Questions About Adsense

Adsense democratizes advertising, but it is a professional tool made available to all webmasters, making this FAQ indispensable. Indeed there are concepts to understand and mistakes to avoid when using a program of advertising, to make more revenues and ensure that the account is not disabled...
The information below was taken from blogs of Google, various forums and personal experience.

1) What are Adsense and Adword?

Adsense is an advertising program for any Web site, professional or private individual. Google proposes you to put advertisement on your site for an income which depends on the amount advertisers are ready to pay and which usually varies between 1 cent and 3 dollars.
Adword is the complementary program, for the advertisers. They choose how much they are ready to give for each click on the advertisement which appears on sites in connection with keywords that pages contain. The choice of the sites is done according to the principle of biddings.

2) How much is it necessary to have visitors to use Adsense?

It should be known that a click on a Adsense advertisement pays on average between 10 and 50 cents (occasionally it can pay a lot more).
In addition one can expect a click for 200 to 300 prints of an advertisement, depending the subject of the site, and it seems that the number of prints reported by Google is lower than the number of visitors.
Thus with 1000 visitors per day one can expect to gain around 30 dollar a month, but that depends on the topic of the site and its quality. In this case there will be a payment every four months.
In addition, you are more lucky to be banished from the program with a smaller number of clicks by month. I would say that 1000 visitors per day is a minimum to start an Adsense program. This is my opinion, this is not official.

3) What is a contextual advertisement?

It is an advertisement that is selected when its contents, the promoted products, is connection with the contents of the page.
Adsense is contextual. Ads are selected according to the keywords in the page where the user put the code. The more the ads is related to the page, the higher is the incomes.

4) What is it exactly, an incentive to click?

Inciting to click, this is when visitors are requested to click not for the product, but to help the webmaster to make money! Incentive are message as "I need money, please etc..." or even an image just beside the ad to let visitors believe the ad is the link for the image! And also when the ad may be confused with the rest of the page.
It is not an incitement when the page describes a product that could appear through an ad, since the visitor that clicks does know the product, and thus is a potential customer!

5) Can I click on an advertisement to test the system?

Definitively not. Google put at your disposal a set of tools to test your advertisements without risk that your account is closed for invalid clicks.
This test system not only makes it possible to click on advertisements which are presented to you, but also on those which are presented to other net surfers, in foreign countries. It will inform you thus if it is profitable to insert advertisements on a given page.
I you have clicked on an publicity accidentally, you should not send a message to Google to inform it of that, as it is specified in its blog.

6) How does Google detect fraudulent clicks?

Google uses hundreds of criteria to identify the fraudulent clicks, the complete list remains secret but some indications were given to reassure advertisers. That relates to the clicks with the webmaster or the entourage and the Trojan horses that infect a website.
A first level filtering is applied by a robot to all clicks. Geographical area, navigator, IP address, these criteria detect 95% of the prohibited clicks which are then deducted from incomes (and invoice of the advertiser of course).
On a second level, suspect sites are studied closely. Here, advertisers are involved. Google signal abnormal activity to them, the advertisers can then ask ro nullify certain clicks, which leads Google to inspect the site and to possibly desactivate the Adsense account.
Finally, the advertisers can signal themselves the abuses.

7) The more I have visitors, and the more income drop!

This is something which is often noted. This is not have anything abnormal because the advertisements whose income by click is highest are also more rare ones. By increasing the number of displays and the number of pages, one so collect advertisements which have a lower revenue.
In addition, the price of an advertisement depends on the relevance of keywords of the advertisement with the contents of the page, and this the increase in the traffic should not be obtained by a disparity of topics in the site.
It is necessary to reduce the number of advertisements posted to only keep most relevant ones and to maintain the value by click. See also at Smart Pricing.

8) I changed nothing on the site, but my incomes do not cease declining!

The problem is there: when a site is inactive it receives advertisements which pay less. It seems that Google privileges active sites with new pages or even pages whose contents evolve.

9) Why is aggregate number of clicks greater than the sum of channels.

This can have several causes. Your pages can be replicated by other sites. Users can also click on ads on cached pages in search results.

10) Does a sitemap improve income from Adsense?

The sitemap does not improve incomes directly.
But creating an XML sitemap and registering it at Google can make it possible only to have a better indexed site. If search engines take into account the additions in the sitemap, new pages will be indexed immediately and as said above, Adsense likes new pages.

11) How to increase my income?

It is possible to increase the number of clicks by a better placement of ads: preferably at top and on the left of the page. If the content is short, the ad should be placed after the text. If it is long, put it inside.
Google gives advices on placement of advertisements.
Very often, the fact of creating new pages increases income.
The pages treating of actuality have good income, but it is necessary they are indexed quickly, which takes place on continuously developed sites, because engines adapt themselves to the their activity.
The value of the advertisements is in relation to the keywords of the page and with the request on those. The relationship between supply in keyword and demand determines the value of advertisements.
Choose a filename in connection with the contents, this can have an immediate effect by improving the relevance of the advertisements, just as internal links by the wording or the contents of the <title> tag.

12) Do incomes depend on PageRank?

That was sometimes brought back. A site having a PR of 6 or 7 would receive advertisements of higher income. But there is nothing official with that. It can be an indirect effect, because the choice of the advertisements depends on the links on the page.

13) Can I to put images beside Adsense ads?

Google recently decided to clarify its position relating to images, and about texts which resemble to Google advertisements.
One should not place images near ads so that one can think that the advertising link has a relationship with the image. For more precise details, see the text of Google about images.
One should not either have text resembling an advertisement.

14) What is the number of page impressions?

A page impression is generated each time a page is loaded that contains one or more ad groups or link unit. This number is different of the number of displayed ads or ad units.

15) Is it true that referrals make premiums

It is the case of referrals for the Adsense program itself. If a visitor of your site clicks on the advertisement, then if he subscribes to the program and if he makes 100 dollars within three months, a premium of is also added on your account. This policy may change, look at the rules.

16) Is my account lucky to be disabled if my eCPM is too high?

In fact, the question which should be raised is not: "Is My eCPM too high?" (eCPM = income by click) but rather: "Is My account profitable for the advertisers?".
If one make use of various tricks to obtain more clicks and that leads to advertisers' sites visitors that don't know why there are here, this is not a good plan.
The causes of disabling, apart fraudulent clicks are:
1) The arbitration: consist in making a Adword campaign with low cost advertisements in favour of a site with weak content, but advertisements with high income (for example 1 cent the ad for Adword, 40 cents for Adsense!).
2) MFA (Made For Adsense) website. The contents are non-existent or without interest, the pages are made only for clicks on the advertisements.
There is actually a campaign from Google to suppress définitively all such accounts.
On the contrary you should be an effective intermediary, and bring customers to sites which offer incomes to you. For that, ignore any method for increasing clicks such as full page advertisements, but write good and informative articles instead. Is there chance an account is disabled if Adword customers are satisfied?
If by misfortune, in spite of a good behavior, your account is disabled, there is a lot of other less known advertising furnishers.

17) Can I be disabled for too few clicks?

This has never been reported But if there is very very few clicks, it is better to be careful not to make accidental clicks.

18) My CTR is very high. Will I be disabled?

The CTR is sometimes very high on some sites. If you do not have done anything wrong (read the rules and what to avoid with Adsense), you do not hae the risk of being banned for that.

19) Can I show my CPM ads?

CPM ads are paid for the number of displays and not the number of clicks. However, it is not a problem to consult his site, even often. Google does not count your visits.

20) Several ooo Googleit means what?

Several oooo as Gooogle for example, in the wording of the ads, means nothing, according to the Adsense blog. It is purely decorative!

21) Does Adsense improve indexing of my pages?

Google replies clearly no to the question. Page holding ads are analyzed by a robot named Mediapartner, while the search engine makes use of another program named Googlebot. Results from one are not used by the other.

22)What are sections?

This is explained in the Google Adsense Help Center.
You can include special comments in your HTML page that define sections of page to emphasize or to ignore. The code look as <!--google_ad_section_start --> and the content of the section is used to choose the ads.
It must be large enough to make relevant ads.

23) What is Smart Pricing?

Same contextual advertisements placed on the same site, but for different user accounts (that has been experienced) do not bring the same amount and the variation can be very important. That is in smart pricing.
Google makes it possible to advertisers, providing they chose this option, to have a reduction on clicks when they come from an Adsense account where the visitors convert less, in other words buy less. If you bring to advertisers not very interesting visitors, your ranking drops at Google, and your site or all the sites of your account will pay less for same advertisements. Google obtains this information thanks to cookies placed on the sites of advertisers. The index of Smart Pricing is modified each week

24) How to get ads in video format?

Google now offers videos ads that are of course, more likely to get hits that images. Unfortunately, it is not possible to select specifically this format. For such announcements, you must choose the format of image ads, then dimensions compatible with videos: 200x200, 250x250, 300x250 or 336 x280. Examples are given on this page.
Google warns that these ads are limited in number.

25) Should I use 728x90 leaderboard or a smaller 468x60 banner?

In the Inside Adsense group, leaderboard is often cited even with other big formats on the same page. But I wonder if visitors ever bookmarks your pages with such advertising content. According to the Adsense tutorial based on the rules of the Adsense program and experience of users, ads make few money as soon as they are not in connection with the keywords in the page. Therefore you have to reduce the size as soon as non related ads appear in the unit. Replace 728x60 by 468x60 or remove the unit if all the ads are not relevant.

26) Is it better to place a single ad unit or several?

It depends on the size of the text on the page. If the text is very long, many units may be inserted, otherwise a 300 x 250 rectangle is enough. Always check the relevance of ads, how they relate to the content. It is common to place a link unit and a contextual unit on each page.

27) What is the most profitable format?

According to some users, a 300 x 250 rectangle is the best format. It may be embedded into the content, usually at right with text above and belong it.
According to the head of Adsense at Google the best incomes come in order from:

1. 336x280 rectangle.
2. 300x250 medium rectangle.
3. 160x600 skyscraper.

28) What are the higher ranking keywords?

Keywords for which advertisers give the most money are: insurance, credit, real estate, house, car, hotels, cinemas, schools, digital. These words must be contained in a page with a relevant context.

29) What is a good CTR? A good eCPM?

There is no predefined value, because it depends on the topic of the site, the number of ads which is an editorial choice. The CTR may be increased with a good integration. Most sites have a CTR between 1 and 5%.

30) Can I define the context for a contextual ad?

For contextual ads, the context is the entire page and the ads are choosen according to keywords found in the whole content of the page. Sometimes, this is not desirable, and you would prefer delimit a part of the page to define the context and so choose the keywords.
This may be done with some tags that are recognized by the robot that scans the pages. See at the Google's tutorial about sections.

31) Are statistics being displayed in real time?

No, approximately every 15 minutes or a longer period. This can sometimes take hours.

32) Can I know which ads visitors have clicked?

To do this we must define custom channels. You can not know clicks on announcement made by a specific advertiser.

33) Can I use a script statistics without problem?

Yes, as long as the script does not change the code of the announcements.

34) How much can be gained with Adsense?

Here are some examples of the bigger known profits:

• DigitalPoint.com: $10.000 per month.
  A collaborative website publishing articles for webmasters.
• AskTheBuilder.com: $30.000 per month.
• Digg.com: $250.000 per month.
  For that they have 30 millions pages seen per day.
  Digg is a collaborative site of information, which selects articles according to a system such as that whose source code is given on xul.fr, and which allows readers to mark articles.
• PlentyOfFish.com. Makes $300000 per month. It is a dating service with more than 15 millions pages views per day.

These cases relate only to personal sites, with one or some people for management and do not include networks of sites. Google has a page about success stories with Adsense.
These amounts are confirmed by Google for most of them. Take note than previously I had another website at top of the list, but it has completely disappeared from the Web! The success may be ephemeral...

35) Why the ads do not appear only on my computer?

This comes from the state of your system. To clean it, delete cookies, launch an program against viruses.

36) Why do I have only PSAs?

There are many possible reasons. Among other things, access to robots is blocked by robots.txt, or a login with a password, or the pages do not have enough content or content prohibited, or the type of ads is not enough varied (images only). Anything that makes the Mediapartner robot was unable to crawl the pages, or it can not find ads for the content.

37) Can I put Amazon ads on the same page as Adsense ads?

This is allowed.

38) Could a cracker steal my earnings?

This happens from time to time, a hacker can find a way to access your site and replace the code of your ads by his own. The script Adsense Checker can detect this type of hack.

39) Can I subscribe under 18 years?

You can do it but the earning have to be credited on the account of an adult.

40) Where to suscribe

Scriptol.com