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Understanding Google AdSense
Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley
Google
Adsense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content relevant
advertisements on web pages. If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads
served to the website, the website owner is credited for the
referral. Google's Adsense program essentially allows approved websites to
dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results.
The website
maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and
requires very little effort.
Webmasters need only to insert a Google generated javascript into the webpage
or website
template. Google's spider parses the adserving website
and
serves ads that relate to the website's content. Google uses a
combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads
should be served. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure
that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage.
Early on
Google implemented a filtering system that allowed
webmasters to prevent a
specific domain's ads from being
served on any websites in their account. Ad
blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads
from being dynamically served on their websites.
Google provides a
wide variety of ad formats, that webmasters can choose from. Webmasters can
select from a handful of preformatted text boxes. The ad boxes can
be modified by webmasters to resemble the website's color scheme.
Examples of how different the various text boxes and color
schemes
appear on similarly themed sites can be viewed at:
http://www.ring-tone-software.com
(scroll to the bottom)
http://www.ringtones-central.com
(scroll to the bottom)
or
http://www.police-central.com (download
left side)
http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll
to the bottom)
Ads can be geotargeted based on the visitors
location.
Advertisements containing content in English, French, German,
Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, or Spanish are all available.
Channels
Googles recently introduced channels as a way to
enhance
Adsense reporting. When a channel is selected Google
modifies the
javascript to include additional tracking. The
additional tracking
information allows webmasters to track a variety of metrics across their
sites. Channels can be used to measure performance on various domains,
differences in revenue with various ad sizes, or placement. By assigning
each group of pages to a specific channel and comparing results in custom
channel reports webmasters can work at increasing their AdSense revenue.
Optimizing
Google determines the content of the ads that are
shown,
webmasters serious about earning revenue from Google
Adsense can
use the following guidelines to optomize their
website and ensure that
targeted relevant ads are served.
If Google's spider has not crawled the site
and determined
the nature of the content pulic service ads may be
served.
Public service adds will not accrue any adsense revenue
if
clicked. As a result Google allows webmasters to designate
alternate
ads. Alternate ads allow webmasters to utilize the ad space in the event that
Google is unable to serve targeted ads to the web page. By specifying an
alternate image, HTML page, or ad server can make sure that
the advertising space is always being used effectively.
1.) Web page
content on pages that ads are served should be
static not dynamic.
2.)
Ensure that the robot.txt does not prevent the web page
from being spidered.
Robots.txt file's will need to be removed or the following text will need to
bedded to allow Google's content bot to crawl the site:
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
3.) If the website contains frames,
select the 'framed page' checkbox when generating the ad layout code for
that
website.
4.) The body of the page and title of the page
should contain contextual words that indicate a common theme on the web
page.
Revenue Earned
Although Google doesn't disclose the exact
revenue share or
percentage that webmasters will earn, webmasters
will receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on Google ads on
websites.
AdSense Conclusion:
Overall, adwords can provide great
supplemental income to
webmasters with content sites. 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.
About the Author:
Sharon
Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc.
http://www.notepage.net a company
specializing in
alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging
software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
, and http://www.small-business-software.net
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