Archive for September, 2009
September 21st, 2009 | 
Author: Yesterday I told you to be aware that Google now have interest based advertising on their network and today I want to tell you about Google allowing 3rd party ads on the network.
Here is a video explaining what 3rd party ads are all about…
What Does It Mean For Adsense Publishers?
As Adsense publishers we might actually see some benefits from this change. With more ad networks competing for the same ad space on our sites then it is sure to increase the cost of that ad. However, how much of that extra income that Google will share with us is open to a lot of debate but as always, time will tell.
Opt Out
If you don’t want to receive 3rd party ads on your sites then you have the option to opt out in your account settings. If you decide you want to keep the default option of 3rd party ads then ensure that your privacy policy reflects this and you HAVE to include a section about using the DoubleClick cookie on your site. See a previous post on updating your privacy policy for info on this..
Some of you may or may not be aware that Google are about to introduce interest based advertising for their PPC network. It is important for you to realise how this will effect you both as a web publisher and also as a web searcher.
What is interest based advertising?
Interest based advertising is all about showing web searchers adverts based on their actual interests overall. For example, Joe Bloggs is interested in cycling, wind sufing, chess and tropical fish. Google will now show Joe Bloggs adverts on chess, tropical fish and wind surfing when he is visiting a site on car insurance.
Privacy Issues
There are many ad networks already that use interest based advertising and this form of advertising has always been controversial because it brings into question the web user’s privacy. To know what ads to show then the ad network need to know your interests. To know your interests they have to track what sites you are visiting. To achieve this they plant a cookie on your computer which tracks the sites you visit.
Thankfully if this fills you with fear then Google say that they only track sites which are not sensitive and not medical sites etc.. However if you still don’t want Google to know what sites you are visiting then you can opt out altogether from interest based advertising. You can do that by visiting this page.
What Do I Need To Do As A Web Publisher?
In short, nothing really as it is mainly based on the preferences of the web user. However, you do have the option as Adsense publisher to switch Interest based advertising on or off under your account settings page in your Adsense account. Just go to My Account/Account Settings and you will see the option there.
What this will mean to you though and it is fairly fundamental is that your site will show ads that are not necessarily relevant to your site’s content anymore. Also, the ads that will be displayed will be relevant only to the web user visiting your site.
This will also affect the ads you see on your own site so don’t be suprised to see irrelevant ads when you visit your own site.
Is This Going To Be A Good Or Bad Thing For Us Web Publishers?
Time will tell how this affects our bottom line and whether it will result in higher click throughs. One interesting aspect is that you could have a site in the relatively unlucrative niche of tropical fish. A visitor to your site could be interested in mesothlioma and be shown very lucrative ads about mesothelioma on your site! However, the opposite might be true also..
This also could impact on the way we choose niches for our Adsense sites if the content is no longer as relevant to the ads shown. It might no longer be as important to pick expensive keywords. Of course conetnt based relevance is always going to be used for the ads shown as well so don’t throw the baby out of the bath water yet but just be aware of how this might change things for you.
To read more about interest based advertising then take a look at this..
It is not often that I promote a product openly on this blog like this but I would be doing you a diservice if I was not to bring to your attention that commission blueprint 2.0 is going to be closing it’s doors maybe for good by Wednesday morning. As I type this, that is less than 48 hours away..
For those who don’t know what Commission Blueprint 2.0 is all about then all I am going to say is that it is probably the best package of information and tools on making affiliate commissions that I have ever read, seen and used, it is quite simply awesome!
Anyway, before they shut the doors imminently there is a fantastic trial available for keyword blueprint and offer evaluator which are the two tools which form the bedrock of Commission Blueprint 2.0. You have absolutely nothing to lose by signing up and you can get an insight into the sheer power of Commission Blueprint 2.0. If you don’t sign up then you just might regret it forever…
Sign up here! – http://cashcowguidetoadsense.com/commissionblueprint2trial
I was asked a question via PM on the warrior forum which asked me how to make backlinking transparent in the yes of Google and whether the latest trendy link schemes like Angela’s backlinks, linkwheels etc are a good idea in Google’s eyes, here is what I wrote back below.
It’s a really good question and quite difficult to answer for certain. In Google’s world they would like to believe that all backlinks from site to site are there because those links add something to what the visitor is reading, listening to or watching.
A backlink is seen by Google as one website publisher giving a vote of confidence to another web publisher’s site, or page on that site at least. Obviously the higher the page rank of the site giving the backlink the more Google will trust that backlink because they believe in their puritanical world that any site with pages that have high page rank has a high page rank because of the trust Google has in them… Pheww… I hope that makes sense!
Anyway, as we all know as marketers, the temptation to find loopholes and manipulate Google’s algorithm is very tempting and the truth is, any link building scheme could be seen as trying to manipulate Google’s algorithm from Angela’s backlinks, 3 way links, paid for links, 2 way link schemes, linkwheels etc.. linkwheels are nothing new by the way they have been around for years. I used to know them as mininets. Many marketers would shoot me down in flames for daring to say that. There is a flip side to this though and that is that these techniques undoubtably do work. The real question is, will your site last in the indexes if you use these techniques? They might last forever but of course as we have all seen, they might not.
Does that mean therefore that we shouldn’t be involved in these sort of link building techniques? If you wanted to play it completely safe and go for the slow build by getting backlinks the natural way (other sites recommending yours) then it might take 10 years to get anywhere. The reality is that a little bit of everything is fine with the exception of 3 way links in my opinion. The problem I have with 3 way links is that they are so blatantly trying to deceive and are getting easier for Google to spot that I wouldn’t take the risk. Linkwheels do work and are more difficult for Google to spot. Angelas links do work also but I wouldn’t solely rely on them.
I still believe the best way of building links are to do good article marketing, non-spammy blog commenting, submissions to good directories DMOZ etc.., Genuine link exchanges, press releases, persuading trusted sites to post your content on their sites. The bottom line is, that there has to be a reason for the backlink to exist to be transparent in Google’s eyes. Social bookmarking is also fine, so long as you don’t overdo it and mix it up with other people’s sites as well.
A backlink from an article placed in article directories is transparent because you wrote that article and the backlink from that article to your site is there for further reading. Blog commenting is transparent because you have added something to that discussion on that blog and to confirm your interest in that subject you can show them your site in return as a backlink. DMOZ and other quality directories is there as a simple directory to show relevant sites on various subjects. Press releases are there for easy access to newsworthy stories and the backlinks are there for people to read about the source of the news story.
I hope you understand my point, the link has to have a reason to exist to be transparent and valid in Google’s eyes. This opinion of mine is not popular among many people and the are many who can say the have been doing 3 way linking and various other link schemes over the years and have seen great success from doing it. I don’t doubt that, but for every person who has success you will find someone else that sees their site disapear from the SERPS overnight. It is a risk, and one that you should make your own decision over.