Life$trikes.Com » Adsense

Google Adsense Pays out 68% to Publishers

Raghu — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:25:53 +0000

Finally google is sharing the information that was kept secret so so many years – Adsense Publisher Revenue Share.

AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites. The remaining portion that we keep reflects Google’s costs for our continued investment in AdSense — including the development of new technologies, products and features that help maximize the earnings you generate from these ads. It also reflects the costs we incur in building products and features that enable our AdWords advertisers to serve ads on our AdSense partner sites. Since launching AdSense for content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed.

We pay our AdSense for search partners a 51% revenue share, worldwide, for the search ads that appear through their implementations. As with AdSense for content, the proportion of revenue that we keep reflects our costs, including the significant expense, research and development involved in building and enhancing our core search and AdWords technologies. The AdSense for search revenue share has remained the same since 2005, when we increased it.

How to Insert Adsense in bbPress Forum

Raghu — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:55:41 +0000

BBpress is light weight forum created by makers of Wordpress. It’s easy to install and has the same interface as Wordpress. Displaying Adsense ad within bbpress takes about 2 minutes.

Follow the steps to display adsense ad just above and below the Page Navigation

Sample Adsense in bbPress

Steps to Insert Adsense Code in bbPress

Instructions below is for the default theme kakumei.

FTP into directory where bbpress forum is installed.
Navigate to /example.com/bb-templates/kakumei
Open the File topic.php
Find the following line of code that contains php_topic_pages (array…… )
Insert the Adsense code just below that line
This will display the ad above the forum topic, before posts starts
To insert the ad after the posts (before navigation page)
Insert the adsense coede below the line that contains “class=rss line…..php topic_rss_link”
Refresh the Topic in the fourm and you should see the ads.

There are 2 plugins that will allow to insert adsense code in bbpress. If you want to insert the code between posts then use adsense for bbpress plugin.

Adsense Optimization for Wordpress Sidebar

Raghu — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:38:26 +0000

Getting more clicks and revenue from Adsense Ad units depends on many factors. Each website is unique and so many combination’s of ads can be tested. While testing, you might find a combination of ad placement, color and font which gives better CTR and revenue. Majority of the publishers tend to stick to that same combination.

But, with adsense there is always another combination of ad placement and color combination that can be tested. Google allows upto 3 ad units per page. Ad unit that’s gets loaded first, will have the top paying ads displayed.

Adsense Optimization for Wordpress Sidebar

Some bloggers started using 125×125 adsense ad units or affiliate ads in the sidebar. But, if you are still using adsense in the sidebar then there is a way to increase the CTR and revenue for that Adsense Adunit in wordpress sidebar.

This method will work best, if Adsense Adunit located in the wordpress sidebar has higher CTR than other ad units. Some of the common ad units in the sidebar includes

120×600 – Skyscraper
160×600 Wide Skyscraper
300×250 – Medium Rectangle
336×280 – Large Rectangle

Above adsense adunits size depends on types of the sidebar in the wordpres blog you have. While testing adsense with different ad sizes, I found that ad unit in the wordpress sidebar has highest CTR than other adunits, but revenue is not high as other ad units. So, I’m testing the ad performance by loading the sidebar first before loading the blog post.

By loading Wordpress Sidebar before post article, highest paying ad will be displayed on the sidebar. Since ad unit on the sidebar is getting more clicks, it will increase the revenue.

How to Load Sidebar Before Post Contents

To make wordpress sidebar load before post contents, move the code that looks like php include(TEMPLATEPATH.”/sidebar.php”) from bottom of the page to before loading the actual post contents. Try making this small change and see if this increases adsense revenue.

Increase Google Adsense CTR with Large Font Size

Raghu — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:57:46 +0000

After Google Adsense launched the new feature that will allow publishers to control the size of the font (Small, Medium and Large), I started testing few possible adsense font sizes combination.

After 3 weeks of testing, Large font performs much better than Small and Medium font size. This will vary based on the site and location of the ad unit. I’m still testing the font size for Medium Rectangle Ad Unit. Above result was for Large Rectangle Ad Unit.

Google Adsense TOS will not allow to say the actual CTR. But, comparing the CTR for 15 day period, there is an very good increase in CTR for Large Rectangle Ad Unit.

Ad Unit Test Criteria

Large Rectangle
Title – Blend with site URL
URL – Black
Description – Black
Border – White
Background – White
Font Size – Large

New – Font Size can be Changed for Adsense Ad Units

Raghu — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:45:23 +0000

From Adsesnse Blog

“The font size you choose will be applied to the body of the ad, with the title scaled appropriately. In order to fit the ad text correctly, the actual font size will vary for each format size, font face, and user-specific settings such as browsers and operating systems. In addition, some formats sizes currently have very limited room, so the font size application will be most apparent in cases where the number of ads appearing in your ad units varies automatically in order to maximize your performance.

Your ads are currently set at the default size for AdSense, which is the equivalent of ’small’. You can select a new font size on an account-wide basis in the Ad Display Preference section of your My Account tab, or on an individual ad unit basis for new and existing ad units.

If you’re creating new ad units, you can choose between the AdSense default font size, your new account-wide font size (if you’ve selected one using the instructions above), or a separate size. To update existing ad units you’ve created using the Manage Ads feature, visit the ‘Manage Ads’ page under your AdSense Setup tab. Any font size changes you make on an individual ad unit basis will be maintained even if you change your account-wide default in the future.”

This is one of the long awaited feature by most of the publishers. Go ahead and start testing the Font Size and check how ads perform for Small, Medium and Large Font Size. I think, Medium and Large will perform better then current default small size.

Test Combination for Adsense Font Size

Small with your existing font size for page text
Medium with existing font size for page text
Large with existing font size for page text

Small with large text size ( increase the font size of post contents)
Medium with Large text size
Large with Large text size

I expect the combination in BOLD to perform better.

Based on which performs bets in above testing, you can change the Font Family of the Ads. Overall there are many possible test combinations available, it takes atleast 1 week to test single combination. Plan to spend atleast 1 to 2 months. Keep a spreadsheet with Ad Unit, Combination, CTR and Revenue for every combination. Run each test for atleast 1 week, if you don’t have enough traffic.

Google Adsense – Medium Rectangle Experiments

Raghu — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:34:46 +0000

Google Adsesne is the best way to make money if you are just starting out as a blogger. When I started out, I was able to get first payment in second month of a brand new blog. I never had any blogging experience before. One fine day I decide to create a blog using Blogger and in matter of few minutes, blog was created.

So, when I created the first blog on July 2007, I was typical new blogger. Wrote some 15 articles in 10 days and I was expecting traffic to be automatic. So, that how it all started. You might wonder how I was able to generate more than minimum payment with brand new blog. Keep following this blog. All the details I learned and came across will be posted.

Now, I have learned a thing or two about blogging world and what works for my blogs and what doesn’t. Testing various adsense ad units and placements is never ending. Almost every day I get new idea concerning Adsense unit placement. But, I haven’t really made a record of different testing with ad units and ad networks. So, I’m going to use this blog to keep track of various testing I did with adsense and other ad networks.

Adsense Medium Rectangle (300×250)

Most of the blogger run 125×125 ad units in the sidebar. Pretty much most of the well known bloggers have 4 to 10 units of 125×125 ad units. If you have sponsors willing to advertise in your site, then its good idea to have button ad units. But for blogs that don’t have advertisers, having 125×125 in sidebar will not be of much help.

So, I decided to use one single medium rectangle adsense unit in the sidebar. I used it in various places in sidebar – above the fold, below fold, …. According to Adsense TOS, we cannot say CTR or any other details. Along with medium rectangle, I use Large Rectangle, Banner. Adsense for search within blog posts.

After observing the stats for few months, number of clicks on medium rectangle was less compared to other ad units, but revenue was more than other ad units. So, I knew readers click the ads on sidebar.

In next article, I will explain how I doubled the adsense income using medium rectangle ad unit.