AdSense isn’t the unstoppable revenue engine for every eBusiness. Before I am taken out and flogged by the eCommerce pundits — please let me explain what I mean in my defense.

I make revenues from AdSense at a very high click-through rate. I experience high click-through rates with AdSense without resorting to questionable tactics like tricking site users with photos (the AdSense trick and tip dujour).

So my perspective is from one who has made decent income from AdSense to fund aspects of his business like advertising seminars — and outsourcing to his virtual assistants. Yes, AdSense is a legitimate and significant revenue source. However evaluate AdSense with some type of balance.

By now you may have heard about people like Joel Comm’s six figure income with AdSense, or Jason Calacanis of Weblogs being on his way to generating 1 million dollars in AdSense revenue. Google’s Ad revenue sharing affiliate program for publishers certainly seems to be an eSales Nirvana for many webmasters.

But there are obvious and not so obvious times not to use AdSense ads on your sites. Let’s list - examine - and explain them below.

~~~~> 1. On Sales or Mini-sites

This is a no-brainer. If you are trying to sell a particular product that is important to your bottomline, you don’t want AdSense ads distracting your customers from either joining your email list, or hindering your site’s online sales process.

However I do see hybrid sites that are mini-sites or full scale eCommerce sites, with AdSense at the bottom of their pages. This might not be so bad since only 1% - 15% of your site visitors will either buy from you or fill out a form.

The thinking with this approach is you might as well make money from disinterested parties using up your server’s bandwidth.

~~~~~> 2. SEO Business Sites

If your livelihood depends on search engine optimization or marketing for a living you might want to think twice about displaying AdSense Ads on your site. I can tell you this from personal experience. I once was on top of MSN for search engine marketing in my local area. I concentrated on my local area because I found people felt more comfortable hiring an eCommerce consultant locally.

One day my site fails totally out of the MSN index. After intense study I noticed that I obviously had a filter on my site from MSN.

I analyzed all the top ranking sites in MSN and noticed the only difference between me and the other top ranking sites was I had Google AdSense ads on my site. Someone at MSN felt that my AdSense ads, and perhaps to a less extent, my book on SEO, was getting a free ride in the MSN search engine database.

In fact I noticed that there were no sites with AdSense ads for at least the first 3 pages. Plus the sites with AdSense were only using 1 ad unit at the bottom of the home page (there were very few of them in the top 5 pages).

I knew it was strange to not have AdSense ads on the top Internet marketing sites. This prompted me to scan other industries where I noticed the same trend.

Many of the leading SEO gurus have sites that have been banned from the top listings by the search engines. It seems the more visible you become, the more of a target your sites are to the search engine auditors.

Some of my sites are still on the top of MSN with AdSense ads but that doesn’t mean they won’t also be targets in the future.

Let’s face the facts. MSN and Yahoo! have competing ad networks to Google’s, and this competitive situation is rife for a potential backlash against SEO sites with AdSense ads.

Many SEOs will point to exceptions to this position. However you have been warned!

Think about it, how long will MSN and Yahoo! sit back and watch SEO driven websites use their search indexes to fund Google? Did you know SEO in MSN and Yahoo(!) — is much easier to obtain.

Therefore optimized sites are creating an ad sales wealth transfer from MSN and Yahoo into the pockets of Google! It won’t be long before Yahoo! and MSN begin to devalue ranking on AdSense sites in their databases — if not outright ban them.

If you are in the search engine business stay search engine neutral, or create multiple sites for different search engines.

~~~~~> 3. When AdSense Becomes Your Only Business Model

When you become so myopic in your thinking that you build a business solely on AdSense revenue — think again my friend. Why build a business solely on the largess of Google?

I don’t know if your realize it or not, but the sites making the real big AdSense money usually have a following that doesn’t depend on the search engines. Internet mavens like Chris Pirillo or Joel Comm have been on the Internet a while and have followings for their websites. Therefore they can consistently make six figures with AdSense.

These content powerhouses are an asset to Google and not the other way around. But do you think Google is going to sit back and watch just anybody make big bucks off of their top rankings?

If you do a search on most keywords you will notice many of the top ranking sites are news sites, .gov sites, or .org sites these days. The only exception is in industries where these sites don’t really exist like eCommerce industries (clothing, shopping, etc.).

No doubt in most industries you will notice a conspicuous scarity of AdSense sites in the top rankings. In other words don’t bet your future fortunes on AdSense.

An IPO based on projections of AdSense revenue isn’t in the future for the average eBusiness. Think of Google AdSense as supplemental income. Building a business solely on AdSense revenue isn’t just silly — it’s just plain stupid.

About the author:
Kamau Austin is the publisher of over ten websites. See more of his eCommerce and Search Engine Commentary can be found at:
http://www.eInfoNEWs.comand http://www.SearchEnginePlan.com

The biggest problem that most are running into seems to do with getting INTO the search engines. Rankings aside, you need to first get them to index you. Here are the four main ways to assure yourself fast indexing:

Indexing Tip #1:
Never launch a new site with a lot of back links. Build natural links over weeks and months.

Let’s face it, there is no guaranteed method of getting indexed by Google fast, and buying links from high-ranking sites does not guarantees anything either.

The most immediate red flag you should watch out for is your number of incoming links. According to Google, it takes time to get link popularity and sites should not have more than 100 incoming links.

It’s okay to launch with a quality link or two. But beyond that, you are pushing it!

Here is the scoop! It takes 30-45 days for Google to deep index new sites. Instead of sitting around during “sandbox” time, use that period to build a strong set of natural back-links with a variety of sites.
Indexing Tip #2:
Register your domain name at least four months before you plan to launch the site.

No I am not kidding! Whether you agree with it or not, history shows that Google takes older URLs far more seriously than newer ones. So register your domain name as soon as you plan on developing a site.
Indexing Tip #3:
Blog and ping carefully.

Blogging & pinging is one of the fastest ways to get into the Yahoo index - it can literally get you into Yahoo overnight – helps with MSN as well.

Will blogging and pinging help get you into Google? Maybe. But over-pinging can set off red flags on the ping servers, and if you’re using automated blogging software, overdoing it can cause Blogger.com and other services to shut down your blog.

Blogging and pinging intelligently can get your blog indexed in Yahoo quickly, but ping carefully.

Does Yahoo de-index junk blogs? Absolutely. Especially since the creation of all this software, the search engines are watching closely for red flags (use software wisely).

So what can you do about Yahoo Search? Not much… You can be smart about blogging and pinging or even better, you can create real (not by software) blogs. You still have to be careful with pinging though.

In the end, blogging and pinging should be part of every beginner’s indexing strategy.
Indexing Tip #4:
If you build bulk directory/portal sites - keep them in the 200-300 page range.

We know it’s such a blast to build those monster 1000-5000 page sites, even with growing evidence of Google bots’ tendencies to stall after indexing the first 200 pages or so…

So if you’re into blasting out those gigantic directories and sick of waiting months for them to get indexed, experiment with building smaller sites around more targeted niches.

In a nutshell: Divide those mega-keyword lists, spend a little time grouping your sub-lists, and build smaller sites.

All in all, the best way to get indexed, stay indexed and eventually get ranked is to recruit incoming link partners. See, blogging and pinging could be gone tomorrow. But, linking is an integral part of how the internet works – it will never go away.

Concentrate on building sites and recruiting links – the links get you indexed, ranked and even bring you free traffic from those who click the links!

About the author:
Anik Singal is a 21 year old successful internet marketer who has developed his own affiliate marketing system which helped him earn over $10,466 in just 60 days.  Join his FREE Course at:  http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com

Click fraud occurs when ads are clicked for reasons other than a genuine interest in learning more about the product or service advertised. Click fraud occurs in two forms. In one instance, fraud arises from competitors trying to sabotage each other. One competitor clicks on the ads of another just to drain the budget of that company. The other instance occurs when webmasters (or people associated with the webmaster) repeatedly click Google AdSense ads (which are syndications of others’ ads) on their own web pages in order to generate more revenue. While both Overture and Google have developed sophisticated technologies to detect click fraud, their systems are, and may never be, foolproof.

The real question is how much does click fraud actually damage the PPC industry? Gross fraud, i.e., when one person or technology consistently and repeatedly clicks on an ad, aside, which Overture and Google can easily detect, we believe that click fraud has no real impact on the industry. The following explains why.

Efficient market theory says that it is impossible to “beat a market” because prices already incorporate and reflect all relevant information. As the PPC industry has matured, efficiency has begun to take root. That is, the price of each keyword has been driven up to the point where it reflects the highest price an advertiser is willing to pay for a click.

For instance, a book retailer may pay $1.00 per click based on internal metrics. These metrics dictate, for example, that on average 30% of clickers purchase a book and the average profit per sale is $4.00. So, for every 100 clicks ($100 cost), they make 30 sales ($120 revenue) and generate a $20.00 (20%) profit. Note that years ago, the same retailer may have been able to pay only $0.50 per click, but as the market matured and more retailers began advertising, competitive bidding forced the price up to $1.00 where the highest return the most advertisers can make is 20%.

The key point is that click fraud is already taken into effect when advertisers select the highest amount they will bid. For instance, there is no difference whether an advertiser pays $0.83/click for 121 clicks with 21 being fraudulent, or $1.00/click for 100 clicks when there is absolutely no fraud. In either case, the advertiser pays $100 and generates a profit of $20, and Overture and/or Google make $100. What changes is the advertiser’s yield (e.g., the percent of clickers who purchased the book) which in turn effects their highest bid price. That is, with fraud, 30 out of 121 clickers (24.8%) purchased the book, and without fraud 30 out of 100 clickers (30%) purchased it. Without fraud, the bid price in an efficient market will rise from $0.83 to $1.00.

In summary, online advertisers must focus on analyzing and improving their internal metrics (e.g., conversions) and not worry about click fraud as it is already incorporated into keyword bid prices. Hopefully, the frivolous lawsuits and refund requests spawned by apparent click fraud will end as those in the industry recognize this undeniable fact.

——————————————————————————–
About the author:

About The Author:
Tommy Maric is the manager of TopPayingKeywords.com TopPayingKeywords.com is designed to help webmasters maximize their profits using Google’s Adsense™ program. Through extensive research, TopPayingKeywords.com develops up-to-date databases of the most popular keywords and their accompanying bid prices. For more information, please visit http://www.toppayingkeywords.com

Contact:
877-TOP-WORD
(877-867-9673)
info@TopPayingKeywords.com

Why Keywords Are So Important

What is a keyword? The answer is simple… It’s what a user types when they are searching for something they want on the Internet.

If you want to dress up as Darth Vader and buy the outfit online, you could go to Google and search for the merchandise you need. But what would you type? Maybe Darth Vader Helmet? Or Darth Vader Mask? Or would you type Mask + Darth Vader? How about Darth Vader costume or Darth Vader Adult Costume? What if you misspelled Darth Vader?

As an online consumer, chances are you would keep typing variations of what you wanted until you saw what you were looking for. Well wouldn’t it be nice if a company had exactly what you wanted and you saw their ad the first time you typed your query?

As a vendor using Google Adwords, you can’t afford to miss opportunities like this. If you were selling Darth Vader Masks, you sure don’t want your prospect to type Dark Vader Masks and NOT see your ad. Do You?

So, it’s important to load up your Ad Groups with keywords that real people are typing when searching for things online.

How can you anticipate what people will type? Well, there are a few websites that can help you out. Maybe you’ve heard of them: Overture and Google.

Many people are familiar with Overture’s search term suggestion tool. You can find it here: http://inventory.overture.com. It’s a great tool for estimating demand of specific keywords. You can compare the number of searches for one keyword with another and you can also see popular search phrases that contain your keyword.

For example, if you type Darth Vader into Overture. Your results may include: darth vader, darth vader costume, darth vader picture, darthvader wall paper, darth vader helmet, and so on. Plus you’ll see numbers next to each term telling you how many searches were run with that key word or phrase. The numbers may or may not be accurate, but in relation to each other, they give you a good benchmark of which phrase is typed more often.

One of the biggest complaints people seem to have with overture’s tool is that it lumps together singulars and plurals and often alphabetizes the words in a phrase so you don’t know if people are typing “vader helmet” or “helmet vader”. Another complaint is that you are not given any results unless they contain your term (ex. Darth Vader). Therefore, you might miss out on keywords containing a synonym for Darth Vader like Anakin.

To help with what Overture lacks, a lot of people are using Google’s Keyword Tool found here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox. It’s much more specific about the order of words, singulars and plurals AND also suggests related terms that may or may not contain your original phrase. The downfall that most people mention is the lack of numerical data to give an idea of how many searches are performed for each term.

A quick use of Google’s tool provides similar results to Overture, but also includes terms like lightsaber, anakin, comic, count dooku, and sidious.

If you want the best of both worlds in one spot, you can use a tool like WordTracker found here: http://www.theadtool.com/wordtracker. This very useful tool will give you counts from most search engines, distinguish between singular and plural, and offer related terms with their counts. It also provides an index number called KEI to give you an idea on how competitive certain terms are (mostly for organic search engine marketing).

Regardless of which tools you use, it’s critical that you grab hundreds of keyword variations and put them into your ad groups. If you don’t, you’re probably missing out on some very low priced terms and might even be missing out on what everyone is typing when searching. If you know the story of the insurance companies promoting auto insurance instead of car insurance, then you can certainly see the importance of including related terms.

About the author:
Instantly cut your Google Adwords bid prices by 30% - guaranteed! Visit our site to download your free copy of our famous Adwords eCourse. http://www.loweryourbidprice.net/ecourse.php
 

As you probably know, Google is the world largest search engine serving around 200 million requests of information a day at the time of writing this article. With such a large users based, no wonder many internet businesses are currently making use of Google Adwords (http://adwords.google.com) to GROW their internet business.

With a small activation fees of US$5.00, you can start getting high quality traffics to your website. Bidding for Adwords start from a range of US$0.05 - US$100

However, it doesn’t mean that you should rush into Google Adwords without any proper plans.

First determined which MARKETS are you TARGETING and how you want to market your products or services. For e.g. if you are selling an affiliate product, first find out information like:

- is it a global products/services that is available and delivered for every country
- the Language of the Target market
- which countries are internet savvy and more likely to buy your products/services
- is there any payment restriction for e.g. clickbank and paypal both have their countries restriction where payment will not be accepted. You will be wasting your money if you include those countries in Google Adwords.

Next, with the above information collected, you can start to write out your Adwords bidding strategy.

You will burn a hole in your pocket if you just bid for two keywords like [home business]. To lower your cost per
click, try bidding for a combination of words.

For example:
- based business home home make money online work
- make money at home easy home business
- business earn home make money money online work

Bidding for adwords required research, trail and error. Normally, PPC like Google Adwords will have a keywords research tools which allows you to research common search words. Try to think of as many different
combination of words that you think you’ll used to search for a home business opportunity. Also, you can asked your family members or friends what word will they used if they were searching for a home business opportunity.

With the bidding plan in place, you should now think about how you can capture as many email address as you can when the visitors click through to your website. The COST per click is already there and normally, it take a human 7 days to consider before they take any buying actions.

Many PPC Marketers will have either a free ezine or short marketing course with an autoresponder to capture their web visitors email address so that they can follow-up with them.

Finally, monitor your Sales Conversion result for each PPC promotions and check whether are you targeting the correct markets with those keywords which you have bid.

If you plan wisely before embarking your PPC promotion, you can actually maximize your Income against your cost.

Wishing you success in using PPC promotion for your Internet Business.

——————————————————————————–
About the author:

Copyright @ Arthur
http://www.online-internet-home-business-opportunity.com
Choosing a Legitimate Internet Home Businesss Opportunity in a Large and Well-established company with the RIGHT support system is VERY important in building a Profitable Work At Home Business.
 

I’ve always been a big time press release aficionado.

And up until recently I’ve steadfastly taken the low tech route by sending them out via snail-mail. Yeah, I’m a little old-fashioned when it comes to certain things. But long-time habits are hard to break when they produce great results.

Anyway, I was in the midst of launching a new piece of software August 2005. As I prepared to begin my press release prepatory ritual of labeling and stamping envelopes, it occurred to me that since it’s the summertime, and people are always in and out on vacation, perhaps I should give online press releases a spin.

(Okay the REAL reason I wanted to try it is because I was feeling particularly lazy, and I didn’t feel like labeling and stamping hundreds of envelopes. A girl has to get her mandatory poolside hours in before the leaves start falling.)

In the back of mind I kept thinking what a waste of time this online press release thing was going to be. But I decided that it couldn’t hurt… I hoped.

I went through the web sites of around half a dozen press release distributors.

Major fixtures like PRNewswire didn’t give me any toe curling experiences. The price was high and they tend to deal with a lot of corporate press material. My software is geared towards Joe and Jane Q. Public, so I didn’t feel that it was going to be a compatible match.

There were a few press release distributors that specialized in software. And their prices were well within my targeted range.

However I decided against them because most of the outlets they’d be mailing to weren’t within my target audience. I could’ve compiled my own little media list for a lot cheaper.

But that wouldn’t work either. I had a chaise lounge with a slowly fading butt imprint. I needed to fill it up again - STAT. Compiling a list just wasn’t in the cards.

That’s when I arrived at PRWeb.com. I’ve known about this site for several years now. But I’ve never given it much thought, as I really hadn’t heard any super stellar reviews about it.

Now in case you’re wondering, PRWeb distributes press releases in a variety of topical categories. You can submit your release for free. You can contribute up to $80 and get some extra perks. Or you can use their $119 PRWeb Direct service, which gets your release in prestigious positions like Yahoo News and Google News.

I opted for the PRWeb Direct service figuring that’s where I would get the best results.

I wrote my own release, submitted my order to PRWeb, then took out my Troll doll and rubbed him on the computer for good luck.

The next morning I got up and logged into my PRWeb account. They have a stat’s program that tells you how many pageviews your press released has received, and I was curious to see whether I’d gotten 5 or heaven forbid 20 clicks. (I’m such a pessimist at times!)

Well you could have pushed me over with a calm summer breeze after I saw those numbers. At 7:30 am EST my press release already had 40,000+ pageviews. By the end of day, that number had surpassed 96,000.

Did that translate into thousands of dollars worth of software sales? Well actually, it didn’t. But that press release wasn’t my best work. It was good, but not great. Silly me.

However, I did get a nice little surprise.

Two days after the release I happened to be doing some searching on Google using one of the major keyphrases mentioned in my press release. Low and behold, there on page 1 was my press release holding it down in the #5 position.

A similar search at Yahoo showed the release in the #8 position.

The number of keyword optimized sites for my targeted phrase (which is “ebay seller software”) is 24,100 at Yahoo, and 531 at Google. But that’s irrelevant news to me.

The point here is…

#1 - My marketing message made it onto the coveted first page of Google for a nicely targeted phrase. No sandbox. No waiting for my brand, new site to get spidered.

#2 - My marketing message made it onto the coveted first page of Yahoo for a nicely targeted phrase. No trying to figure out Yahoo’s algorithm, rhyme or reason.

#3 - The press release was delivering traffic to my web site BEFORE it even got listed in the top 10 at Google and Yahoo. In fact, the release was featured on many different auction resource and news sites.

PRWeb is what I like to call a Back Road tactic. It get’s you a top 10 rank, without having to go through the usual SEO channels. And it’s probably some of the best traffic you can get, short of somebody clicking directly on your site.

There aren’t many reliable and consistent Back Road’s. This is only the second one I’ve come across that fancies both Google and Yahoo. So it’s definitely worth taking advantage of.

So now back to my original question… Press Release + PRWeb = Top Google Rank… True or False?

True.

Now excuse me while I soak in the slowly diminishing rays of summer. PRWeb has got my back.
About the author:
Alexis Dawes is the author of “Taking The Back Road To Get On Google’s First Page” an electronic report that shows webmasters how to use intermediary web sites like PRWeb to get their marketing message top Google rank. She has been successfully using these tacticssince November 2004. You can get more information at (http://www.Get-In-Google-Now.com). 

If you read my previous article you will know that the goal of these articles is to teach you ways to get started making money online without having to spend any money.

This is the second in the series and this time we deal with having your own blog. There are endless ways of making money once you have traffic, and your blog will get you traffic. The income we will be looking at today will come from Google Adsense.

There are multiple benefits to having a blog including the low cost (or no cost), the resources that will help you get traffic to your blog and the fact that you can provide your blog as an RSS feed. An RSS feed will allow readers to automatically receive your updates into their RSS reader.

Let’s get started with our 6 steps.

1. Set up your blog. You will need to decide what you are going to blog about. You should decide on a theme and name your blog appropriately.

There are a number of free ways to set up a blog & to have it hosted for free. We will go with Blogger.com for our first blog.

Blogger will allow you to set up a blog for free they will host it for free and they will ping search engines every time you update, meaning you will get spidered & found.

Visit blogger.com & click the button on the front page labelled ‘create your blog now’ then follow the step by step instructions that Blogger provide.

Some key settings you will want to get right are:

I) ‘Host your blog at Blogger’ = Yes
II) ‘Add your blog to our listings’ = Yes
III) ‘Ping Weblogs.com’ = Yes
IV) ‘Publish Site Feed’ = Yes

2. Write some content. Before we move any further there has to be some information on the site & that means that you have to make some entries. You can write some of these entries yourself & some can be quotes from sites of interest to your reader that you can post using the Google Toolbar.

You can download the Google toolbar for free at toolbar.google.com. The toolbar includes a Blogger button. When you visit a site that has something of interest to your readers you can highlight the appropriate text & click the Blogger button. The content will then be added to your blog along with a link back to the site.

3. Once you have some content eg a weeks worth of blogging with 1 or 2 entries for everyday, you can apply for an adsense account. When you sign in to Blogger you will see an invitation to join Adsense. Use this link and apply for an account.

You can find out all about Adsense on the Adsense page but basically you get Google ads on your site & get paid if your visitor clicks them.

Google will decide what adverts show on your site based on the content it finds within.

You need to be aware that Google will decline your application if your site is not considered to have content. Nobody outside of Google knows the precise rules on this.

Once you have been accepted you can get some javascript from Google to add to you site. Copy this & then log in to Blogger.

Once you have logged into your blog you will see that one of the tabs across the top of the screen is labelled ‘Template’. Click this. You will need to know a little bit of HTML to help find the right location to paste your Google code. But with a little experimentation you will find the right place for you. See the resource box at the end of this article for more help.

I would suggest that the ads need to be seen when the site loads but should not be too obvious or dominate your site.

4. Write some more content. Try and keep your content coming at regular intervals as a number of directories will check on your site at regular intervals & the smarter ones will visit on a schedule based on your update schedule. They will probably determine this in the hours after you first submit to them. Which is what we will do next.

5. Submit your site to Blog & RSS directories. Because you are hosting at Blogger, Weblogs.com will already be notified when you update your blog. (That means that every time you make a new entry they are automatically notified) You will need to manually submit to the various other directories some of which will require a link on your site to theirs.

You can add these links to your template below your Blogger logo. For a list of directories to get you started visit www.themoneyseed.com/rss

6. Keep writing interesting content. Ideally you want people to come back again and again. As with customers its harder to get a new visitor than to keep existing visitors. So make it interesting, in fact make it so interesting that they can’t help but tell all their friends about it also.

As with most free ways to make money this will take time to get going, but if you can build a following you will make money.

About the author:
Darren Power is the author of The Money Seed, your step by step guide to making money online. For supplimentary information & free resources related to this article visit www.themoneyseed.com/rss

They are the fine men and women who are willing to part with some coin of the realm every time a visitor to your web site chooses to click on an AdSense ad. Google grabs the cash from the AdWords’ member’s account, keeps some of it for themselves, and gives the rest to you. How much they keep and how much give away is a State secret, but who cares; just as long as we’re getting ours each month.

How AdWords Works

AdWords provides pay-per-click advertising to merchants who are willing to shell out anywhere from a minimum 05 .05 per click all the way up to a maximum of $100 per click. Can you imagine anyone paying $100 just to have someone click on an ad?

Anyway, the advertiser joins the AdWords program and gets a control panel similar to the one that we AdSense users get. They can write their ads, pick their keywords, and establish an advertising budget. They get tools to track performance as well as to help them pick keywords. There are no monthly minimum spends required and they can turn their ads on and off at will.

Once an advertiser is happy with their ad, it gets released to the network and shows up on web sites like yours and mine. That’s if the keywords on your site match the keyword requirements of the brand spanking new ad, of course.

They can’t “buy” their way to the top

Google doesn’t simply push the people with the highest paying ads to the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). They use a rather fair methodology that takes into consideration not only the maximum CPC (cost per click), but also includes a secret recipe for determining an ad’s placement based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. So, at least in theory, an ad paying .05 per click could rise above one paying $5.00 per click if it’s more popular with Google’s audience.

I say “in theory” because if the owner of the $5 ad is paying attention then he or she will see that they are being bested by a lowly nickel ad and do some serious rewriting to get back up to the top where they belong.

Personally, I’m not sure that I have the guts to invest a lot of money into hoping that people who click on my ad will actually buy something, since I still have to pay Google whether I make a sale or not. But, as a dedicated AdSense user, I’m sure glad that my AdWords brothers and sisters have more nerve than I do. And you should be thankful as well.

About the author:
Diane provides marketing and internet profit tips.
For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense.deeljeabiz.com
Email : deeljeabiz@gmail.com 
 

One of the most fascinating aspects of the web is its dynamism. We all know that it develops at an astonishing speed - yesterday’s craze is today’s old news, and bigger and better things seem to be springing up every few days. Some of them crumble quickly into dust, while others seem destined to tower above the rest.

Naturally, search engines also follow this pattern. Some of the early search engine giants remain with us today, but many of them are gone - and every so often, a new champion seems to emerge. Recent years have seen the growth and development of a search engine that puts all others to shame. It might have once stood at the same level as its rivals, but there is no doubt that for now at least, Google rules the web.

Many of the companies we work with see more traffic from Google than all the other search engines put together, and there are more than a few Search Engine Optimisation services who focus almost exclusively on this one engine.

What is Google’s secret?

So why is Google so successful? The answer is simply that when a user goes searching on Google, they’re likely to find what they’re looking for, and more quickly than on any other search engine. Exactly how Google manages to do this is trickier to answer, as they tend to guard their secrets well. They don’t want us to know too much about how they determine their search results, simply because they don’t want anyone to be able to manipulate their own ranking.

Of course, human nature dictates that many of us aren’t satisfied with this. We desperately want to be able to affect the ranking of our sites, and some of us will go to great lengths to do so. We work hard to find the perfect keywords, tweak our meta tags and optimise the content of our site to what we hope is Google perfection.

But recently, a new word has entered our vocabulary, and is surrounded by so much hype that very few people actually have a realistic understanding of what it is - or what it isn’t. PageRank is where the attention is focused today, and many companies are determined to find a means of improving their magic number. “I want to be an eight,” they say, as if PageRank was a dress size that they could grow into with the help of some heavy-duty calorie shots. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as that.

So what exactly is PageRank? There’s a surprisingly simple answer: it is Google’s way of estimating how important a web page is. On a basic level, Google decides that if one page links to another, the second page must be considered important. If one page on one site has 15,000 pages linking to it, it must be for a good reason, right?

Page Rank is about pages, not websites

Let’s begin by straightening out a few basic points. First of all, PageRank is assigned on a page-by-page basis. A whole website does not have this score, and different pages within a site can have very different PageRank values assigned. Another important point is that the rating (out of ten) assigned is essentially little more than an approximation of a given page’s PageRank. The actual values cover a far greater range than zero to ten.

Before going any further, we should take a look at the most important point of all, often overlooked when we get caught up in the PageRank frenzy. PageRank is only one factor that Google takes into account when displaying the results of a search. There are still other factors of equal significance in performing well on Google - so don’t make the mistake of thinking that you would live happily ever after if your PageRank was a little bit higher. Other factors include a page’s title, and the use of keywords within the page’s text - not in the keyword meta tag.

PageRank is still one of Google’s more ingenious strategies, and is certainly one of the many reasons that it stands head and shoulders above the rest. Partly, this is due to a combination of two factors. Firstly that the very nature of PageRank is difficult (but not impossible) to manipulate, and secondly that the exact details of how the value is assigned is a closely guarded secret.

However, there is one very useful source of data - an academic paper detailing the formula used to calculate PageRank from Google’s early beginnings as a university project. This formula will have certainly been altered and expanded over the years, but it is generally accepted that it still represents the essence of their PageRank system

The Page Rank Formula

The exact details are lengthy, and far beyond what I am capable of dissecting. But the basic formula is as follows:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ….. + PR (Tn)/C(Tn))

PR(A) is the PageRank of a particular page (A) - not a website as a whole.

1-d is the dampening factor, as explained below.

PR(T1) is the PageRank of the page that links to our (A) page, and C(T1) is the number of links contained on that same page.

The formula is repeated throughout every single page that contains a link to this (A) page.

Two important points to take into account. First of all, if you’re thinking that the formula would in practice be an infinite loop, then you’re correct. This is the very nature of the web itself, and is also why Google has introduced the so called dampening factor.

The second point concerns the way that PageRank is awarded by one page to another. The generally accepted means of understanding this is to consider that a given page has, according to its own PageRank, a certain amount of voting power. If the page in question links to five other pages, then each of the pages being linked to receive their PageRank “award” of one fifth of the original page’s voting power. It’s also worth noting that the number of links on a page includes a website’s internal links.

Link farms don’t work

This makes it quite obvious that the so-called link farms, where each page of a website contains many hundreds of links in an attempt to artificially boost so called “link popularity”, are doomed to fail from the start. In addition to this, Google has its own system for not only minimising the effect that these sites have, but eliminating it altogether. As the formula shows, PageRank works as a multiplier of a site’s overall value, so Google has made sure that link farms have their own value of zero - which means that a link from them counts for nothing, quite literally.

There is a scare story doing the rounds which claims that being listed on link popularity sites, or for that matter any site with a large number of links, can get your site penalised or even banned from Google. This is simply not the case. If it were, you’d effectively be able to wipe-out your competition’s Google presence with one afternoon’s work. It doesn’t work that way.

Having links to your web pages on sites with a low page rank and a large number of links means that the benefits are quite effectively minimised to zero. But this will not detract from your current PageRank at all.

Obviously, what people really want to know is whether PageRank can be manipulated. In the past it was often considered impossible to do so, but nowadays this is not always the case. There are two simple factors involved:
Firstly: who links to you, and how they choose to do so. Secondly: your own website’s navigation and internal links.

Clearly, the sheer number of pages linking to you will not influence your PageRank. Of far greater importance is the PageRank of each of these pages, and how many links appear on them. Common sense certainly needs to be applied here. In theory, one simple way to improve your PageRank might be to have Microsoft link to you from the front page of their website. In practice, this might be a little difficult to achieve.

It is already quite clear that linking out to another website, even if it opens in a new browser window, actually involves potentially giving away a lot more than a little space on your website. My advice would be to look at your link exchanges as you would your food. You always want to make sure you’re not leaving yourself hungry, and if you do choose to share, be selective. Exchanging a piece of your sirloin steak for a small piece of stale bread, shared between hundreds of people, is far from an even trade. If you’re doing so to help another site, as an act of charity, then this is fine and well, as long as you know what you’re giving away. Choose wisely.

Well-known websites and their PageRank

Now that we have a basic understanding of how PageRank works, let’s take a look at some of the more well-known websites on the web today, and see how their main pages perform.

Finding out a page’s PageRank is couldn’t be simpler. Follow the link to Services and Tools from the Google home page, and find the Google Toolbar. After installing the software, a bar appears at the top of the browser showing a value for each page you’re visiting. Hold the mouse over the bar, and you’ll be told the page’s PageRank - a score out of ten. As already mentioned, this figure is little more than a representation of a page’s actual PageRank.

Not surprisingly, very few pages score ten out of ten, and those that do includes the likes of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google itself, AltaVista, Adobe, AOL, Mozilla.org and others. In other words we’re looking at the biggest of the biggest websites - and not something that most of us could ever hope to achieve!

Of course, there is a simple reason that search engines and directories have such a high PageRank. Not only do they link to a huge, ever-growing list of sites and pages, but more importantly, a truly staggering number of these sites and pages link back to them. When you consider the importance of reciprocal linking, you start to understand why they do so well. With Adobe, you only need to consider the sheer number of web pages out there that link to a PDF file (with links to Adobe for their free reader software), and you will see why they have achieved such a high number.

A nine out of ten score still puts you within a very small minority of the web. Should you be able to achieve this high a PageRank, you’ll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of MSN, BBC News, Winzip and Internet.com. We’re talking about the web’s upper classes here - not really attainable for the majority of normal website owners.

Eight out of ten starts bringing you to the “reachable” web. You’ll find sites such as CNN, TuCows, Simtel, the Association of Shareware Professionals, the Shareware Industry Conference site and Lockergnome.

A PageRank of seven is starting to appear reasonably attainable, as long as we’re willing to work hard on the content and reputation of our site. The sevens include companies such as D-Link, MSNBC, CNET’s Download.com and our very own SharewarePromotions.com.

Don’t lose your perspective!
At this point, a little perspective might be in order. A critical point to remember is that PageRank only plays a part in performing well in Google. PageRank’s primary aim involves ranking the results of a search - but in order to show up in the search to start with, your site needs to be properly optimised and have good, solid content. So contrary to popular belief, the era of Search Engine Optimisation is far from over. It’s only had a new, interesting factor thrown into it.

Finally, a note of caution. This article has been an attempt to very briefly summarise an enormously complicated subject. Aside from constraints of space, much of the workings of PageRank remain shrouded in mystery. The ideas presented are based on available data, known facts, speculation and my own experience - but none of it should be considered as insurmountable fact!

PageRank is undoubtedly an important factor in how much traffic you will receive from Google. It is, however, merely one component in your arsenal of tools to win the battle for one particular search engine. Even with the constantly evolving web, and the ever-tightening systems employed by the search engines to quantify the usefulness of a website, content is still by far the most important factor, and will invariably form the base on which everything else is built. Be seen, be sold.

About the author:
Dave Collins is the CEO of SharewarePromotions Ltd., a well established UK-based company working with software and shareware marketing activities, utilising all aspects of the internet. http://www.sharewarepromotions.comand http://www.davetalks.com

Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site. And they’ve gone to some work to provide the information you need to optimize your AdSense.

What’s fascinating to me is that apparently not everyone bothers to read their tips. And even some that do, fail to apply it.

That said, you need to be aware that simply using their tips doesn’t guarantee successful ads and decent CTR (Click Through Rate). How many times have you heard this? You have to test. You have to try alternatives and see what really works best for you, on your pages, with your content and your visitors. Test, test, test some more. Track your results, analyze them, try variations. Too many of us don’t test. We hear the mantra, but we don’t do the work.

First, let’s see if we can get an idea about location. (The graphic is included in the article on my site or you can take a look at it at the Google link included below) Generally, above the fold, at the top center of your content, below top navigation is the hottest location. Not immediately below which is good but not quite as hot. In a left sidebar, to the immediate left of primary content or below the primary content are also good. Most other locations are generally cooler.

Again, you need to test and you need to consider your users behavior - and their behavior may vary on different pages with different kinds of content. Google suggests that in some cases, such as articles, the best location can be at the end of the article. To quote Google, “It’s almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, What can I do next?” Well targeted relevant ads right there can provide the answer.

Don’t blindly assume that sticking a nice big rectangle in the center above the fold will do it. It may, but depending on your content, it may annoy or inconvenience your users.

Users tend to focus on content, navigation and to a lesser extent graphics. Positioning your ads near these elements will often work well — if those ads are targeted to your visitors needs.

The top three performers among the Google ad formats are the 336X280 large rectangle, the 300X250 inline rectangle and the 160X600 wide skyscraper. Google reports that the wider formats tend to do better than the taller ones. One reason may be that these are, perhaps, easier to read since they have fewer line breaks and require less eye movement. But, you need to use formats that fit your pages well. Once again, you need to test, but redoing your pages to suit a particular ad format may not be a reasonable alternative and you may discover that a different format actually gets better results.

Now we come to color. Conventional wisdom says that colors which tend to blend into your content do better. Some go so far as to suggest that colors which make the ads look like part of the content are best. Personally, I think anybody really believes those ads are anything but ads, but who knows. Google suggests that you may find that colors that standout from your content do better - or maybe the opposite. This is absolutely an area where you need to test alternative color schemes. Going with the conventional wisdom usually works fairly well, but without testing you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Google allows you to have up to three ad units and one link unit on your pages. If you have long pages with lots of text, can only use small ad units or are in a niche with a large ad inventory, multiple units can pay off. Keep in mind that the way ad serving works is that the higher value ads are delivered to the first ad unit block encountered in your code. Always make sure that this first ad unit is displayed in the best location (yeah - test). You want the higher paying ads to be in the prime hot location on your page. Weaker locations can get the lower priced ads. And if none are available, then nothing will display unless you’ve included an alternate ad URL in your Google code. To maximize monetization you should be including alternate ad URLs, especially if you are putting multiple units on a page. The use of an alternate ad URL also eliminates the possibility of being served PSAs (Public Service Announcements). It’s your real estate, maximize your returns.

Nothing here is secret. Except for using the alternate ad URL, all of this information is available from Google’s Optimization Tips page - http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html . You can buy books and courses, visit a dozen forums and, in the end it comes down to what your visitors do on your site. The best you can get is general guidance. This means averaged outcomes over many sites, many types of content. If you are serious about doing whatever you can to really optimize your AdSense returns, there is only one thing to do - test. Whether it’s AdSense, opt-ins, copy, headlines - anything with a measurable outcome that you can track - then the way to improve is to test and keep on testing.

About the author:
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com- and you can find more articles at http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles.