History
Google Adsense started before 2001 if I am correct. I dont have much history about adsense. One of the first press releases of Adsense was back in 2000 which can be read here
I do know that Adsense was owned by someone else and google bought it from them.
Motto
So what is the motto of Adsense. I bet you dont know that. I could not exactly find a motto but it would be something like “Earn money from relevant ads on your website”
For what is Adsense
That is the great thing about Google Adsense. It can be used on both blogs and normal sites. You can use Google Adsense anywhere as long as you stick to the terms and conditions which I will come to later.
Where?
Google Adsense can be used in almost any country as far as I know. As long as you stick to one language on the site you have the ads on. I have recently read somewhere that you can actually have it on a site with two languages but just make sure about that.
Requirements
Google Adsense does not require your site to be high ranked or even have any rank. All they want is for you not to break the terms and conditions which again I will come to later in the review.
Payment
Google pays with a check or straigt in to you bank. But certain countries cant get paid in their bank accounts.
Google pays to the following countries in their own currencies:
Google offers this feature to the following countries:
| Andorra |
Euro |
| Australia |
Australian Dollar |
| Austria |
Euro |
| Belgium |
Euro |
| Canada |
Canadian Dollar |
| Denmark |
Krone |
| Finland |
Euro |
| France |
Euro |
| French Guiana |
Euro |
| French Southern Territories |
Euro |
| Germany |
Euro |
| Greece |
Euro |
| Guadeloupe |
Euro |
| Hong Kong |
Hong Kong Dollar |
| India |
Rupee |
| Ireland |
Euro |
| Italy |
Euro |
| Luxembourg |
Euro |
| Martinique |
Euro |
| Mayotte |
Euro |
| Mexico |
Peso |
| Monaco |
Euro |
| Morocco |
Dirham |
| Netherlands |
Euro |
| New Zealand |
New Zealand Dollar |
| Norway |
Krone |
| Philippines |
Peso |
| Portugal |
Euro |
| Reunion |
Euro |
| San Marino |
Euro |
| Saudi Arabia |
Riyal |
| Singapore |
Singapore Dollar |
| South Africa |
Rand |
| Spain |
Euro |
| St Pierre & Miquelon |
Euro |
| Sweden |
Krona |
| Switzerland |
Franc |
| Thailand |
Baht |
| Turkey |
Lira |
| United States |
United States Dollar |
| United Kingdom |
British Pound |
| Vatican |
Euro |
Ad formats
Adsense has many ad formats, you can choose on most of them if you want images only or text only or both.
The ad formats include:
728×90 Leaderboard
This is mostly used on top or below content. Like in the header of a site. Most people dont use this in their content and is great to fill those empty gaps.
468×60
Some people claim that this is the second most money making ad format but my experience is different although I do use it. This ad format can be used on most pages since it fits in anywhere. I would say this is mostly used close to titles. That is where I see it most at least. If this format is nicely blended you can make good money with it.
234×60
I personally have never used this format but I see it often on blogs. I have no idea how much money this format makes though. It looks good on sites with a wide sidebar. Or at least a sidebar bigger than the ad format. Also should make lots of money by making it look more less the same colours as your content to make it blend in.
120×600
This ad format is mostly used in sidebars, but I have seen sites with no sidebars then they use this ad format right next to their content and makes it look as if the site has content on the side which also makes it easier for users to click on. Personally I like the bigger one but this one seems to make more money on certain sites.
160×600
As I said above people claim this one makes less money but I do prefer it above the 120×600 ad format as it fills those open spaces. But sometimes open spaces can be good and make your site to not look like a ad cluttered site.
336×280
I have never used this one so I cant realy say much about it.
300×250
This is by far the best ad format to use with Google Adsense. Almost all experienced Adsensers say this makes the most money and I have to agree on that. If you blend it in nicely before or after you content it makes the most money. I have a site where people just pass through and embedding this between the title and the content makes a good sum of money monthly. I guess if i would recommend a format to choose from this would be it. You can use it almost anywhere and it will still make a nice amount of money if the traffic is there.
250×250
I have not seen many people use this before but it goes well on blogs with a bunch of 125×125 ads. Putting it on top or beneath helps this one stand out good. Or you can use it to make the text go around it in content. People seem to open these in new tabs if it has a good ad in it while reading the rest of your content but if you respect your readers and like to keep their attention its better not to do that. Well according to me at least.
200×200
This is another ad format they give you the option of choosing. I have not used it before.
125×125
Sometimes you have a double side bar with all your affiliate marketing places and 125’s filling the space but then you have a gap. This is great for filling those gaps although I am not sure if that counts as making Google ads look like the other ads which is against the terms and agreement.
180×150
I have not used this one before.
Program policies
If you dont care about other things you should read at least the terms and agreement. If you dont know this you can get your Google Adsense account banned. I see the terms and agreement as the most important part because you can get your account blocked if you dont listen to the Google.
1. Invalid Clicks and Impressions
This is obvious as invalid clicks or clicks by by bots or people that dont really want to read the content of the ad they clicked on gives Google Adsense a bad name and costs the advertisers a lot of money and no business.
2. Encouraging clicks
This is obvious
3.Site Content
Now this is the interesting stuff. The content is one of the biggest reasons you adsense account might get banned. Many people claim that their adsense has been banned but they did not have any offensive content.
Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization.
Interesting enough I have seen many sites that have adsense that does these things so I dont think they feel so strong about this one. The word advocacy means “the act of pleading a cause” So you cant really expect everyone to say good things about just everyone. Actually this doesnt make sense why you may not use advocacy against people. I can understand the Violent content, racial intolerance thing but the advocay?
Pornography, adult, or mature content
You shalt no question google!!. Yeah anyway. This can be debated what is mature or not but Google is not into debating so they will just get your account banned. No nudies people. Although I have seen tons of sites with pron that use adsense
Some obvious ones like
- Hacking/cracking content
- Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
- Excessive profanity
are understandable till you get to:
Gambling or casino-related content
which by the way I only noticed until now. I have done tons of reviews for other companies about casinos and they all have adsense next to them. This is bad. I should probably take em all off. I hate doing reviews for Casinos anyway. So there you go.
And back to some normal ones like
- Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
- Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
- Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
- Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
- Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
- Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
- Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others
till we come to this one again:
Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site’s search engine ranking, e.g., your site’s PageRank
So I hope SEO does not count here, what else could they mean though? You write content after all with SEO in mind and you construct it to increase your Pagerank. Maybe they mean something else here. But they could apply it to having your content to SEO’d.
Next Google Law:
Copyrighted Material
This one is with much controversy since most sploggers steal blog posts to create the obvious splog. They use copyrighted content and steal that stuff you worked so hard on. That really makes me mad sometimes. Google does nothing to people who break copyright laws. Well they do nothing until you send them the DCMA letter which I have no knowledge of.
Site and Ad Behavior
As they clearly state “Sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate and should not contain excessive pop-ups. AdSense code may not be altered, nor may standard ad behavior be manipulated in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google.”
So here are some normal rules about site and ad behavior
- Sites showing Google ads may not contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation, change user preferences, or initiate downloads.
- Any AdSense code must be pasted directly into webpages without modification. AdSense participants are not allowed to alter any portion of the code or change the behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads. For instance, clicks on Google ads may not result in a new browser window being launched.
- A site or third party cannot display our ads, search box, search results, or referral buttons as a result of the actions of any software application such as a toolbar.
Until we get to: No AdSense code may be integrated into a software application. I guess this does not count for CMS such as Drupal, Wordpress, or Joomla. Here I take it they mean software that runs on your computer. Such as freeware or any other Linux, Mac or Windows program.
Ad Placement
- Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
Sample of a ad unit
- A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
- Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.
- Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.
Sample referral unit
- AdSense for search results pages may show only a single ad link unit in addition to the ads Google serves with the search results. No other ads may be displayed on your search results page.
- No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed in a pop-up, pop-under, or in an email.
- Elements on a page must not obscure any portion of the ads.
- No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.
This means that you may not place google adsense on login pages or page not found pages. They will remove you from internet planet if you do.
- No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.
Now this sounds like a slog to me. Splogs are made specifically for the purpose of showing ads.
I guess I can continue this some other time. Now for some great Adsense links. These are other blog posts about Adsense that I think is worth the time to read.
Problogger has a entire archive of adsense
This is old but still useful
DoshDosh has a entire section for adsense tips and tricks
100 tips on adsense
Smashing Magazine has google-adsense-facts-faqs-and-tools/
Seobook has AdSense vs SpamSense: AdSense Tips and Linkworthy Content
100 adsense tips no2
This one is not that useful but its funny cause its on Yahoo answers
http://uphook.blogspot.com/2006/04/getting-most-out-of-adsense-top-10.html
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Thank you for reading.
If you wrote something great about adsense you can add it in the comments
