Affiliate - Google Adsense

The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort. However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs. Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engine's clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue. An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.

A Healthy Alternative
Google's Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results. This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Google's spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the website's content. While the Google's Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.

The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage. If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral.

The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity. A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the website's color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.




The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don't fit well into the overall website design. Sample modified to match sites color scheme: http://www.hospital-software.com (scroll to the bottom)

Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors. Sample of poorly targeted ads:http://www.real-estate-supply.com

Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless.

Sample of effective Adsense program:http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom) http://www.small-business-software.net (scroll to the bottom)

Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems. They simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day. Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click. Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.

With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser. Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on the website. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website.

Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs don't exist that target the sites content.

Give it a Try
Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters. Consider supplementing content and see what happens.

Adsense E-Guide

There are few common mistakes on Google Adsense. If you plan to start a Google Adsense method to earn online, make sure you read this before you start your Adsense journey...

1. Clicking ads on your site. This is the most and biggest mistakes. The easiest way to get your account banned.
2. Editing adsense codes. You are not allowed to edit the adsense codes you obtain from your adsense account. It is also advised to make the color changes etc from the adsense account itself instead of editing it from the codes. This is to avoid the possibility of mistakes.
3. Placing more ad units than allowed on a page. Only 3 ad units, 1 link unit, 2 search tabs, 4 different referral buttons are allowed on a single page. It should always be made sure that all your pages are within the allowed list.
4. Using other contextual PPC ads together with google ads. You are not allowed to display other contextual ads on a page which is showing google ads. Google ads, YPN ads etc are examples of contextual ads. Amazon ads are examples of non contextual ads. However there is a debate on whether amazon's omakase is contextual or not.It has been informed by adsense support that Amazon ads can be displayed on the same page with google ads.
5. Labeling ads with texts other than "sponsored links". Only the above mentioned two labels are allowed for google ads. I have seen that some publishers uses labels like "sponsors" "links" "links of interest" "click here for more info" etc. I can assure that these are against adsense TOS and can get your account banned.
6. Disclosing your adsense reports data to public. You are not allowed to disclose anything other than your aggregate earnings to others. I have seen many people copying data from their reports and pasting with their questions on different forums. Everyone must know that this isn't allowed at all.
7. Placing direct download links for music or video on your adsense site. According to adsense TOS, no link on your site should directly lead to audio or video result.
8. Too many entirely different topics on a single site. This mistake won't get you banned but this can make it difficult for you to get relevant ads.
9. Not updating your site often enough. This also won't get you banned but will affect your earnings and traffic. A site which is updated regularly will be getting a lot of return traffic and the ads will be changing from time to time thus the chances of same ads appearing for too long and people becoming not interested in clicking on the ads is reduced.
10. Not blending ads with your pages. To get a good click through you should make ads look like a part of your site and not as an alien from mars.
11. Setting up the payment hold for too long. Adsense is very strict about click fraud and they can ban any account if they detects fraud clicks.Once you are banned they won't pay you the money you earned before you was banned. So it is not a good practice to set up a payment hold for too long a time interval.
12. Not checking your adsense reports at least once a day. If you don't check your reports regularly you won't know when something suspicious happens on your account. If you are checking it regularly you can write to adsense support whenever you find something suspicious and it can save your account from getting banned.
13. Not reading adsense TOS and PP carefully. If you haven't read it yet go read it now. Its a must for every adsense publisher.