New rule for how many AdSense ads per page - from Jan-2013

This Quick Tip describes a new rule that AdSense is introducing to their terms and conditions, about how often the new 300x600 ad unit can be used on a single page.

Recently AdSense introduced two new sizes of ad-unit, the 300x600 Large Skyscraper and the 300x50 mobile-banner.

These aren't available from the AdSense add-a-gadget or ads-between-posts options in Blogger - but once you've been fully approved for AdSense, it's easy enough to add them to your blog by getting the code from AdSense, and installing it to Blogger the same way you install any other 3rd party code.

Personally, I like the 300x600 - it looks much more natural in several of my blogs, because it's more like the other things in the sidebar. Many of the ads it is showing at the moment are text-ads, because advertisers are still developing image-ads in the new size.  But even the text ads look better, especially in sites where I am trying to blend ads with other content. (Believe it or not, I have one niche where many of the ads work the way Google originally thought of them, providing additional information that is genuinely useful to my readers.)

But you can have too much of a good thing.

AdSense have always had a rule that each screen should have no more than

• 3 ad-units and
• 3 link-units.

Now they have announced that from 10 January 2013, the rule is that each screen can have no more than

• 1 300x600 ad unit
• 3 ad-units
• 3 link-units.

This isn't a big issue for me, but obviously there are some publishers who have taken the p*** and devoted "too much" of their screen-real-estate to ads.

Notice that there are no changes to the rules about how many ads you can show from other advertisers and affiliate programmes.

Limiting AdSense ad types for individual websites is now available

This quick tip is about a new feature that AdSense have just announced, which lets you control the types of ads that are banned - by website, instead of just for your entire AdSense account.

For a long time, I've recommended that Blogger-users who use AdSense should:

• Protect their account from malicious use, and 
• Stop sexual-content ads from showing to be sure that they meet Blogger's Terms and Conditions.

The second of these steps is basically about telling AdSense not to show certain categories of ads on your blog. One of the bug-bears with this is that, until now, it's been all-or-nothing:  you could ban ad-categories from either all your sites or none of them.     For example, one of my sites is likely to be visited by people who are unhappy with the idea of dating agencies using suggestive photos of young women in the ads.   Until now, I've had to ban this category from all my sites, to be certain that they weren't show on the sensitive site. But now AdSense have announced that they support site-level blocking:  this means that you can tell them not to show particular categories of ads on certain sites, but leave them on others. To use the feature, you will need to

• Tell AdSense what URL / domains / web-addresses you manage (if you haven't done it already) and then 
• Set up blocking for individual sites as required.

The good news is that you can still choose "all sites" - and you can block by category from just sub-domains if you want to. It maybe that you cannot use the website-level blocking yet:  Google started rolling it out in AdSense accounts late last week, and it will get to everyone eventually - I don't have it yet myself, but am looking forward to it eagerly.

Simpler - but more limited - AdSense sign-up for Blogger users

This quick tip describes an announcement from Google about an upcoming simplified process for applying to use AdSense on Blogger or Hubpages.

New simpler AdSense application process

Google AdSense have announced that from today there is a change the application process for new publishers who apply to use AdSense through a "host partner site". Currently Blogger and Hubpages are AdSense's "host partner sites" - meaning ones where the "host" provides internet space to store the monetized content, rather than the content-owner buying the internet space themselves.

They say that

"publishers approved for AdSense accounts via a host partner site will be able to place ads on and earn from policy-compliant content they’ve created on any host partner site. If they then decide to show ads on their own domain, ... they’ll need to complete an extra approval step similar to the application process at www.google.com/adsense."

What this means is that if you sign up for AdSense with a host-partner, you will only be allowed to use AdSense ads on host-partner sites. If you want to use AdSense elswhere later on, then you need to do a 2-step verification process, which involves:

• Applying to become a "full" publisher
• Generating ad code,
• Implementing it on a live page of a non-host-partner site.
• Someone from the AdSense team will reviews that site and the ad in it.

If Adsense approve your other site, they give you permission to put ads on any sites other than host-partner sites (of course they still need to meet the AdSense Terms and Conditions). If they don't approve, you can still put ads onto host-partner sites (ie Blogger blogs or Hubpages pages), but you cannot use AdSense on other sites until you have fixed the problem(s) that stopped you from being approved..

Google have said that these changes don't affect people who are already approved as AdSense publishers - so I won't be able to see their effects first hand.

But I'm wondering if perhaps people who are only approved as "host partner publishers" won't have access to www.Adsense.google.com at all? This would be painful, because:

• The reports on the Earnings tab are not nearly as good as the ones in the Adsense interface.
• Some options (eg showing image-only ads, or re-using custom colour palettes, or accessing new mobile-friendly ad-sizes like 300x15) are not available from Blogger's Adsense ad generator.

Also, I'm wonder if perhaps Google have any plans to pay lower rates to people who they provide hosting and unrestricted bandwidth for?  Nothing has been said, but I can see why they would think this is reasonable.

How to sign up

If the site that you want to put AdSense ads on has a blogspot address   (www.example.blogspot.com), then the only way you can now sign up for AdSense is from Blogger's earnings' tab.

If it has a custom domain, then I don't know if it's possible to use the regular AdSense sign-up process, or if you have to use the Blogger one.

Either way, I still recommend that you should protect your AdSense account from malicious use, and also make sure that the ads you display meeting Blogger's Terms and Conditions too.

Google Affiliate Network has a widget for UK Bloggers

This Quick-Tip is about the Google Advertiser Network widget becoming available for Blogger users based in the UK.

Today, Google Advertisers Network announced that their Blogger widget is now available for some Blogger users in the United Kindgom.

You don't control whether you see the widget or not.  If you:

• have an AdSense account, and 
• have linked it to your blog's Earnings tab, and 
• are blogging in an appropriate niche (ie one that Google Advertiser Network has advertisers for), 

then the widget will show up in your post editor (I'm guessing on the right hand panel) when you are editing a post.

I can't see it myself at the moment, so I have no idea whether you can get rid of it, like you can with the Zemanata post-editor gadget.

Actually, I'm wondering how Blogger decides where someone is based, and why it's relevant: one of my blogs is very specific to Ireland (where I live) but gets a lot of interest from the UK - and lots of people from Ireland buy things direct from the UK anyway.  So I could see some of the UK GAN advertisers being quite relevant.

And as I've mentioned before, this gadget makes it easy to put ads into a post.  But if you can see the gadget, you could easily enough put them into a widget (ie sidebar header or footer) by taking the HTML from the post editor's HTML view, and putting it elsewhere in your blog just like any other 3rd-party code.

Stop AdSense showing you the ads you hate the most

A year ago, I planned a trip to New Zealand. I Googled "NZ camper vans" and similar things a few times, found a company and had a great trip (thanks, Jucy Vans)

For about three months after I got back, Google remembered that I'd looked for this and kept showing me ads from other van-hire companies. Not only were they irrelevant (since I wasn't looking for a hire-van anymore), they really reminded me that I in the office on the other side of the world in wintertime, instead of on the beach in the sun at home. This didn't exactly generate warm-fuzzy feelings towards the advertiser (NZ Van Hire, I hate you with a passion .. and you didn't even do anything!)

This was a lose-lose-lose-lost situation:

• The advertiser was wasting ad-impressions showing me ads even though I was no longer in the market to hire a camper-van. And they really annoyed me to the extent that they're unlikly to get my business next time I go home, because I've linked their brand to negaive feelings.
• The publisher - was wasting valuable screen-space showing me ads that there was no chance I would click - so they lost potential income.
• Google: there was no chance that I'd click those ads for something I didn't want any more, so they didn't get a cut of the revenue either.

To help address this, Google are introducing a “mute this ad” icon on AdSense ads. This will let us tell Google which ads we don't want to see.

How will it work:

• A small [x] will be put in the corner of some display ads on the Google Display Network.
• When a website-visitor clicks the [x], sees confirmation page shows, explaining that the advertisement has been "muted", and linking to the Ad Preferences Manager. And after that, ads from that campaign aren't shown to that person in future.

This is being rolled-out over the next few weeks, and won't be applied to all ads to start with. (And I'm describing it based on Google's description - haven't actually seen it myself yet.)

It's not a guarantee you won’t see that ad again -- the ad could be shown by a different company or in a separate campaign. But it's a start.

A new advertising option for Blogger: Google Affiliate Network

If you are already an AdSense publisher, then today's announcment about Google Affiliate Network: Introducing Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger may be of interest.

Google Affiliate Network (GAN) is a different type of advertising programme:  instead of getting paid per click, you get paid per purchase (or whatever other key action the advertiser decides).

So far, it's limited to Blogger users who are based in the USA - presumably because this is where most advertisers are.   It's also limited to "select bloggers" - this seems to mean ones whose blog is a good fit with the available advertisers, and the criteria for "a good fit" is as decided by Google.  This is unlike regular use of the Google Advertisers network, where you apply to a particular advertiser based on your own assessment of the fit.

After you have signed up for AdSense (and, I guess been approved!):

IF GAN options are available to you
THEN they will be shown when you are editing a post, in a gadget that appears in the right-hand Post Settings area.   

This means they will only available from the "new", ie post-Sept-2011 blogger interface.

I guess you will be allowed to copy the HTML code for the GAN advertisement from the post editor, and put it into a regular gadget - since you can put regular GAN adverts into your blog in this way.  But this is a detail that should be checked against their terms and conditions:   as with AdSense, the additional requirements for GAN are glossed over when you are accessing it via Blogger, but I expect that they will still apply.

AdSense for Domains is discontinued

AdSense have decided to stop offering AdSense for Domains - a product that let domain owners show AdSense ads when someone tried to visit a URL that's not currently pointing to any website. (Because, of
course, they cannot use regular AdSense for Content ads on URL like this because the Terms and Conditions say it can only be shown on websites that actually have "real" content.)

There hasn't beean a public announcement (that I've seen), but AdSense publishers who are currently using AdSense for Domains have been getting individual emails about the change, which has these timeframes:

• March 21: Cannot put AdSense on any new Hosted domains
• April 18: Existing hosted domains will become inactive and AdSense advertising won't be displayed when someone looks at them.
• June 27: Hosted domains will no longer be available in AdSense accounts (Meaning we need to have downloaded any necessary information about them before then).

They also say that: "going forward, undeveloped domains will only be served through our existing AdSense for Domains distribution network" - but I haven't yet been able to work out exactly what this means.

To continue monetizing existing undeveloped domains, we need to migrate them to a new domain parking provider - so I'm looking for recommendations for these at present.

There is a Migration Guide: to help people move existing Domains monetized through AdSense to other places here:  http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/5pn7W99IR8ElM3.

For more information see the Help Center: http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/DhXnVfFp9Ihuw4.

AdSense has a new ad-size

AdSense has introduced some new ad-unit sizes.

The mobile banner is 320px wide by 50px high, and designed for mobile applications.    However if you get your ad-code from AdSense (rather than using Blogger's AdSense gadget), it's available to put onto any type of site.  I've put an example of it, and a regular 468x60 banner to show the comparison, at the bottom of the page on this site.

There are also some new widths for link-units:  these are available from Blogger's add-a-gadget wizard too - but as always, if you use this you have only limited formatting control, ie cannot use AdSense color palates and cannot centre the text.

I think that Google are doing some experiments with mobile-ad units (ones with big buttons, and a slightly different look) at the moment:  I saw some when I used a smartphone to look at a non-mobile-enabled site the other day.   Since then, I've enabled the site for mobile access ('cos I discovered that a quarter of the visitors were using mobile devices) - but now when I look at it, the ads inside posts are not mobile, and there are none at the top of bottom (where they were before).    So - no conclusions about what we should be doing at the moment, but I suspect that the best-practise here might be changing.  

Country-specific Blogspot URL may affect your earnings - and other things too

This week, Blogger announced they are redirecting blogspot.com blogs to country specific URLs.

This means that when someone in India looks at http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/, they will actually be directed to http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.in - and similarly for other countries, so far I know it's been applied to Australia and New Zealand too.

This is likely to have affects on other products:

AdSense:

If you have protected your AdSense ID from malicious use (and really, you should if you care about it), then you will find some new entries in your unauthorised sites list:   I just went into mine and authorised

• blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com.au 
• blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.in
• blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.co.nz

and I expect to be doing some more as it rolls out further.   

If I didn't do this, then any advertising "clicks" from people visiting via country-specific-URLs won't be counted.

(Interestingly, I tried using the authorise link beside the unauthorized links on the Home > Account settings page.   It said it worked, but those sites weren't actually added to my authorized list.  I had to add them to the Authorized list and click Save myself.)

Analytics:

I'm not sure yet if this has an impact on statistics gathered with Analytics.   Maybe not - my overall visitor numbers aren't down, and the Visitors > Map overlay tool shows that I've had 79 visits from India today.   

I do have some more checks in mind, but these will take a while to do - comments from anyone who has  investigated are very welcome.

3rd party statistics packages:

I don't know for sure, but would be surprised if this doesn't affect the stats gathered by SiteMeter, StatCounter, et al - at least in the short term.

Search

Nitecruzr has explained how Blogger's use of a canonical statement makes sure that the search engines only index our blogs under one address.

The way to check that you've got a canonical statement in your template is to 

1. View the blog itself  (ie not the template, and not the posts)
   - eg I looked at www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com in my browser, while I was logged off of Blogger.
2. Look at the source code   (in Chrome, I get to it through the "wrench" in the top right corner, then Tools > View Source - or by using Ctrl / u)
3. Check that this line is showing somewhere:    
   <link href='http://yourURL.blogspot.com' rel='canonical'/> 

If that line isn't in your source code, then the quickest fix is to either change to a newer template, or edit your template and add it just underneath the <head> statement.

That's all I can think of for now ... but I have a hunch there's more.    Will post again if I find more issues.

More categories to ban from your AdSense ads

AdSense has added 88 new categories to the list of advertisement-topics that can be blocked from your sites, including apparel, business, family and sports. The may make it easier to keep ads for competitors off
your blog.

You can block a maximum of 50 categories - and there is still no way to block categories by site.

Ref: How to block competitors ads from your site.

Set all the links in your blog to open in a new window - except if you use AdSense!

You can set your blog up so that all clicked links open in a new page.  But this is not a good idea if you are an AdSense publisher - this article explains why.

Making links open in a new tab

Sometimes, you need to refer to outside material in your blog:  your ability to quote it is controlled by copyright laws, so you may need to link to an outside source, rather than quoting it in full.

Blogger's Post Editor has a tool for changing some text into a link - and it's been much easier to use since they added a check-box turns the "open on a new tab / window"  option on/of.   If you tick this option, then the post-editor automatically adds target="_blank"  (the HTML code for this) to your link.

For example

< a href="www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com"> Blogger-HAT's Home Page </a>

becomes

< a href="www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com" target="_blank"> Blogger-HAT's Home Page </a>

Doing it automatically

Occasionally there are requests in the Blogger Help Forum like

"How can I make all the links in my blog open in a new window" 

These often cone from people new to Blogger who, understandably, want to keep the traffic on their site.

There are ways to do this, provided you're willing to accept the disadvantages of editing your template - this explanation shows how to do it.    Although this approach works, the advice in the help-forum usually includes a warning to think very carefully about whether you really want your visitors to see a new page whenever they look at your own "about" page or one of your older posts.

Another option is to set the blog up so that only external links (ones to pages outside your own URL) open in a new window - one way to do that is described here.

But there is one issue that's often not mentioned:  the relationship between this command, and the terms and conditions of other tools that you may be using on your blog.

It's not a good idea for AdSense publishers

The last time I read AdSense's terms and conditions, it was very clear that when a user clicks on an AdSense ad in your site, the ad must open in the existing window:  advertisers are paying for your viewers full attention, not to have them still thinking about YOUR website!

I'm no lawyer, but it seems clear to me that setting your links to automatically open in new pages would be a clear violation of this.

So based on this, I would recommend that

If you use AdSense,
Then don't install auto-new-page code into your template, and check that any 3rd party templates that you use don't have this feature either.  

If this advice worries you, you may like to use an alternative advertising programme:  it seems that Chitika, at least, does let you customise your ads in this way.

It's fine to open individual links on a new page - just don't do it for all of them.


Disclaimer:  this advice is based on my interpretation of the Terms and Conditions.   Caveat emptor.  Always read the terms and conditions yourself,  every publisher is responsible for making sure that their site complies.

---

Related Articles:

Setting up AdSense on your blog

Alternative advertising programmes

Copyright, blogs and bloggers

Advantages and disadvantages of editing your template

Extra customization of Chitika ads

Other tools you may like to use on your blog

Using a Google-search-engine to add a custom search gadget to your blog

This article is about adding a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) to a blog made with Blogger.  However much of the information is relevant to putting Google-CSE's into other blogs and websites also.

Search vs Custom Search

Blogger provides a search gadget that you can add to your blog the same way you add any other gadget.   This works well, provided your blog is public, and you have allowed Google to index it:
Old interface:  Settings > Basic > Let search engines find your blog = Yes.
New interface:  Settings > Basic > Privacy - edit > Let search engines find your blog = Yes

However if you want more control over how the search in your blog works or if you are an AdSense publisher and want to (potentially) earn revenue from ads on the results page then you need to use a Custom Search Engine.  (Or some other non-Google search engine might work too - but it's not what I'm covering in this article.)

A Custom Search Engine (CSE) is like a specialised widget:  you log into the CSE-editor and set up the search options, and then are given some code to put into your blog.   Setting up the options and putting the code into your blog isn't hard, but you do need to do a few specific steps to make sure the code you are given that works inside Blogger.

If you use a CSE, as well as getting a share of the AdSense earnings, you can also customize the search, eg by searching more than just the one site, turning auto-suggestion on, modifying searches with additional keyworks, adding refinements, changing the layout of results, etc.



Creating your Custom Search Engine

Follow these steps to make your own search tool, and install it into your blog.

Log in:

1  Go to Google's custom-search-engine application

2  Log in with the Google account that owns the blog

You can transfer a blog from one Google account to another one.   But there is not currently any way to transfer ownership of a CSE between Google accounts.   So if there is any chance that you might want to hand the blog over to someone else in the future, it's a good idea to make sure that items like this are owned by a Google account that can go with it.

3  Click the Create a Custom Search Engine button (currently a very large button near the top right of the screen)


Start your CSE:

4  A simple wizard opens, to help you create the CSE.  Fill in these fields on the first screen:

• Name - what you will know it as

• Description - describe what it's about (mostly so you know later on, I think)

• Language - if your blog isn't in English, it's important to change this to the correct language, so that the search works correctly.

• Sites to search:
  
  Enter your blog's URL.  
  
  Put  www. at the beginning, and  /* at the end (this says to search all of your blog, not just the home page) . 
  
  Example, the sites-list for the search on this blog is www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/*

• Edition - unless you are willing to pay $US100/year, you need to select Standard edition. 
  
  This displays Ads-by-Google on the search results page.  But if you are an AdSense publisher you can link these ads to your account and earn revenue if they are clicked on.

5  Read the Terms of Service, and if you are happy with them tick the box and press Next.   One important rule (when this post was first written) is that Google needs to be the only search-provider on your site.   I don't know how strict they are about this - and I'm not about to put an Amazon search widget onto one of my blogs to find out.

6  Choose a Style

7  Test the search:

• Enter a search-term

• Click the Search button

• On the screen, check that the search looks and works ok.   If not, search for words from a post entered several weeks ago, in case Google is behind in indexing your blog.

• If necessary, go back and make changes.

You can choose different themes for the search results without re-running the test-search:  just click a theme and wait a second or two for the screen to re-draw. 

8  Create the CSE by clicking Next

---

At this point, the CSE-editor makes you think that you can use the HTML that is shown.  However there is more customising that you can do - and more that you must do if your CSE is going into a site created with Blogger.

---

Customize your CSE:

9  Click any of the options in the list to go to the CSE Control Panel for your Google account.   In this Control Panel:

• The Basics and Sites tabs have a little more information than was in the set-up wizard, but you do not need to change them

• Refinements and Promotions let you add extra functions to your search.  They are not needed for a standard blog-search.  Refer to Google's documentation (available from the tabs) for more about them.

• Synonyms lets you upload a customised set of word-combinations that should be treated as equivalent in your search. 
  
  For example, in Blogger-hints-and-tips if I always use the word "gadget" in posts, it would be sensible for me to upload "widgets" and "page elements" as synonyms since they mean the same thing, and are terms that people are likely to search for.  However even though it would be sensible, I haven't actually uploaded this list, and the custom-search here seems to work well enough.

• Autocomplete offers searches similar to the one your reader (appears to be) typing:  by default it's turned off, but if people who search your site a used to standard Google search (which now has it on) then it may be good to turn it on. 
  
  You also have an option to manually include or exclude certain auto-complete patterns  could be useful if your blog is in a niche with very specific terms for which the standard auto-complete option is totally wrong.

• Look and feel:  this is is essential for custom-searches that are to be used in Blogger.
  
  Firstly, you need to choose a layout:   I've described the options for CSE screen layout for people who needed to convert existing CSEs to the most recent layout options, but the notes there will help you see what layout might be right for your blog.
  
  Second, under Choose or Customize a Style, you may choose a style:  by default it's set to the value you picked in the wizard.  There is also a Customize button, and this let you edit a number of features including the colours, how the Google brand is shown, and whether or not a logo is shown at the top of the search results.
  

• Make Money:
  
  If you don't already have an AdSense account, you can apply for one from here.   Because you will be using AdSense for Search, rather than AdSense for content, the rules and processes are a little different to those for joining AdSense for your blog.
  
  If you have an AdSense account on the Google account that's making the CSE, then this connection is easy - just turn it on. 
  
  If your AdSense account is associated with another Google account, then you need to make the connection by entering the Google Account ID and certain other information that you've previously associated with the account, like phone number and postal code.:
  
  
  

Install:

10  Once all the customization is done, choose the Get Code tab.  Copy the HTML that is shown, and install it into your blog - either into an HTML gadget, or into a Post or Page.

---

Related Articles: 



Putting HTML from a 3rd party into your blog

Transferring a blog from one Google account to another

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

Showing image-only AdSense ads in your Blog

Finding a picture's URL in Picasa-web-albums.

Stop malicious use of your AdSense account ID

AdSense's Allowed Sites feature, is an important safeguard for any blogger who is worried that others may try to mis-use their AdSense account and/or get them in to trouble.

The article is written with Blogspot users in mind, but the advice applies to ANY AdSense publishers.

Overview:

By Андрей! (Own work) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Previously, I've described setting up Adsense in Blogger, and putting AdSense ads right inside your posts.

The way that AdSense works with web-browsers, any person, or computer, can look at the source-code for you page (eg with the View / Page Source menu-option in Firefox), and see what your AdSense publisher ID is.   If they're clever or malicious enough they could potentially put ads with your publisher-id onto sites that don't meet AdSense's program guidelines (eg ones that encourage readers to click the ads).  And then they could report "you", and get you banned from AdSense for doing this.

Luckily, AdSense has the Allowed Sites feature to combat this.  Basically, you enter the  URLs (ie names) of sites you own, and only earnings from only those sites will be recorded in your account.  You aren't held responsible for any other sites where your publisher-id is used.


How to turn Allowed Sites on:

Log in to AdSense (www.google.com/adsense/)

Inside AdSense:

1. In the Home tab, choose Account Settings from the left-hand navigation list.
2. Scroll down to the Access and Authorisation section (currently at the bottom of the page)
3. Click the edit link, beside Sites authorised to show ads
4. Make sure that Only allow certain sites to display ads for my account is ticked
5. Enter the list of sites that you own in the Authorised Sites list
   (for each one, just enter the "naked domain", ie foo.com, not www.foo.com)
6. Click Save at the bottom of the section.

What do do next:

If you put your AdSense ads on any other blog or websites in the future, you do need to remember to add them to the Allowed Sites list.

Also, along with allowed-sites list, AdSense shows a list of non-allowed, websites (blogs and others) that have also tried to use your Publisher-id.   Check this occasionally, in case you've forgotten to add a new blog/website to the list, or in case you'e added a feature (eg the Translate this page widget) that effectively creates one.  The list is only updated weekly, so sites will still be on it for up to a week after you've allowed them.  However the Allow feature works immediately.

---

Related Articles:



Setting up Adsense in Blogger

Putting AdSense ads right inside your posts.

Blocking categories of AdSense ads from your Blog

Putting an AsSense-enabled custom search engine in your blog

Putting Adsense ads inside Blogger posts

This article looks at how to place AdSense ad units right inside Posts or Pages on a Blogspot blog.

Background:

Once you have signed up for AdSense, you can easily put Adsense ads into blogs.  Blogger has options that let you place ads gadgets in the page template, without seeing any HTML code.  Ads may be placed in the sidebar(s) and in the footer of each post.

But there are limitations to this, and sometimes ads in your sidebar aren't the best approach, because readers easily become "ad-blind" and ignore them.

A Better Approach?

To make it more likely that readers will see your ads, you may want to put them into the body of your posts, as I have done underneath this paragraph.

This won't always be better than having ads in your sidebars or immediately above or below your posts - it all depends on what your blog is about, and how people read it.   But it may be worth doing to test to see which placement is better for your blog.


How to put Adsense Ads into Posts or Pages:

Blogger doesn't have any tools to support this.  So you need to put the AdSense code into your posts yourself.   While this is a bit fiddly, it does mean that you have a lot of control over where the ads go, and how they look, including the option to show image-only ads.

Follow these steps:

1. Get the ad-code, and copy into your clipboard.  (The AdSense help page for this is here.)
2. In the Blogger editor, write the contents of the post.
3. In  Options (under Post Settings in the bar on the right of the Post Editor), check that "Use <br /> tags" is chosen for the Line Breaks setting.
4. Go to the place where you want to put the ad.  Put in some "marker text" (a word that isn't used the post, eg "XXX" ).
5. Align the marker text  the way you want the ad aligned (eg centered).
6. Choose the "HTML" tab, and go to the marker-text.
7. Replace the marker-text with the ad-text from step 1 (ie paste it in)
8. If necessary, put line-breaks (<br />) before or after the ad.
9. Publish the post, and check that it looks the way you meant it to.

Things to be aware of:

Google will only display a certain number of ad-units per page.   Even if you try to show more than this by putting the code into posts, ads will not be shown.

Also, having ads inside your posts does not mean that they will show up inside the RSS feed of your posts, or inside emailed posts created with the follow-by-email gadget or some other way:   If you use these tools, then you may want to enable AdSense for Feeds.

---

Related Articles:



Troubleshooting Adsense Ads in Blogger.

Putting 3rd party HTML into your Blog

Showing Image-only AdSense ads

Stop mis-use of your AdSense account

Chitika - an alternative advertising tool for bloggers

Using Google Analytics to get statistics about AdSense performance on your blog

This article is about how to set up your blog so it collects data about your AdSense performance, using Google Analytics.

Google Analytics and AdSense

Recently, I described options for installing Google Analytics into blogs made with Blogger.

If you have decided to use Analytics, and you are also a Google AdSense publisher (ie person who has AdSense ads on your blog), then you probably want to take one more step, so that you can get statistics about AdSense on your blog from the Analytics tools.

Installing the extra code

After you have created a profile in Analytics, and installed the Analytic settings into your blog, go back to the Analytics Settings tab in Google Analytics.

If you have left the profile, find it and click Edit Profile (currently this is on the right of the screen).

The Profile screen that opens has sections for

• Main Website Profile Information
• Goals
• Filters Applied to Profile
• Users with Access to Profile

Currently the edit action for each section is in the right hand corner of the heading for the section.   

Click Edit in the title for the Main Website Profile Information section.

At the bottom of the screen, tick Yes, this profile should receive AdSense data

When you tick the button, a window with some code opens.   Copy the code.

Press the Save Changes button  (currently bottom left of the screen.

Install the code you into your blog either in the header or in a HTML/Javascript gadget.

What you and your readers will see

Installing this script has no effect on what your readers see.

But when you go into Analytics and look at any detailed report page, you will find that the AdSense Revenue tab will start to have data in it.   Currently the statistics that are reported are (even if there was no revenue) are:

• AdSense Revenue
• The number of AdSense ads that were clicked.
• AdSense Page Impressions ie the count of of pages displaying AdSense ads that were viewed
• AdSense CTR, ie the ratio of AdSense ads clicked to ad pages viewed.
• AdSense eCPM, ie the estimated revenue from AdSense per thousand ad page views (assuming that future viewers and advertisers behave in a similar way to the previous one).

Data is only collected from the time that you installed the code into your blog:  Google does not collect it (at least not in a form that's accessible to you) until you ask them to.

Detailed advertising performance data is only available through Analytics for AdSense:  it's not available for the Google Affiliate Network and most certainly not for competing ad-services like Chitika.

---

Related Articles:

Installing Google Analytics for your blog

Advertising on your Blog:  some things to consider

AdSense and AdWords - understanding the difference

Putting Chitika ads into your blog

Understanding Google accounts

Adsense: how to stop malicious use of your AdSense account

Blocking specific AdSense advertisers from your site

You can stop ads from specific AdSense advertisers from appearing on your blog - provided you know the URL that those advertisers are using.

Why block individual advertisers

Previously, I've described how to set up AdSense on your blog, and how to to block certain categories of AdSense ads from your blog.

But there may be times when you need more control than this, for example if your blog (or other website) has:

Poor contextual advertising fit:
AdSense is a "contextual" advertising programme:  it decides what ads to show to a person on a web-page based on the content of the page and the characteristics of the person viewing it.

But the contents in some blogs attract advertisers with directly opposite points of view.   For example, an anti-hunt blog will have posts about the things that hunters do to animals and why these are bad - but the contextual-advertising approach will probably attract ads from people promoting hunting or selling hunting equipment.

And other blogs just attract straight-out completitors:  I've advised one person in the blogger help-forum who was running a blog about a particular educational scholarship and was very unhappy that their blog was showing ads for other scholarships.

Restrictions imposed by other advertisers:
One of my blogs has affiliate ads from a particular budget-accommodation travel site.  One of their terms and conditions is that I don't display ads for a list of other websites that they provided.

Advertisers not categorised correctly:
Even if you've applied category-filtering to your blog, there may be some advertisers that sneak into the wrong category - for example, an advertisement for diet products that uses pictures that are only slightly suggestive may be listed in the "Weight loss" category, but not the "References to Sex & Sexuality" category.

If you advertise your blog through AdWords:
Sometimes, AdWords can be an effective tool for advertising your own blog.   But  in terms of keywords, your blog is likely to be a very good fix.   So there's a high chance that your ads will be shown on your blog, unless you tell AdSense not to.


How to block specific companies:


In any of these cases - and others - you may want to tell AdSense not to show ads from certain advertisers on your blog.   Unfortunately, you cannot quite do this - AdSense doesn't let you identify individual advertisers.   But you can block ads that point to specific websites:

Follow these steps:

1  Log in to AdSense,


In the "old" AdSense interface  (the main one as at March 2011):

---

2  Choose the AdSense Setup tab

3  Choose the  Competitive ad filter  sub-tab

4  Choose the AdSense for Content sub-sub-tab (the tab-row is half way down the page, underneath the examples)

5  Add the web-sites whose ads you want to block to the list:

• In most cases, enter the website name with out the "www".  Eg   enter rustling.org, not www.rusting.org, to block ALL adds from the site.
• If you need finer control than this (eg blocking ads for a forum at a site, but not the site itself) study the examples shown on the page to understand what to enter.

In the new AdSense interface (still in beta testing at March 2011):

---

2  Choose the Allow & block ads tab (from the top row)

3  Under Blocking Options (left hand menu), choose Advertiser URLs

4  Click the Block new URLs button.    This opens a window

5  From the Products drop-down, choose one or more products and press Apply (currently at the bottom right corner of the drop-down window).

• f you just want to keep the ads off your blog, choose the "Content" product.  Or to be certain, choose all of them.

6  Enter the names (URLs) of the sites you want to block

• Click Learn how to format your URLs for blocking fordetails about how to enter URLs so that you block sites at the correct level.   But in most cases, you just enter the top-level name, eg enter "blogger.com" to stop all ads pointing to anywhere under www.blogger.com

7  Choose one of the reasons.

8  Press Block Sites.

The newly-blocked site will appear in your list of blocked URLs - which is in alphabetical order.

You can un-block it at any time by going to the same screen, finding it in the list, and clicking the Unblock link at the right hand side of the name/product.


What your visitors will see:

Within a short time (maybe even in about 10 minutes), advertisements that point to the URL(s) you entered will not be displayed on your site:  instead, visitors who see AdSense adverts will see other (non-blocked) ads, or Google (public service) ads if no payng ads are available.

Notice the risk for you:- if you block too many potential advertisers, your site may only show public-service or Google ads that don't earn you revenue.


Final thoughts:

Ads which you block because they feel "spammy" can easilyre-appear from other not-yet-blocked sites:  folks who make money off them move servers etc regularly.  if you are  determined to keep certain ads off your site, you may need to keep figuring out where the ads are coming from and adding new sites to your blocked-list all the time.

Finding out what sites to block can be challenging, as not every advertiser puts their URL into their graphical ads.    Some ways of doing this include:

• Looking very hard at the advertisement: 
  Sometimes the company URL is in small text at the bottom
• Searching for a key phrase from the ad 
  Eg when I wrote this articl,e Blogger-HAT's home page was showing an ad for "Smallest hidden DV in the world" - I suspect I could identify them with Google fairly quickly).
• Click the ad yourself:  Remember that this is against AdSense's terms and conditions, and that you won't get any revenue for it.   I'm not suggesting that it's good to do this - AdSense know that it occasionally happens by accident, so they are unlikely to penalise you for doing, so long as you don't do it often.
• Click the same ad on someone else's site:
  This is allowed under AdSense's rules.   But it's not recommended, because the advertiser won't get any benefit from the click, so doing this will tend to put the price they are willing to pay for each down in the longer-term.

---

Related Articles: 



Settng up AdSense on your blog

Blocking categories of AdSense ads

AdSense and AdWords

Putting a custom-search-engine in your blog

Other advertising programmes for your blog

AdSense and the "Request-URI Too Large" error message: sometimes a work-around is good enough.

This article is about an error message that I sometimes see when logging into AdSense - and a way of thinking about browser problems that you might have with Blogger.

What happens:

Every so often, when I'm logging in to AdSense, I get a screen like this

The error message is,

"Request-URI Too Large
The requested URL /accounts/SetSID... is too large to process."

And the window title is "414 Request-URI Too Large "

It doesn't happen every time, or even most times, and I cannot spot any trends (eg only when I first open the browser, only when I have seven tabs open, etc) - except perhaps that I've only seen it in Firefox.  But Firefox is the browser I mainly use, so it may be coincidence.


My problem, or Google's?

I've searched for the error message:  most of the results were for descriptions of cases when it happened every time someone tried to log in to a system.  It appears there was even a case, a while ago, when this happened for Gmail in some situations.   But this isn't my scenario, though, because it doesn't happen all the time.

There are suggestions that it may be related to browser cookies settings.   I'm sure that is true, sometimes.  But it's not 100% true for me:  I can get the message once, try again immediately and not get it the next time - and there's no way I changed my cookie settings in between.


What to do about it:

I've found a very simple solution:   open another tab, and go to AdSense again.    Every time (so far ;-) ) AdSense has loaded correctly on the 2nd try.

If this didn't work, the next things I'd try would be (in roughly this order):

• Clearing the cache and re-starting my browser
• Trying to get into AdSense from a different browser
• Restarting my computer
• Checking that I was using the most-recent releases version of the browser (NB  this is the supported, released version - not a Beta version that's being tested).

Why I'm posting this:

If you use Blogger or other Google products - or indeed any other internet-based publishing products - a lot, it's likely that you will run into situations like this.

Most probably, the underlying problem will be a bug in the software, or some subtle combination of security settings in your computer and/or browser software.

Tracking down what's happening can be difficult and time-consuming, and involve learning a lot about topics that you don't otherwise need to know.   And knowing what's causing the problem doesn't always help:   If  only a few people are having the same problem, so Google probably won't be keen to fix it, even if something in their software caused the issue.

The key message of this post is that when you have a problem with Blogger (etc) doing strange things, you should firstly look for a good-enough way to work around the problem.

If you can't find a work-around  (ie if nothing works, or if the time or effort required are too big for you to put up with), then you should look for a solution.   The first step is always to see if other people are having the same problem - to do this you could either do a google-search for the error message, or post a question somewhere like the Blogger Help Forum.

And IMHO, you should only start in-depth investigation PC and browser security sessions if all else fails - or if the time/effort required to get around the original issue is greater than the time and effort needed to search for a solution.

---

Related Articles: 



Chitika - another type of advertising for your blog

Setting up AdSense on your blog

Giving your blog subscribers a free e-book

Getting image-only AdSense ads for your blog

Putting a gadget above your blog's header

Adding the "find us on Facebook" plug-in to your blog

Setting up AdSense for parked domains

This article is no longer current.   It was about setting up AdSense on a domain that you own, but are not using.

However this feature of AdSense was withdrawn in early 2012, so the feature is no longer available.

The information below was correct until then, but has not been update since.

What is AdSense for Domains

Sometimes, you may own a domain, but not actually want to use it for a blog-site as yet.  I'm currently working on one new blog for which I found a very appropriate, and available URL.   It won't be ready to be public for a month or more, but I've purchased the domain-name now so that someone else doesn't take it:  A lot of the design etc is based around the quirky name, and a lot of work would need to be re-done if I waited and tehn couldn't get the site-name that I want.

Or you may find you own a domain-name that doesn't actually work for what you wanted it to:  either your don't want to keep the site on-line, or people don't like the domain name.  But you still own it until the current paid period runs out.   (Don't forget to disable auto-renewal in this case.)   

An option that you have is to show paid advertisements on the domain in the meantime.   This may earn some advertising revenue - and (for domains-in-waiting) it gives an insight into the number of "natural" visitors that a domain gets without any promotion or links.  These visitors can some either through people guessing the URL, or following broken hyperlinks set up when the URL was used for something else.

If you're already signed up to be an AdSense publisher, then AdSense for Domain is an easy choice for putting advertising onto domain like this.

The Rules:

You need to check the terms and conditions:   here are the full T&C's for AdSense for Domains.

As always with AdSense, clicking your own ads isn't allowed.

But there are some extra conditions too:

You can't use it with domain URLS that are adult/sexual, promote hate, are overly rude, relate to weapons, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, about other illegal things or sensitive current events, or which infringe trademarks (even if it's just with apparent typos).

Also, with AdSense for Domains, you're not allowed to promote the domain.   So when you're ready to start publicizing the URL on other websites, you need to take AdSense for Domains off it.   I'd assume that this is true even if the publicity clearly says "available next week" or similar.  

These are just some of the rules - make sure you read the full details before you get started.

Setting up AdSense for Domains:

(These instructions are based on the new - Nov 2010 - AdSense interface.  The process is very similar in the old menus, although the command names and positions may be slightly different.)

If necessary, release your custom domain from being used for a blog.

Log into AdSense with your main account.  
(For me, this is not always the one that purchased the domain, but it is always the one that paid for it via Google Checkout.   There may be some complications later on if your Google account that has AdSense wasn't the same one that paid for the domain.)

Go into the My Ads tab

Choose Domains from the left-hand menu.

Click the New Hosted Domain button, which is at the top of the list of domains.

Enter the name(s) of the domain(s) that you want to set up AdSense for Domains for  (or upload a comma-separated-values file listing them, if there are a lot).
Use the naked format, eg your-domain.com, not www.your-domain.com

Choose the language that most sense for people who might visit this domain.   (eg the domain I've parked at the moment is named with a word from the English language, so I've chosen English).

Click the Add Domains button

The system shows a pop-up box, either telling you that the domain was successfully added, or that there is a problem you need to resolve.

There will also be a message that "To begin serving ads, you must now point your domains to our servers. Follow the Domain Setup Guide to complete the setup process for each hosted domain that you have added."

If you bought your domain through Blogger (and probably through other Google products, eg Sites as well) can ignore this message to start with and close the window.

But if you purchased the domain another way (including directly from GoDaddy or eNom), you  need to read the Domain Setup Guide, and take whatever actions are recommended.

• Clicking the View the Domain Setup Guide opens it in an new window/tab (depending on your browser).   --- except that right now, it shows a message saying "We are sorry but the information that you have requested cannot be found. Please try searching or browsing the help centre".   If you get this, just search for the Domain Setup Guide using the search field on the screen.

Closing the pop-up takes you back to the My Ads > Domains listing.   There will be a new entry on the list, with status "DNS verification pending".

Under the domain-name, there are links for Details (which shows you what the DNS entries need to be), and Request verification.

After you have set up the correct DNS entries with your domain registrar  (or immediately, if you purchased via Blogger et al), click on the Request Verification link.   This sends a message to AdSense/Google, asking them to check that your domain setup is correct.

Wait:  there will be a delay (perhaps 2-3 days), while Google check that it is valid for you to display ads on this domain (remember those rules from the Terms and Conditions section - it seems that they do check), and that your DNS settings are correct.

If a problem is found, this screen will show a message about this, and tell you how to resolve it.

And once AdSense for Domains is enabled, the status changes to Active.

Note:  I said above that if you purchased the domain via Google, you don't actually need to do any further setup.  This has been true for three of the four parked URLs that I've put AdSense-for-Domains onto.   For the most recent one, I found that Google didn't automatically put the right value into the CNAME.  I'm not sure if this was because I hadn't set up a domain administrator account when I tried to enable AdSense for Domains, or for some other reason.   Either way, I had to go into the Google Apps control panel for the domain (logged in as the domain administrator), get the details for accessing the domain registrar (in this case GoDaddy), and then go in to the registrar control panel and edit the CNAME record to include my AdSense ID.   This wasn't actually hard (Google and GoDaddy's instructions were good) but it may seem a little frightening if it's not the sort of thing you're used to doing.   

Stay calm, read the error messages carefully, work slowly and if you get stuck pop into the Blogger (if you purchased the domain that way) or AdSense help forums.

Testing and customizing AdSense for Domains:

Once the status is Active, test your domain by viewing it in your browser:  it should display AdSense ads.   (Remember not to click any!)

Back in the AdSense > AdSense Setup > AdSense for Domains tab, you can customise the look of the screen by selecting the domain (use the check-box to the left of the name), and choosing Actions > Edit from the menu items just above the domain list.   This lets you:

• Put the domain into a custom channel (for tracking performance)
• Edit the keywords that are used to help choose what advertisements to show
• Edit the colour-scheme of the displayed ads.

---

Related Articles:

Auto-renewing custom domains

Setting up an administrator account for your custom domain

Using a custom domain for something other than your blog

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

AdSense and AdWords - understanding the difference

Deleting Blogs and Blog-posts

Transferring Blog Ownership.

Showing image-only AdSense ads in your blog

This article is about how to show image-only AdSense ads in your blog.

Blogger and AdSense

It's easy to Set up AdSense on your Blog: Just go to Monetize > AdSense - and then follow the prompts to apply for an account.

Once you've been approved, it's easy to put AdSense ads into your blog:

• Design > Page Elements > Add a Gadget > Adsense - for ads in your sidebar, header, footer etc
• Design > Page Elements >  Blog Posts (edit) - for ads in between posts

But the advertisement format options that Blogger provides for are limited: you can only choose either text-only or image-and-text ads.  There is (currently) no option for image-only ads.

To guarantee that your blog displays image ads only, you need to get the ad-code from AdSense, and put it into an HTML-Javascript gadget or inside a Post (or Page)


How to display image only ads:

1  Log into AdSense with the Google-account that you use to manage your ads.   (There may be some cases where this is not the same Google account that you use to manage the blog where the ad is displayed)

2 Go into the AdSense Setup > Get Ads tab.

3  Choose AdSense for Content

4  Configure your ad:

Work through the items in the wizard to (I like to choose single-page, so everything is visible at once).   If you've chosen the Ad Unit radio button, then beside it there is a drop-down that lets you choose:

• Text-and-image, 
• Text-only, 
• Image-only.

5  At then end of the wizard, you are shown some HTML code.    Copy and paste that code.

6  Go to Blogger (with the account you use for the blog).

7  Place the ad:

• If it's going in a gadget, Choose Design > Page Layout > Add a Gadget > HTML-Javascript     and paste the copied code into the Contents field.   Save the new gadget, and drag-and-drop it to wherever you want  

• If it's going in a post, see putting AdSense ads inside Blogger posts

To request image-only for the ads that are shown at the bottom of individual posts (via Design > Page Layout > Blog Posts/edit), you would need to edit the design-template.  Instructions for this will vary depending on what template you have, and are beyond the scope of this article.   But you can put a gadget at the bottom of all the blog-posts that are shown on a screen - just make the gadget the usual way, and drag it to underneath the Blog Posts gadget

---

Related Articles: 



Putting AdSense ads inside Blogger posts

Blocking categories of AdSense ads from your Blog

Stop malicious use of your AdSense account ID

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

Jump Breaks are Useful even if you only show one Post per Screen

This article explains why it is useful to put jump-breaks into your post, even if normally you only show one Post on each "page" (ie screen).

Overview

Jump breaks are a feature that lets you show only the top portion of a post to start with:  if the reader wants to see the rest of the contents, they need to click on a "show me more" link, which expands to show the whole post.

Google have described adding "After the jump" breaks to posts, and the various factors involved in using them.

I'd never bothered with them, because on almost all of my blogs, I only show one Post per Screen.

However I recently realised that it is worthwhile putting them in anyway:  if only one Post is showing, they won't have any affect.  But there are some screens where they are helpful.


Not all Screens are Like the Main Screen

(NB  Until Google introduced Pages, I would have said Posts and Pages:  now, I say Posts and Screens:  a Post is one item that you publish, a Screen is a collection of them.   Most of the Google Help documentation still talk about Pages in this way - but it's confusing, because of the static-pages feature getting the same name.)

The main screen is that one that is opened when a reader goes to your blog for the first time, or when they select an article (eg from the archive gadget) and go to it.

However there are various other types of screen too.   For example:

• The Labels gadget displays all (or a group of) the labels that you have given to posts.  
  
  When a reader clicks on a label in this gadget, the Screen displays a list of Posts that have this label.

• The Archive gadget displays the dates that posts have been made on. 
  
  When a reader clicks on a time-period (eg month, week) in this gadget, the Screen displays a list of Posts that were posted in this time.

In these Screens, more than one Post is displayed (no matter what setting you have for Posts per Page).   And if your Posts have jump-breaks near the top, then this list looks a lot more like a list, so is a lot easier for your readers to use.   (You can see an example of this by clicking here - this will show you a list of all the posts in this blog about Facebook, for example)



Using a Post Template

I now have a template for new posts, because this makes it so much easier to structure articles in the same way, which makes them better for readers.

The Jump-break, which shows in Compose mode, makes a useful distinction between the article summary at the top (more about why this is useful later - that article's not finished yet!) and everything else after the break.


AdSense

If you are an AdSense publisher, then Google have said that there are some AdSense ads which  are cost-per-view, not cost-per-click, but that advertisers are only interested in having them showing when a reader first looks at the page.  Google have a way of calculating whether a specific advertisement is "above the break" or not.   We don't know what the rule for this is, but my guess is that this may include asking whether the ad is above or below a jump-break.  

---

Related Articles: 



Using Labels to categorise your posts

Setting up AdSense on your blog

Giving your blog a homepage

Setting the date for a post

The difference between Posts and Pages.
#