AdMoolah News and Views

The third part of the AdSense Optimization Webinar was a question and answer session. This was the longest part of the webinar and I have split this into two posts.

The phone lines were opened for participants to ask questions. I haven’t listed any names in the questions, because I didn’t catch most of them. My notes aren’t completely accurate and I’m sure I have my own spin on the answers or questions. I am also paraphrasing and shortening these a lot, but I hope I get the main points across.

Almost every answer ended in the Google team members saying: “But if you’re still unsure, email us at adsense-support@google.com with your question”. They were really encouraging people to send feedback and questions.

Q1. I have multiple ad units on my page and ads only appear on the first one.
A1. Chances are there are not enough ad units in our inventory.

Q2a. How much does the topic of an ad affect its click price?
A2a. It varies quite a bit.

Q2b. Do you have any information about what the current rate for different keywords are?
A2b. No. But there are third party sources that this type of information is available from.

Q3a. I am having problems getting targeted keywords to subdomains.
A3a. It could be a problem with crawling or with determining the context on the page.

Q3b. Would you recommend using subdirectories vs. subdomains?
A3b. It shouldn’t make a difference. Ads are determined by individual URLs.

Q4a. How do you make sure your site is available for site targeted ads?
A4a. Make sure image ads are selected. Relevancy and size of the site are what helps you get targeted.

Q4b. Do link units pay differently than regular ad units?
A4b. No, the pay is identical.

Q4c. In the case study you showed for HybridCars.com the Google search box doesn’t have the Google Logo. Why not?
A4c. We’ll have to look into that.

Q5. What future improvements will you be making to the user interface?
A5. We’re trying to get the best information as quickly as possible, that’s what the new reporting changes were about. Send us your feedback for more suggestions.

Q6a. I am using 3rd Party tools like AdSense Tracker (a click tracking tool) and a desktop report tool. Will Google come out with these types of tools?
A6a. We can’t comment on what is going to come out in the future. Lots of publishers have been asking for better reporting.

Q6b. Are these types of tools compliant with the AdSense Terms of Service?
A6b. We can’t recommend any specific tool, but generally yes, these tools are compliant. If you have questions about a particular tool, feel free to email us about it.

Q7. I have been seeing the same ad on my site all the time. Are the ads always rotated?
A7. Google’s algorithms are always trying to show the best ads possible. Ads are rotated, but successful ads will appear more often.

The rest of the questions and answers will be in part 2.