I started using the web back in 1989. Man I’m getting ancient. The first website I owned was freestuff. com (wonder what that worth now?) when the 2 yahoos listed me I was at the top of about 1000 hits. Wow has this puppy changed and Bill Gates said it wouldn’t amount to much. After all this time spent on the internet all I get is a no paying job called “Where’s Waldo” or SEO as its so affectionately known as. Now we have a 9 million pound gorilla called Google. Google says if you want to get listed have only the best ranked websites link to you and don’t link to anyone who is ranked low. What? And don’t try any tricks. But after that what’s left but tricks. It doesn’t do any excellent to complain because they’re just a larger collection of smucks like us, just trying to deal with the sheer volume of information. So what are we to do? Ignore them. That’s right, ignore them. You can always tell when Google says don’t do something or it will penalize you, that their lying. When they contradict themselves and give no possible way to achieve your goal of increasing your ranking. Go ahead get a link partner how is are you going to get linked to? Do they reckon some large corporation is just going to link to you out of the kindness of their hearts?  Well enough of my belly acing, you get my meaning , let’s list the things we can do. 1.        Get Google to add your website. They say it could take several weeks. Laugh!  I added Adsense, a sitemap and a robots. txt and they added my website 4 hours later. Google’s Webmaster’s Tools has the robots. txt . I get my sitemaps from http://www. xml-sitemaps. com for free and I update them often. 2.        Steal, steal, steal. They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Well when it comes to keywords, flatter your competition. But don’t  grab from some website that paid enough for adwords to get to the top. Go to about number 7+ in your search he didn’t pay squat and still got there. 3.        Trade those links. Google says “Don’t blah blah blah” you have to start somewhere. So get started. You have to do a lot of dumpster diving before you can get to delight in a fine meal. 4.        The best way to get linked is by submitting qualities articles. What’s a “quality” articles? Articles that tell you something different in a way that leads you to a website without trying to sell you before you get there. Google and webmasters are looking for quality not quantity. 5.        Content, content, content.   It’s simple, everyone wants to know, are you going to help me or are you just trying to sell me something. If you’re helpful I might buy something from you. Haven’t you had those same thoughts? Go out and grab some quality content for your own site. And don’t forget to let the authors know you are publishing them and question them to publish your articles. 6.        Finally remember it’s about Google, it’s about visitors. If Google won’t help you, help yourself. There are a million websites willing to send you visitors, use them. 7.        Be an expert. Every wants to here from an expert. Get yourself published by article directories. But remember be an expert not a pitch man. I can send your articles to webmasters but I can’t make them publish them. These are just a few of the ways to get traffic, there are many fantastic articles out there take a small time to read them

So you have keenly chose to join the adsense game in your pursuit of online business success. But for many the process of making money from adsense is not as simple as they may have thought. Many struggle with getting their click through rates up, while others have very low earnings per click. Here some crucial tips to turning your adsense woes into adsense glory:
Tip #1: Use all the ads that you are allowed to
This is often overlooked by so many adsense publishers because they reckon that if they place too many ads it will turn people off. This is not right because in most adsense programs you are only allowed to place adsense on content rich pages.
So if you have enough content, which you should since you are running a website that is supposed to inform people, then you can sprinkle your ads here and there and make it look very natural.
Tip #2: Make your ads look less like ads
People that visit your site are all too familiar with advertising and know very well that you are more than likely going to throw some ads on them while they are on your site. In fact, they expect it! Google and Yahoo both have systems in place to adjust the colors, borders and backgrounds of your ads. That should be a hint to you that they want you to adjust your ad detail to at least blend in to your site.
Make sure though that you review terms and conditions of these adsense programs and that you fully comply with them. One of the things you absolutely cannot do is encourage your visitors to click ads. So try different color combinations that fit with your site.
Tip #3: Make sure your ads are on topic and relevant
Often you will see ads on a site page that is completely unrelated to what that page is about. This is primarily due to either a lack of content or your page is covering way too many topics and is not targeted.
Do your keyword research and have a purpose for each adsense page. If your pages are content rich and targeted on a keyword that has enough adwords advertisers then you should get highly relevant ads that visitors are much more likely to click on.
So, there you have it, some simple tips that I have used to see excellent results and I hope they benefit you too. Excellent luck in your adsense adventures.

[NEW YORK - Wednesday] – by Devon Melk. Rumors are now running amok that the 2nd most powerful website on the entire Worldwide-Web may file BANKRUPTCY, with the deadline set for this December; being the date of both discharge and dissolution in a Federal Court of Law.

This would come as a SHOCK to investors and “Googlers” alike who both profit and benefit from the use of the World’s largest and most powerful search engine which receives far in excess of 100 MILLION unique daily visitors and well over 300 million individual searches daily – making it perhaps the single most valuable public data resource as an “information bank” online the world over.

But is the rumor right or fake?

The origin of the rumor occurred when some savvy Internet marketers started making statements that they had heard “insiders’ talk” that the company (now publicly traded since April 30, 2004, just over 3 years ago) may face financial disaster with the release of a “new system” that would allow advertisers to get their otherwise pay-per-click (PPC) advertising completely free.

This, of course, would naturally lead directly (like a domino- effect) to the collapse of Google’s sibling program AdSense; as its only revenue comes from the direct sales of AdWords “clicks. “

The “new system” in question and responsible for the controversy over getting AdWords pay-per-clicks free is that developed by Dr Jon Cohen of New York City, New York (now retired) who learned a simple, yet effective means, for getting Google PPC ads without having to suffer the costs involved.

The retired New York doctor and native has a publicly told net worth now in excess of $70 million [US], having generated well over $377 million in product sales from sixteen (16) separate online businesses within just nine (9) years since first venturing online in 1998 (about the same time as Google was founded).

It is estimated by company insiders and leading financial analysts that the “excellent doctor” (as he’s called by “all who know him”) has purportedly saved well over $93 million (some estimates suggest closer to $136 million) in otherwise paid advertising at Google and the other major players in the PPC targeted-search arena online – including Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb. com, HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos and Netscape, just to name a few.

The “secret” became available to the general masses last April, and its very release caused such a major sweeping stir among the community of Internet-marketers, affiliate-marketers, webmasters, ecommerce company owners and surfers alike that the site quickly rose to break the top most visited 1,000 websites on the entire planet briefly; and as can be seen here:

http://tinyurl. com/39lnjn (Alexa data on this!)

When questioned if the “secret” would somehow ruin Google, Dr Cohen revealed nearly cryptically that it really would bring about just the opposite effect, and “stimulate” even more business volume for the virtual giant.

Many people were dismayed to find that Google itself is deliberately allowing the buy of 100,000’s of PPC ads offering the secret system to the general public — which indicates to most observers that either they [Google] haven’t caught it, or they simply feel that it somehow is not a threat to their continued operation.

For anyone’s inspection factual and hard evidence supporting this can be seen by simply looking to the right-hand column when doing a search for “get google ads free” (specifically in quotation marks) at Google. com under the “Sponsored Links” section.

Or take this direct and instant SHORTCUT:

http://tinyurl. com/2ctu6j

You can also see nearly 100,000 specific results in the “organic” fields index located in the center and which occupies the bulk of the results pages.

One would reckon that if Google felt threatened by such a release as this earth-shaking “secret” is, they would hardly allow for either paid-ads or organic content to make the top searches regarding it.

But, evidence supports to the contrary – and this being the case now for a full six (6) months.

Mysteriously, within just two (2) hours of its initial release last April, Google itself really did in fact ‘pause’ the parent firm’s attempts at advertising the new system using PPCs on their search engine – only, but, to release the hold after a Review Team consisting of some of Google’s top executives completed performing an in-depth investigation and made the determination to ALLOW the ads to run.

The secret system was recently revised but to include “major new content” and “more exhaustive instructions,” and is now available at its Home Site below.

The most vital addition is that of a so-called “string of code” (tech-talk for some HTML) that can be added to any webpage(s) that instantly causes the elimination of the page owner’s AdWords costs straight away.

Even a “live” woman spokes-representative (“Rachel”) has been added to the site, and who appears to literally walk out onto the webpage and talk to visitors and clarify a bit more how the mysterious new breakthrough system works.

Since the addition of this new “live” spokes-woman has now appeared at the site, company Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr Todd Coutrin states that “sales for the system have skyrocketed above 2,430% suddenly and with no limit in sight. “

Coutrin continues: “With the newest revision now in place, plus all the additions added, affiliates for the new system can expect to earn even more than ever before!” (Note: Affiliates make up the bulk of the firm’s sales generation. )

The refund rate for the new revised version of the secret (named V5. 1) has dropped to less than half of what it was before the newer version’s release; meaning it’s now even more readily-received and place to use than ever before (perhaps in large part to the newer simplicity of application) – now making it the safest and one of the best resellers for the networks of affiliate marketers who earn their revenues from the reselling of other electronic publishers’ stock and digital product lines.

When questioned, Google company representatives stated matter-of-factly that the rumors of bankruptcy for the ecommerce giant are simply not right, and that the rumor millings are in fact simply the result of “panics” brought on by the usual hysteria associated with anything large, new or revolutionary – or in this case, all three.

Attempts to contact both Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the former Stanford University students who founded Google in 1998, to request comment were unsuccessful.

Again, Google itself seems to be the largest supporter of the “new system” as it’s allowing more and more advertisers to promote the new system on its search engine before over 100 million daily searches and surfers.

[NEW YORK - Wednesday] – by Devon Melk. Rumors are now running amok that the 2nd most powerful website on the entire Worldwide-Web may file BANKRUPTCY, with the deadline set for this December; being the date of both discharge and dissolution in a Federal Court of Law.

This would come as a SHOCK to investors and “Googlers” alike who both profit and benefit from the use of the World’s largest and most powerful search engine which receives far in excess of 100 MILLION unique daily visitors and well over 300 million individual searches daily – making it perhaps the single most valuable public data resource as an “information bank” online the world over.

But is the rumor right or fake?

The origin of the rumor occurred when some savvy Internet marketers started making statements that they had heard “insiders’ talk” that the company (now publicly traded since April 30, 2004, just over 3 years ago) may face financial disaster with the release of a “new system” that would allow advertisers to get their otherwise pay-per-click (PPC) advertising completely free.

This, of course, would naturally lead directly (like a domino- effect) to the collapse of Google’s sibling program AdSense; as its only revenue comes from the direct sales of AdWords “clicks. “

The “new system” in question and responsible for the controversy over getting AdWords pay-per-clicks free is that developed by Dr Jon Cohen of New York City, New York (now retired) who learned a simple, yet effective means, for getting Google PPC ads without having to suffer the costs involved.

The retired New York doctor and native has a publicly told net worth now in excess of $70 million [US], having generated well over $377 million in product sales from sixteen (16) separate online businesses within just nine (9) years since first venturing online in 1998 (about the same time as Google was founded).

It is estimated by company insiders and leading financial analysts that the “excellent doctor” (as he’s called by “all who know him”) has purportedly saved well over $93 million (some estimates suggest closer to $136 million) in otherwise paid advertising at Google and the other major players in the PPC targeted-search arena online – including Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb. com, HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos and Netscape, just to name a few.

The “secret” became available to the general masses last April, and its very release caused such a major sweeping stir among the community of Internet-marketers, affiliate-marketers, webmasters, ecommerce company owners and surfers alike that the site quickly rose to break the top most visited 1,000 websites on the entire planet briefly; and as can be seen here:

http://tinyurl. com/39lnjn (Alexa data on this!)

When questioned if the “secret” would somehow ruin Google, Dr Cohen revealed nearly cryptically that it really would bring about just the opposite effect, and “stimulate” even more business volume for the virtual giant.

Many people were dismayed to find that Google itself is deliberately allowing the buy of 100,000’s of PPC ads offering the secret system to the general public — which indicates to most observers that either they [Google] haven’t caught it, or they simply feel that it somehow is not a threat to their continued operation.

For anyone’s inspection factual and hard evidence supporting this can be seen by simply looking to the right-hand column when doing a search for “get google ads free” (specifically in quotation marks) at Google. com under the “Sponsored Links” section.

Or take this direct and instant SHORTCUT:

http://tinyurl. com/2ctu6j

You can also see nearly 100,000 specific results in the “organic” fields index located in the center and which occupies the bulk of the results pages.

One would reckon that if Google felt threatened by such a release as this earth-shaking “secret” is, they would hardly allow for either paid-ads or organic content to make the top searches regarding it.

But, evidence supports to the contrary – and this being the case now for a full six (6) months.

Mysteriously, within just two (2) hours of its initial release last April, Google itself really did in fact ‘pause’ the parent firm’s attempts at advertising the new system using PPCs on their search engine – only, but, to release the hold after a Review Team consisting of some of Google’s top executives completed performing an in-depth investigation and made the determination to ALLOW the ads to run.

The secret system was recently revised but to include “major new content” and “more exhaustive instructions,” and is now available at its Home Site below.

The most vital addition is that of a so-called “string of code” (tech-talk for some HTML) that can be added to any webpage(s) that instantly causes the elimination of the page owner’s AdWords costs straight away.

Even a “live” woman spokes-representative (“Rachel”) has been added to the site, and who appears to literally walk out onto the webpage and talk to visitors and clarify a bit more how the mysterious new breakthrough system works.

Since the addition of this new “live” spokes-woman has now appeared at the site, company Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr Todd Coutrin states that “sales for the system have skyrocketed above 2,430% suddenly and with no limit in sight. “

Coutrin continues: “With the newest revision now in place, plus all the additions added, affiliates for the new system can expect to earn even more than ever before!” (Note: Affiliates make up the bulk of the firm’s sales generation. )

The refund rate for the new revised version of the secret (named V5. 1) has dropped to less than half of what it was before the newer version’s release; meaning it’s now even more readily-received and place to use than ever before (perhaps in large part to the newer simplicity of application) – now making it the safest and one of the best resellers for the networks of affiliate marketers who earn their revenues from the reselling of other electronic publishers’ stock and digital product lines.

When questioned, Google company representatives stated matter-of-factly that the rumors of bankruptcy for the ecommerce giant are simply not right, and that the rumor millings are in fact simply the result of “panics” brought on by the usual hysteria associated with anything large, new or revolutionary – or in this case, all three.

Attempts to contact both Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the former Stanford University students who founded Google in 1998, to request comment were unsuccessful.

Again, Google itself seems to be the largest supporter of the “new system” as it’s allowing more and more advertisers to promote the new system on its search engine before over 100 million daily searches and surfers.

When I first chose to invest my time and energy into learning how to make my own online income, maybe like you, I had a certain amount of stress trying to find ways of doing it! The concepts of making money online or how to build my own money making website were all new to me. The theory behind tools like Google Adsense, Adwords and Yahoo Overture were unfamiliar as were the concepts of affiliate marketing, blogging for cash and all the other tools and techniques used for making a successful online working from home business. So I studied, bought e-books on how to make money online, studied some more and as a result learnt more and more about ways to generate an online income. But I was quite disappointed after spending weeks and weeks trying to make some money not to generate even one sale. Then I read this statement. There is always a reason for how well you do, and that reason always relates to what you do and how you do it. Once you realize this, then you know success really is do-able. Some people do succeed. . . huge-time…but not necessarily the first time. Just keep trying until you find the right approach. Everyone has a passion or interest. We have all had experiences in life, some excellent, some not so excellent. Which ever it is, you have within yourself something that is of fantastic value and benefit to others. This page will help you tap into those areas of your life and show you how to channel that passion and motivation to making a successful home online business. You are embarking upon a truly rewarding journey. Have no doubts — this is “winnable” e-commerce. It’s really under your control. Detailed in more detail through my website, I show the 3 steps for building your own online business. 1. Find your passions and profitable niche 2. Harnessing the power of quality content and talk about your passion 3. Sell your passion to the world. Finding a Niche Firstly lets do a small brainstorming to find those areas of your life that are possible thoughts to build your business around. The few hours or so that you spend here, in preparation, will determine exactly how huge your success will be. One of Site Sells statements about this stage of preparation is PREpare, Not REpair. Don’t rush with process, you are not in a race, there is no stop watch ticking. Some careful plotting and fine-tuning will pay you huge dividends down the road. Ken Evoy (Director of Site Sell) has some brilliant advice on how to find your subject niche! Ready? Excellent. . . lets continue and find your. . . Passion Passion makes work fun and simple… • What is it that you to talk about, read about? • What is your leisure activity? • What do you do for fun and games? • What are your natural talents? Don’t forget to look right under your nose. . . • What special body of knowledge have you learned from your job? • What do you do day after day, without even thinking about it (eg. child-rearing, taking care of sick parents, renovation contractor, customs inspector). Reckon about what you do in a typical day, and what you’ve learned from it… • What sections of a bookstore or a magazine shop do you automatically gravitate toward? • What kind of or movies do you tend to like most? What activities do you delight in most about your current occupation?. . . • Is it research? • Helping customers achieve their goals? • Managing other people? • Teaching or explaining things to others? • Talking/selling on the phone? • Organizing things? • Making a process simpler? • Learning or making new products or services? • Marketing products? Problems are also a excellent source for thoughts because problems need solutions!… • What bugs you? • What’s tedious? • What does not work?. . . We all encounter obstacles, problems, and hard people in the course of whatever it is that we do every day. What are the three largest problems in your work place? By now you should have a list of thoughts which are all possible subjects to build your online business around. The next stage of our brainstorming stage is to prune that list to dig out the most profitable – high demand – low supply keywords. To do this there are several tools you can use like http://wordtracker. com or Google’s Keyword Research Tool. One of the tools I use is Search It!, a free tool from Site Build It which is linked and works together with wordtracker, yahoo overture and major search engines to bring you search statistics for keyword analysis. We all find it simple to talk about things we like, but not many people know that people are willing to pay money for the acknowledge you have! This is the dawn of the net and by making quality content around your HIGH DEMAND – LOW SUPPLY topic you could be earning money from what you know.

Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins
As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Fantastic Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get – regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are nearly 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!
Really, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?
But that may be something of a fake positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been excellent instead of terrible. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.
As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives “6 Top Tactics For Tough Times. ” It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google’s advice can be applied to your own general online marketing.
These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)
1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.
2. Use Value-related keywords.
3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.
5. Make it simple for customers to buy.
6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)
Sound advice and I especially like the thought of focusing your marketing on low prices and savings mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it simple for your customers to buy. . . something as simple as putting your “order/buy link” above the fold can increase your conversions.
Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to “discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices. . . ” will help increase your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift thoughts, wedding gifts. . . shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.
Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs – then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites – focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.
Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years – even in these hard times.
o Make Keywords Your #1 Goal
This is the single most vital factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you’re marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don’t truly know how vital getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.
Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more well loved keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be nearly impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in terrible times.
o Autoresponders, List Building & Online Relationships
Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.
So building a large contact list is essential. That’s why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and list builders!
o Your Unique Selling Position
You must give potential customers some very excellent reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consists of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100’s OFF by buying thru your links, they will.
Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you’re into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it simpler to make sales. So too is only promoting well loved online merchants like Amazon, can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.
o Go With The Flow
If you’re marketing online, you have to follow what’s working for you. Most times you will try countless thoughts or tactics – once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the toughest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that “something” a thousand times.
Tracking what works is very vital so keep a close eye on your site’s traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for “fine-tuning” your site and your online marketing. It will tell you what’s working and what’s not.
o Target Recurring or Residual Income
One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paid for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs. . . once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.
Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.
o Automate Everything
The real beauty of marketing online and using computers. . . you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do. . . use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting. . . just set-up your whole online marketing system that runs itself with small or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacation and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacation and then some – all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.
o Find The Top Online Marketers
If you’re just starting with online marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and “model” what they’re doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing. . . and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.
o Make Google Your Friend
Whether you like or despise Google doesn’t matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketing. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still vital, but Google is the deal-breaker when you’re selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.
I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools. . . all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my “web-based” lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it’s all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.

Do you prefer to make money through the Internet simply you do not have sufficient experience or working capital to start your own online business?  You don’t need cause to concern, as a lot of internet marketing alternatives exist for you to start out with.   Among one these choices, and shall I say the most beneficial, is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing allows for the first time internet marketers like you the opportunity to market something online even without owning your own merchandise to sell.   All you’ve to do is to sign on with an affiliate marketing program, which is generally owned by an online merchant or retailer, and start picking the merchandises you prefer to promote.   As an affiliate, you’re paid from the merchant for your services on an commission base, that’s if you have targeted a visitor to the merchant’s web site and the visitor really buys something. Getting an affiliate in an affiliate marketing program is oftentimes quick and simple, and since most affiliate programs, signing up costs also free.   But in spite of these and all the profits being assured by affiliate programs, numerous people are all the same uncertain to enter affiliate marketing.   Among the reasons why numerous people continue hesitating is the lack of a website to start out marketing his affiliate products with.   This at present leads us to the question of whether a website is expected or essential in affiliate marketing or not. Many people say that one could do affiliate marketing even without a website to start with.   Really, one can really start promoting and marketing his affiliate products even without a website; and there exist numerous ways on how this can be done.   In truth, many affiliate marketing strategies that leads to success can exist without really needing a website.   Among these strategies are email marketing, offline promotions, writing e-books, writing ezines and engaging in online discussions like forums, chats, message boards and others. *Email MarketingEmail marketing, or keeping up email lists, is in reality the most well loved affiliate marketing scheme that does not involve the affiliate to keep up a website.   In this affiliate marketing strategy, what you essentially do is uphold a list of the email ads of your potential purchasers and offer them with content that are relevant with the affiliate merchandises and programs you’re promoting.   Content that you offer your contacts with not all of the time be promotional, since several individuals feel such types of email annoying.   Instead, it would be better if you supply them with something educational and just supply small text advertisements that link to your merchandiser site. *Offline PromotionThere are several methods on how you’ll be able to promote your affiliate products offline.   One of the most common medium practised for such promotions is classified ads, leaflets and flyers.   Classified ads would broadly speaking work finer likened to the other two since classified ads successful periodicals oftentimes get a broader audience. *Writing Free e-booksWhenever you experience a knack in writing, authorship an e-book could be the better method for you to advance your affiliate products in the absence of an actual website.   Precisely like in emails and ezines, your readers would better value your e-book whenever it’s not overly promotional merely rather informative.   Make certain, but, to make the contents of your e-books comparative to the actual affiliate products you are promoting.   And just like in email marketing, you will be able to just place text ads or banners somewhere near the end of your e-book that links to the merchant’s site. *Writing Free EzinesEzines are publications or articles that aim to inform individuals about a particular topic.   If you don’t have a website and yet want to be an affiliate, you can well use ezines to promote your affiliate products or to insert links to your merchant’s site.   If you have a website, your ezine article may really work well as content for your site.   But since you have no website, you can just submit your free ezine articles to various websites that hosts ezines, like goarticles. com, ezinearticles. com and others. *Online discussions (Forums, Chats, Message Boards, etc. )With or without a website, you just can’t ignore online discussions because they are fantastic venues for marketing your affiliate products.   In chats, forums, message boards and discussion boards with topics related to your products, you can easily find people who may be interested with the products you are promoting. With all these strategies, it may appear that one really doesn’t need to have a website to start marketing his affiliate products and promoting his affiliate programs.   Well, starting in an affiliate program without a website may be simple, but getting successful in affiliate marketing without a website is another thing.   While one can really gain enormous success in affiliate marketing even without a website, it is a rare instance that “newbies” like you can reach the same levels of success. Possessing a website isn’t really a requirement in getting in into an affiliate program, unless otherwise the program owner would expect you to have one.   Just while this is so, I’d still urge that you’ve for yourself have a website, if not at present, then perhaps at a future time.   Owning a website produces numerous rewards in affiliate marketing.   Because one, it allows for you a place where you are able to creatively promote not solely one of your affiliate merchandises but entirely your affiliate products.   With a website, you are able to as well promote your affiliate products to a broader market. Once more, owning a website is not a essential in affiliate marketing.   Merely with the advantages that a website could provide, I’d sooner have one for myself and establish affiliate marketing a lot simpler for me.

Highly targeted traffic is one of the most vital entities in the internet universe. Any website owner or administrator recognizes the importance of driving traffic to a website. The success of any website does not rely entirely on the site itself.
You may have a terrific thought for a website, offer an brilliant product or service, or have an exceptionally designed site with superb content, but if you do not use the right strategies to advertise, your site would not attract the high traffic you need. Attracting targeted traffic is a task that should be taken seriously for any site to succeed or make a profit.
Fortunately, there are internet-marketing tools that help the website marketer to drive traffic to his website. One of the most significant, and effective, of these tools is Google’s Adwords. Adwords is one of Google’s advertising services.
How does Google Adwords work? Google is the largest search engine on the web receiving over 200 million queries each day through its various services. As Google is the most well loved search engine today, webmasters are keen on having their websites achieve a higher ranking in the search engine results it provides. A high ranking can mean high traffic for that website.
The search engine results page is also a fantastic venue for advertisers to promote a product or service through ads and links. Consequently, Google launched its Adwords service, as a way for businesses to advertise products and services to a targeted audience. Google Adwords can guarantee instant traffic. In this service, Google displays relevant text based ads within its search engine results page termed as “Sponsored Links”.
Whenever a particular keyword is searched on, these relevant links appear in a separate section giving brilliant exposure to the sites listed.
How do you use Google Adwords? First, you have to open an account with the Google Adwords Service. Then, you should indicate your target language and country. This is vital because you would not want your products advertised in countries where your product or service cannot be sold.
Afterwards, you should now make an ad group. This involves designing the ad, selecting keywords and determining maximum cost per click that you are willing to spend and defining bid amounts.
The most vital step in making a successful Adwords campaign is selecting an effective title tag that will catch the attention of your target audience. The title tag, generally a small phrase, is the most vital part of your Adwords campaign so make sure that it is attractive and catchy.
You should describe the website clearly and accurately. The most effective advertising conveys a clear message to the target audience. With a clear message, you will be attracting qualified leads, which can eventually convert to sale. Thus, the importance of selecting the right keywords cannot be overemphasized.
There are keyword variations you can adapt to reach more prospects. Using these varieties, misspellings and derivatives can help increase the chance of your ads being served. Broad match is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner.
Here, the ads appear based on the keywords that have been queried by other users as opposed to exact match, which calls for the keyword to match the query exactly. Meanwhile, a keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. A negative keyword is helpful in filtering unrelated pages.
After you have chose on what title tag to use in your ad, you must now define a budget in order to maximize exposure. Google Adwords recommend a daily budget for each campaign. But, you should determine a budget that is suitable and affordable. You should also determine the maximum cost per click. Google will offer a recommended cost per click, but you do not have to stick with this.
Usually, a number one position is not ideal as it can also attract unwanted traffic and useless clicks. A number two position is more preferred as it can filter useless clicks and provide traffic with a higher conversion rate.
To conclude, Google Adwords is an brilliant strategy and tool in giving your site maximum exposure. Nevertheless, Google Adwords should not be your sole advertising campaign. It will certainly help you find the all-vital, highly targeted traffic you need.

NEW YORK – Wednesday] – by Devon Melk. Rumors are now running amok that the 2nd most powerful website on the entire Worldwide-Web may file BANKRUPTCY, with the deadline set for this December; being the date of both discharge and dissolution in a Federal Court of Law. This would come as a SHOCK to investors and “Googlers” alike who both profit and benefit from the use of the World’s largest and most powerful search engine which receives far in excess of 100 MILLION unique daily visitors and well over 300 million individual searches daily – making it perhaps the single most valuable public data resource as an “information bank” online the world over.

But is the rumor right or fake? The origin of the rumor occurred when some savvy Internet marketers started making statements that they had heard “insiders’ talk” that the company (now publicly traded since April 30, 2004, just over 3 years ago) may face financial disaster with the release of a “new system” that would allow advertisers to get their otherwise pay-per-click (PPC) advertising completely free. This, of course, would naturally lead directly (like a domino-effect) to the collapse of Google’s sibling program AdSense; as its only revenue comes from the direct sales of AdWords “clicks. ” The “new system” in question and responsible for the controversy over getting AdWords pay-per-clicks free is that developed by Dr Jon Cohen of New York City, New York (now retired) who learned a simple, yet effective means, for getting Google PPC ads without having to suffer the costs involved. The retired New York doctor and native has a publicly told net worth now in excess of $70 million [US], having generated well over $377 million in product sales from sixteen (16) separate online businesses within just nine (9) years since first venturing online in 1998 (about the same time as Google was founded).

It is estimated by company insiders and leading financial analysts that the “excellent doctor” (as he’s called by “all who know him”) has purportedly saved well over $93 million (some estimates suggest closer to $136 million) in otherwise paid advertising at Google and the other major players in the PPC targeted-search arena online -including Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb. com, HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos and Netscape, just to name a few. The “secret” became available to the general masses last April, and its very release caused such a major sweeping stir among the community of Internet-marketers, affiliate-marketers, webmasters, ecommerce company owners and surfers alike that the site quickly rose to break the top most visited 1,000 websites on the entire planet briefly; and as can be seen here: http://tinyurl. com/39lnjn (Alexa data on this!)

When questioned if the “secret” would somehow ruin Google, Dr Cohen revealed nearly cryptically that it really would bring about just the opposite effect, and “stimulate” even more business volume for the virtual giant. Many people were dismayed to find that Google itself is deliberately allowing the buy of 100,000’s of PPC ads offering the secret system to the general public — which indicates to most observers that either they [Google] haven’t caught it, or they simply feel that it somehow is not a threat to their continued operation. For anyone’s inspection factual and hard evidence supporting this can be seen by simply looking to the right-hand column when doing a search for “get google ads free” (specifically in quotation marks) at Google. com under the “Sponsored Links” section. Or take this direct and instant SHORTCUT: http://tinyurl. com/2ctu6j. You can also see nearly 100,000 specific results in the “organic” fields index located in the center and which occupies the bulk of the results pages.

One would reckon that if Google felt threatened by such a release as this earth-shaking “secret” is, they would hardly allow for either paid-ads or organic content to make the top searches regarding it. But, evidence supports to the contrary – and this being the case now for a full six (6) months. Mysteriously, within just two (2) hours of its initial release last April, Google itself really did in fact ‘pause’ the parent firm’s attempts at advertising the new system using PPCs on their search engine – only, but, to release the hold after a Review Team consisting of some of Google’s top executives completed performing an in-depth investigation and made the determination to ALLOW the ads to run. The secret system was recently revised but to include “major new content” and “more exhaustive instructions,” and is now available at its Home Site: http://cordillera. freegoogle. hop. clickbank. net

The most vital addition is that of a so-called “string of code” (tech-talk for some HTML) that can be added to any webpage(s) that instantly causes the elimination of the page owner’s AdWords costs straight away. Even a “live” woman spokes-representative (“Rachel”) has been added to the site, and who appears to literally walk out onto the webpage and talk to visitors and clarify a bit more how the mysterious new breakthrough system works. Since the addition of this new “live” spokes-woman has now appeared at the site, company Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr Todd Coutrin states that “sales for the system have skyrocketed above 2,430% suddenly and with no limit in sight. “

Coutrin continues: “With the newest revision now in place, plus all the additions added, affiliates for the new system can expect to earn even more than ever before!” (Note: Affiliates make up the bulk of the firm’s sales generation. ) The refund rate for the new revised version of the secret (named V5. 1) has dropped to less than half of what it was before the newer version’s release; meaning it’s now even more readily-received and place to use than ever before (perhaps in large part to the newer simplicity of application) – now making it the safest and one of the best resellers for the networks of affiliate marketers who earn their revenues from the reselling of other electronic publishers’ stock and digital product lines.

When questioned, Google company representatives stated matter-of-factly that the rumors of bankruptcy for the ecommerce giant are simply not right, and that the rumor millings are in fact simply the result of “panics” brought on by the usual hysteria associated with anything large, new or revolutionary – or in this case, all three. Attempts to contact both Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the former Stanford University students who founded Google in 1998, to request comment were unsuccessful.

Again, Google itself seems to be the largest supporter of the “new system” as it’s allowing more and more advertisers to promote the new system on its search engine before over 100 million daily searches and surfers.

If you are new to Adsense you may have heard the term “Adsense Arbitrage”. This article will give you a brief overview of what the “Adsense Arbitrage” strategy is. In a nutshell Adsense Arbitrage is a strategy that is used to exploit the price gap between what a person pays for clicks on their advertisements and what they get paid per click if their visitors click on their Adsense Advertisements. On the surface Adsense Arbitrage looks like a strategy that could work. In fact there are many people around that are making money from this strategy, but Adsense Arbitrage is not as simple is it looks. So how does the Adsense Arbitrage Strategy work: 1. You need to find out what your customers are interested in. 2. Search for keywords that your customers are using to search for information. These keywords need to be as cheap as possible. 3. You will want to use other search engines to advertise on such as MSN, Yahoo, and Miva. This will help you to reduce the average cost per click. 4. You want to look for related keywords that will pay you a higher return. 5. Now work out what your break even click through rate will be for your Adsense Arbitrage campaign. 6. Make a google Adwords campaign and disable the content providers and google search facilities until you have optimized it. 6. Write an Adwords ad that targets your keyword. You want to use excellent Adword techniques to make your ad copy is relevant to the keyword and reduce your cost per click. 7. Set up your content website relating to the information your customer wants and make sure your content is relevant to the keyword you are targeting. . 8. Make sure each article targets a more expensive keyword, but it needs to be related to what the visitors is looking for. 10. Remember the more ads you have on your page the lower paying keyword ads will be showed. This will cost you profits. Where Adsense arbitrage is concerned less Ads can mean more profit. 9. Optimize your page for your Adsense Ads. 10. Monitor your Adsense Arbitrage results. Run for 30 clicks, optimize your ads, run for another 30 clicks, optimize again, run for another 30 clicks and check your profitability. Keep on doing this until you are pleased with the profitability of your Adsense Arbitrage campaign. 11. Expand your Adsense Arbitrage campaign one in profit – Advertise on other networks. But, before you race off and place Adsense Arbitrage to work I must warn you that this strategy is extremely risky, and if you don’t know your numbers, you may loose your shirt! Also remember that you need to have enough money to pay the cost of advertising as you will not get paid your Adsense Arbitrage earnings for 23 days after your advertising bill is due. Remember start small, check for profitability, optimize the Adsense Arbitrage campaign and then scale it up. I’m sure that if Adsense Arbitrage is done carefully and you know your numbers it will work, but this is not a set and forget strategy. Your Adsense Arbitrage campaign needs to be monitored constantly and you must know how your conversions are going.

Okay, it’s now time for the next installment of. . . “6 POWERFUL VRE(Virtual Real Estate) Business Models You Can Start Building In 2006 Using Google Adsense” series. By now you should have a excellent thought of what Virtual Real Estate is and why it’s to your benefit that you start a network of your own VRE sites depending on the model you choose. In the last installment of this series I covered “Article Directories”. In this part of the VRE series I’m going to cover “Web Directories” in general and then give you some examples of what they might be and look like. An “Web Directory” is simply a directory on the World Wide Web that specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. For more detail go to: www. googleincomemachine. com. Web Directory owners will often allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion. Then human editors will review their submission and if accepted, will be added to their database. The one thing about Web Directories is they are often used as part of a website marketing strategy for being indexed in the major search engines like Yahoo!, Google, MSN to name a few. The main strategy behind someone submitting there website to a directory is that a new site needs to quickly build inbound links from reputable sources. In doing this they will get a higher ranking within search engine results under there target keywords depending on the PR(popularity ranking) of that directory or inbound link. That’s the basic run-down of what an Web Directories purpose is and why they make a fantastic VRE business model. Web Directories can be and target anything you want them to. It’s your directory, so you make the choice as to what it is about. As your directory grows, so will its traffic. And if you have targeted affiliate programs strategically placed on your directory along side your Google Adsense code, you could be making a nice, for more detail go to: www. youradsenseprofits. com. steady income form your directory like many others are right now. Now. . . as I said at the beginning of this article I would give you some examples of some Web Directories with Google Adsense so you see for yourself whether or not this is something you want to venture into. So, with that said, here are 3 directories that I reckon will give you a excellent thought of what to expect:Also, pay special attention to where those Google Adsense ads are positioned because this is KEY to getting a excellent CTR(Click Through Rate) with your Google Adsense ads. Now, at this point, it’s up to you to make the choice on whether or not this is the type of VRE business model you want to use and start.

Determining a profitable website is not simple especially if you are looking to flip it for higher profit within a small time frame. But, with the right steps and procedures, it is possible even for a beginner to pick up a excellent site with fantastic potential to start off. The first step to determine if a website is worth the investment is by the number of income streams it has. Most websites have more than one income channel such as Pay-Per-Click advertisement (Google Adsense etc), Pay-Per-Action programs (AzoogleAds, Click Bank etc) or selling of own products. Basically, this step is to analyze the current profitable channels and see if you can expand or add in other sources of income. Never rely only on one income source for a website. The second step is to find out where the traffic is coming from. Most websites should have a healthy amount of constant traffic from the search engines followed by social bookmarking sites or regular visitors. If the majority of the traffic is coming from the search engines, proceed to question the owner what are the keywords that brought in the traffic. Try out the keywords in the search engines and check out the search engine rankings of the site. You should also check with the owner what are the top search engines that direct the traffic to the site.   With this information, check the on-page optimization effort of the site and you may have more thoughts for improvements after you have bought it. The next step is to highlight the areas of possible improvements of the site. If you can come out with at least two quick fixes to the site that can increase the value made to the visitors, the traffic to the site will increase to the next higher level eventually. For example, if you can include an online tool to calculate the financial net worth of a person in a financial blog that would most likely benefit all your readers in a long run. The fourth step is to check for back links to the site that you are interested to buy. It is highly recommended to use Yahoo backlink analyzer to check for Backlinks since it displays nearly all the pages that linked to the site. You may want to use the Yahoo powered analyzer at USESEO. With the above four steps, you should have no problems choosing a profitable website that can generate a stable income for some time. You are advised to check on the seller’s history as well to know more about the seller’s background before confirming the transaction.

The code for AdSense can be placed on any of your web pages. I reckon placing it on your blog will give you distinct advantage because blogs have several points in their favor. They are easily indexed by search engines. Recently two of my simple blogs were indexed by Google within 2-3 days of submission of URL’s which I reckon is quite quick. With Yahoo! it is even simpler – just add the URL of your blog to your My Yahoo page and Yahoo! will start accessing it immediately. Google Alert is a free tool that can be used to know when your blog is indexed by Google. You can have your blog up and running in minutes free of cost from several sites that provide this service. I personally use blogger. com. With blogs you do not need to worry about designing websites, registering domain name or hiring web site hosting service. You simply write your content on the blog and it is ready for publication. An brilliant article by John Taylor on making blog is re-published here:With AdSense wide range of options is available – number of ads for show, shape and size of show, color schemes. More than 200 colors are available from which you can choose color for border, background and text. 24 pre-set color palettes are readily available; in addition you can have your own custom-palette to match with the appearance of your web page. Similarly, color schemes are available for Google search bar. When the web page is opened, Google ads are placed which match with the content of the page and are highly relevant. Google finds right ads for the web page from 100,000 AdWord advertisers. Several options are available for the ads that you want to be showed on your page. Ad filters can be activated which will block up to 200 URL’s of your choice which you do not want to show on your page. You may like to filter away ads from your competitors. You can even choose your own default ads for show. Google uses sensitive content filters to prevent show of sensitive material. If you find that your page is not really getting relevant ads, it may be time to look critically at the content of the page, particularly the keywords used in text, links and tags. Small SE optimization of the page should resolve this problem. Sometimes Google places public service ads when no target ads are available. To suppress public service ad, it is possible to specify your own image ad or HTML page ad which will appear in place of public service ad. This ensures that some ad is always present there. Or, if you like, the space reserved for Adsense ads can be made to collapse. AdSense tracker is another useful feature which tracks the ads on your pages and generates report for you. The reports can be customized based on requirement. Typically reports can give page impressions showed, number of clicks and click-thru rates. It is also possible to check earnings any time. Web page owner can make use of all these facilities and try to get best results. With the help of Ad tracker lot of useful information can be obtained – which ads are doing well, which color combination gets better results , which location of the web page is best for showing ads and so on. This analysis can be used to improve traffic as well as click-thru rates. With AdSense you have virtually nothing to lose. If you have not yet installed AdSense on your website you can perhaps give it a thought. Any free space which can be made on your website to accommodate AdSense can be used to generate additional income.

The term ‘Adsense’ is defined as: a Google system of advertising for blogs and other websites. Subscribers can insert honestly unobtrusive Google ads and earn revenue from the users who view the ads or click on them. The ads are targeted to the keywords on the web page. – about. comFor a typical blogger or website owner, we make money when someone clicks on one of the Google Ads on our site, or per 1000 impressions of the Adsense links. For most of us, we already know how hard it is to get people to click on these links and even if they do, sometimes the chosen ads are low paying ones because of the keywords used on our page. So to help maximize profits, here is a list of 101 high paying Google Adsense words you can try and use to target the keywords in your content to. It is assuming that as the website owner, you will receive roughly 50% of the total cost per click that Google charges its advertisers, but you should check this with Google to find out the actual value (if they’ll tell you). 1. adwords – $9. 412. available domain name – $12. 973. addwords – $10. 924. adwords campaign – $14. 635. adsense – $12. 436. buy domains – $8. 847. buy domain name – $17. 108. bachelor degree on line – $14. 369. best webhost – $8. 6810. bulk email marketing – $11. 7711. bankruptcy – $5. 7212. cheap domain name – $9. 1613. car insurance – $22. 8914. credit cards – $10. 9315. crm software – $15. 9616. car loans – $11. 7917. construction estimating software – $5. 8018. domain names – $17. 5719. debt – $13. 1820. degree education on line – $12. 4421. dell computer – $5. 7922. degree – $6. 3723. debt management – $7. 1524. database software – $3. 1325. email marketing – $13. 2426. ecommerce hosting – $11. 8127. education degree online – $14. 6928. earn money online – $3. 0429. free domain name registration – $5. 8130. free credit report – $9. 5731. flowers – $4. 8332. financing – $4. 5033. gas prices compare – $6. 1934. google news – $2. 0735. graphic design degree – $12. 5836. graduate degree program – $7. 9337. hosting providers – $14. 2538. how to get a web site – $5. 8339. hp computer – $7. 5240. interest credit – $15. 5341. insurances – $17. 6742. interior design degree – $14. 1743. java software – $1. 6944. keyword tracking – $4. 3745. knee support – $1. 5746. life experience degree – $8. 3647. lung cancer treatment – $6. 1048. loans – $9. 8649. merchant account – $10. 5550. microsoft certification – $4. 8851. mba degree online – $15. 7852. master degree on line – $11. 5153. marketing software – $8. 2854. network monitoring software – $11. 4555. nursing degree – $8. 8156. norton anti virus software – $4. 0157. Norton virus protection – $3. 8558. online accounting degree – $27. 5059. online paralegal degree – $19. 4560. online degree – $13. 7461. online psychology degree – $20. 7862. online college degree – $14. 1063. payroll software – $7. 9564. pay per click – $8. 1865. personal domain name – $10. 2666. project management software – $10. 8067. quicken – $3. 4668. quick money – $3. 3269. register domain – $9. 0370. register domain name – $8. 3171. register a website – $10. 4772. register url – $8. 6973. student credit card – $10. 5474. survey software – $9. 5175. scheduling software – $7. 6076. shopping cart software – $5. 2377. travel insurance – $6. 7678. tax software – $6. 8979. teaching degree – $12. 7280. turbo tax – $5. 4781. University Degrees Online – $10. 9882. unlimited web hosting – $8. 3183. university degrees – $5. 6884. undergraduate degree – $4. 7185. voip phone system – $9. 5786. visa credit card – $11. 8387. voip billing software – $8. 2188. virus protection – $5. 5889. website domain names – $12. 6590. web domain name – $10. 6291. web host rating – $9. 7592. web site register – $13. 0493. web hosting – $13. 0394. web design software – $2. 5795. web space provider – $6. 6296. yahoo domain – $7. 7097. yellow page advertising – $6. 5698. yahoo domain name – $9. 0099. your site – $2. 57100. zire pda – $2. 16101. zenith television – $1. 55NB: The dollar values were right at time of publication; please recheck keywords using Google’s Keyword Tool for the most up to date values.

It’s happened to you. You’ve searched for something on Google and several promising results appear. You click on a link, but when you get to the site all you see are a few ads and nothing even remotely close to what you searched for. So you go back to the search results and try again, only it happens again and again until you finally find a page with some decent content. . . or frustration sets in and you give up all together.
Why does this happen? How come in this day and age Google can’t give you the results you’re looking for? A large part of the answer is the growing number of made for AdSense (MFA) sites on the web today. MFA sites are designed for the sole purpose of getting you to click on a Google AdSense advertisement.
Define Made for AdSense
A site is made for AdSense if its sole purpose is to get users to click on AdSense ads. Its owners don’t intend that users will learn from its content or participate in a community. All that they want is for them to click on an ad. A site is NOT made for AdSense if its primary purpose is to provide unique content and the site owner decides to keep their content free by showing advertisements, AdSense or other. This has been going on for years – television, newspapers, and magazines all generate revenue with advertisements. The difference is that the advertisements SUPPLEMENT the content of the show or article. The same applies for the web. If you have a news site or a forum, placing ads on your site does not make it a made for AdSense site.
Why Do People Make MFA Sites?
The thing with MFA sites is that they work. The overwhelming majority of the population has no clue what Google AdSense is and doesn’t know that Google and the site owner make money when they click on an ad. By placing these ads in locations that people tend to focus on (Google gives you examples of locations that result in the highest click through), it’s inevitable that a certain percentage of visitors will click on the ads – either intentionally or unintentionally.
Site owners make anywhere from a five cents to several dollars per click (revenue is split between them and Google) depending on the industry. Huge deal right? If you convert 5% of users into clicks and you make 10 cents a click, you’re only making 50 cents for every hundred visitors to your site. Well if you make a thousand MFA sites and each gets two hundred visitors a day, you are making a cool $1,000/day.
Smart MFA site owners design sites with keywords that advertisers pay more than the standard 20 cents or 30 cents. They design sites with “content” about lawyers and car companies that buy AdWords advertisements that cost several dollars a click. Re-do that calculation with five dollars a click instead of 10 cents and your jaw will drop.
How do they get their traffic? In addition to using conventional white hat SEO methods (like unique content and link building), many of these sites shamelessly also take advantage of keyword stuffing and cloaking – tactics that are considered unethical and are against Google’s terms of service. Many also get their clicks in unethical ways – either by clicking on ads themselves or by employing bots to automatically click. This is called click fraud and is also against Google’s terms of service.
Who Gets Hurt?
Some would argue that no one is getting hurt by “tricking” people into clicking. Hey they’re not getting charged anything. No, but some advertiser is. Some business that’s pouring their hard earned money into Google AdWords to attract TARGETED visitors to their site. Instead they end up paying for accidental clicks. You (the searcher) also get hurt by getting less than optimal results. Imagine an internet where these sites didn’t exist. You might really have a chance at finding what you’re looking for on the first try. That would save you some time that I’m sure you’d be glad to have.
Should Google Do Something About It?
Everyone’s first thought is “Google could stop it if they tried. ” In reality, probably not. Regardless of the talent they recruit, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people trying to figure out a work around. As Seth Jayson recently said in his article about the same topic entitled How Google is Killing the Internet “I reckon when you pit a few hundred Google Smarty Pantses — who are getting stout on stock options and gourmet meals at the Huge Goo campus — against many thousand enterprising schemers on the Internet, the battle will go to those hungry schemers every time. ”
Google does have a system in place to reduce click fraud and are always improving their algorithm to rid their results of sites that practice cloaking, keyword stuffing, and other black hat SEO techniques. Unfortunately, it’s probably not enough.
The larger (and much scarier) question is whether or not Google wants to do something about it. For the time being, they stand to make a ton of money off of MFA sites. Until Google starts to see a negative impact from MFA sites there’s really no reason for them to rush to do anything about it. Say Yahoo! all of a sudden came up with a way to identify and block MFA sites and provided better search results because of it, Google may be threatened by the potential (or actual) loss of search percentage. But until that happens I wouldn’t expect Google to do much more than they are right now.
What Can You Do?
There’s no doubt that MFA sites have clogged up the web with thousands of worthless pages. The best way to reduce the number of made for AdSense sites is probably to do something about it yourself. If you advertise on Google AdWords, don’t allow Google to show your ads on their content network (AdSense sites). As an internet user, you can educate others about MFA sites and encourage them not to click on ads. It may not seem like much, but all of those clicks add up – just question someone who owns a made for AdSense site.