ( Click Through Rate ), each day's earnings. These statistics are almost real time now. You will get the data with in seconds.

URL Filter,

You can add up to 200 sites to your filter list. The URLs you enter into your filter list can be the actual URL of the website or the URL that is displayed on the ad for that website.

Channels,

Channels provide you with a way to view detailed reporting about the performance of your pages. By pasting channel-specific ad code into any combination of pages, you can track a variety of metrics across your sites. Track your leaderboard performance versus the performance of your towers, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages, by assigning each group of pages to a specific channel and comparing results in your custom channel reports. You can even assign a channel to each of your separate domains, to see where your clicks are coming from.
With up to 50 AdSense channels, plus 50 AdSense for search channels available for each publisher, you can use channels to gain the insight you need to optimize your site's performance. It's easy to add, deactivate, or rename your channels, and customized reports are simple to generate.

Alternate Ads,

Alternate ads allow you to utilize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page. By specifying an image, HTML page, or ad server of your choice, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively, either by targeted Google ads, or by your own choice of content. You can also select a solid color or collapsing ad unit script as your alternate ad, if you prefer not to display other advertisements or content when targeted Google ads are unavailable. Alternate ads count as page impressions like any other ad. Google does not keep track of clicks on alternate ads and you will not receive revenue for them. Alternate ads, if specified, will be shown when there are no targeted ads available for your page.

Collapsing Ad Uni

Collapsing ad units are an optional advanced feature of alternate ads – the collapsing ad unit code will 'collapse' your ad unit so that it takes up no page space if there are no targeted ads available. This allows you to minimize any blank space that would otherwise occur through the use of alternate colors.You will need to host a small HTML file on your domain. Your alternate ad URL will reference this file, which will be called if there are no ads available for that particular ad unit.

Languages Supported

Danish Italian
Dutch Japanese
English Norwegian
Finnish Portuguese
French Spanish
German Swedish

Introduction : Google AdSense

During the summer of 2003, Google introduced a new ad delivery mechanism for website publishers (both large and small) known as Google AdSense. Earlier Google AdWords ads were only available for publishers with more than 20 million impressions per month. AdSense can now cater to small niche website publishers by bringing in content targeted advertisements to their websites
From Google's own words :
"Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant, unobtrusive Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your users are looking for on your site, you'll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages.
It's also a way for web site publishers to provide Google search to their site users, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages."
Currently Google adsense is the best paying & most reliable source of income for webmasters. Adsense program consists display of google ads through adsense for web pages and through adsense for web search.
You can get the adsense preview tool here.

How Adsense Works ?

If you go to Google and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you'll notice some "Sponsored Links" that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for.
These are paid ads from web site owners trying to bring targeted visitors to their web sites. The advertisers pay Google every time their ad gets a click by a web surfer.
Now you can display these same ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it. Every time an ad is clicked from your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.

Why Would Google Give Away Their Money ?

With Google AdSense advertisers are getting more exposure of thier website all over the web. This will help them gaining targeted traffic better than before.
This is also good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their funds are used up. And of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to advertise with them and keep funneling more money into their advertising account. This is a very ingenious way for Google to keep raking in the revenue.
And of course it's good news for you because you're getting paid to simply display a few text ads for free.

GoogleGuy Explains AdSense,

GoogleGuy, an anonymous Google employee who contributes to discussions on the WebMasterWorld.com forums, explains how AdSense will help information sites:
"...sites that provide solid content, especially niche sites that don't want to hunt down their own advertisers, should really benefit ... there's a whole universe of people who ... mostly produce informational sites, and the chance to recoup their costs without much effort is nice. I hope AdSense does encourage more diversity and voices on the web, because now smaller sites can work on what they're interested in – the content of their sites – without worrying very much about the costs of self-publishing information."