Parking your domain at Google

Domain parking is a business with a long history in the web. Basically, if you have a domain name without any content, you can use it to make a few bucks using domain parking services.

The basic idea behind domain parking is that, depending on the domain name you have, many users will access the domain from time to time. For example, a domain such as pizza.com will generate visits even if it had no content. People just type a name like this in the browser window and it will eventually arrive at their web site.

Domain owner can profit from this by adding links that users will eventually click, generating advertisement revenue.

Until now, Google had a domain parking service that was restricted to domains with large number of visitors. Imagine if Microsoft.com goes out of business: they could just park the domain at Google and share the ad revenue.

Now, Google is allowing this to all domain owners. It may become a great business  for people that buy domain names, since they need no content. Just the name will be enough to generate some money. 

The bad news, however, is that you can certainly expect a large number of new domain to be created just for this purpose. Which will make even harder to find useful things, unless you use Google... well, may that is what they really want, after all.

Link: Inside AdSense: Extending AdSense for domains to all publishers

Adsense: finding the better paying keywords

One of the things you need to do to get good results as an adsense advertiser is to know you public. Knowning you public, in the adsense lingo, is similar to knowing the words that must be targeted by your web page.

Out of the thousands of words in the adwords program, what are the ones that you should target? Of course, this decision depends on what you like, what you known, and what the web searchers want to find.

For example, it doesn't help if you like needles, but there is nobody interested in this topic. On the other hand there are topics that interest everybody, like cars, home, insurance, for example.

If you want to find the top words more researched in the web portals, there is some help available. One example is the site 7Search.com. They provide a list of top paying 100 keywords, that can be very helpful if you want to create your pages for the adsense program. Bellow I give just the first part of the list, with the word and it maximum bid (that is, the maximum you can be paid for that word):

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Technorati tags: Adwords, search

Adsense Ad Positioning

One of the secrets of Adsense profitability, is knowing how to position the ads in the best possible way. The position where ads are added can be the difference between a successful website and one that doesn't perform well.

The easiest way to position Adsense ads is to put them along the top, bottom, and sides of the page. This is also the most natural option suggested by the format of Adsense ads.

Although simple to work with, this positioning may not be the most effective for your web site. For pages where you have to concentrate on the content, is much better to locate ads inside the text, instead of put them in the borders.

The main goal of doing this is allowing users to have a chance of actually seeing the Ads. If you put the Adsense blocks closer to where the text is located, your click though rate may increase as a result.

Another common trick is to locate the Adsense code at locations such as the beginning of the article, and at its end. This is another way of helping users to actually see what is in the Adsense unit.

The reality is that each page has a different dynamics. This asks for different approaches in ad location. By experimenting with different positions, you will be able to get the best results of you Adsense pages.

Technorati Tags:
Google, Adsense, tips

Google and the World Cup

A recent article on the eWeek website suggests that Google is probably not a great fan of the World Cup. The main reason presented is that during the world cup the whole world (ok, not including the US) is watching TV, instead of the Internet, cheering for their favorite teams. Not a Google thing for Google, which relies on people to see more and more Internet in order to increase its ad revenue.

However, despite these problems, one needs to realize that the World Cup presents great opportunities for Internet companies. For one, soccer fans need information about games, commentary on the matches, and to talk to other fans.

In fact, Google is already making money from the World Cup. They run along with Nike a soccer website (joga.com), which provides an online community for soccer fans worldwide. Moreover, the increased activity on blogs, forums, and other web sites that run adsense code can translated into added revenue for Google.

Link

Google and stock valuation

Google has always been a difficult case for financial analysts: an Internet company, which after 2001 has considered to be a risky class of stock, was able climb from an IPO of $80 to more than $400 in a little more than a year. While some have said that this is too much, others say that the price is still to low compared to the expected growth of the company.

The fact of the matter is that doing a financial analysis of Google is difficult, to say the least. Although the company is currently very profitable, its future is not easy to predict, since it depends on how the overall economy will adjust to the Google-based world that the company is trying to create.

In a sense, although the perspectives for Google are very bright, it is possible that in one year they have not close to the expected growth due to problems in the speed of change in the advertisement market. On the other hand, it is not at all impossible that growth increases at a much higher pace, if they are able to take the right moves.

To complicate matters most, Google is, with some good reasons, highly secretive about its next moves. During the last few months it has show a great appetite for mobile applications, but it has also created innovative services in the areas of multimedia. And lately, the Google-based payment system promises to take a good part of the pay-pal/eBay profits.

So, for anyone investing in Google the rewards may be huge, but there is also big possible downfall. Of course, this is not more than plain an simple investment risk: most financial investors are already familiar with this. It seems that the general public, and in particular technology-related journalists need to learn this small lesson.

Technorati Tags: Google, Adsense

Google Adsense in the streets

A funny web site presents what might be the next step for Google domination of the advertisement area: going to the streets.

The sandwich board program will allow any advertiser to buy space on sandwich boards across the country. The ads will even be contextual, so if you are close to a hospital you will see health care ads.

The article goes on explaining the advantages of the program:

According to a Google spokesperson, "the new digital sandwich board program will serve many purposes.

"First, a customer on a street passing one of these devices need only use their contactless credit card to identify themselves to the digital sandwich board and any product preferences they may have in the immediate area will instantly appear on the sandwich board."
"Second, although a large number of these new devices will be stationary, this will also provide jobs for those willing to carry the digital sandwich boards. Those carrying the boards will receive a portion of the revenue generated from any sale of a product displayed on their board."
"Third, this will clean up the look of a many a city street as all digital ads will be text only and have a uniform visual approach."

Very funny.

Here is Link

Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Google

Google Adsense tips

An interesting article about how to avoid clutter on Adsense web pages. These are well-thougt tips that everyone should apply to their web pages. They include:

* Keep a simple design;
* Give prominence to ads in the page;
* Organize content logically;
* Do overdo your design.

Read the full article.

Technorati tags: Google, Adsense

Google is beefing up its ad empire - radio is next target

Google is advancing its advertisement empire: this is the certain conclusion you reach after the announcement today that Google is investing up to 1.2 billion dollars in a radio advertisement company based on California.

According to Associated Press sources, the deal will involve the payment of 100 million dollars up front, with the remaining to be paid in three years, depending on the conditions set.

The main business of dMarc Broadcasting is to simplify the scheduling of radio ads by letting individual advertisers decide when ads are going to be aired.

If you look at the role that such a company can have on Google, it is clear that the Santa Clara giant is looking at smart ways to advance its Adwords and Adsense programs to new media, in this case the radio.

A similar approach could latter be used by Google to schedule TV ads -- at this point Google would have an advertisement system that covers the web, the print media (it already works with magazines and newspapers), the radio and TV.

I wonder how competing advertisement companies will cope with this. Maybe Yahoo may be interested in taking a similar route, but it simply lacks the amount of money Google has to make the right deals. Microsoft is not a credible player in this market at the level Google is playing. So the question is: who can compete with Google as the global advertisement giant?

Link

Technorati tags: Google, advertisement, adsense

Google makes deal with large Canadian portal

Google announced today that it has set a deal with canada.com, one of the largest web portals in Canada.

The deal will benefit canada.com with access to search technology by Google. On the other hand, Google will use the canada.com network to deliver targeted advertisement for the Canadian market (using its adwords and adsense technology).

According to the Toronto Star,

"With almost three million unique visitors a month, Canada.com provides an excellent media vehicle for our advertisers who are looking to penetrate the Canadian marketplace," stated Wendy Muller, head of Canada ad sales and operations for Google.

Technorati tags: Google, deals, advertisement

Analyzing clicks from Google Adsense

Adsense Now has a nice post about how to add tracking for Adsense clicks.

The method uses Javascript functions freely available on the Internet to do the hard work of determining where clicks in a page are going to. This information can be used to optimize the placement of Adsense ads in any web page. It looks like a very useful technique for web masters in general.

Technorati tags: Google, AdSense, SEO

Google pays 78.5 cents on the dollar for AdSense webmasters

Another interesting piece of information from the New York Times article I commented earlier today, is the fact that a cost-split is given for the Adsense program.

They specifically mention, as also stressed by JenSense.com, that

for every dollar the company brings in through AdSense and other places that distribute its ads, it pays roughly 78.5 cents back to sites like Digital Point that display the ads.

If you take the amount money Google reports as comming from AdSense, and multiplies it by 0.78 you will get the true amount web masters can make out of the program -- in order words, a HUGE amount of money is available from Google Adsense.

Technorati tags: Google, Adsense

Google adsense profits revealed in New York Times

An article about Google and Adsense has appeared today in the New York Times, which reveals the money being generated in Adsense by a few web designers.

According to the article, entrepreneurs such as the founder of Digital Point solutions, a forum web site, have made big bucks using Adsense in their pages.

What seems interesting in the article is the fact that specific values are given, in the case of Digital Point. The Google Adsense policy strictly prohibits web masters to reveal how much they make from the program. We should see if this is gonna trigger any kind of action from Google, in order to prevent other people to come public about this issue -- if this continues to happen, that clause of the Adsense contract will become void in practice.

Technorati tags: Google, Adsense

Google Adsense incorporating printing media.

The Google adsense program has been highly sucessful as a means of displaying ad information on the web without disrupting viewer. Google has accomplished this largely by its search engine capacity to analyse a web page and discover the main topics it covers. This mechanism implemented by Adsense has made Google a billiionare company, with more than $4 billion just in the first quarters of 2005.

Now, Google is not only improving adsense, but also extending it to other medias as well. Proof of this is the Adsense ads that are now being displayed on traditional newspapers. The picture bellow, from Rossin's blog, shows how adsense ads are displayed on the Sun-Times.

in the Sun-Times, Google is running ads in proximity to relevant content. On Dec. 12, for instance, Google ads touting ticket brokers, White Sox apparel and Chicago Bears memorabilia ran in the Sports section.

Technorati tags: Google, AdSense

Google Adsense and financial returns

One of the most important questions that every adsense webmaster wants to know is how much their efforts will be worth. However, this is a difficult information to find, since one of the contract clauses of the adsense program is the non-disclosure of the income information.

Although I have not been successful on this, some people have got a lot to tell: a blogger shows that he was able to buy a nice house with adsense revenue. Knowing that this is feasible is very good, although it certainly takes a lot of work to reach this level.

It is also good that not only the people selling ebooks about Google adsense are making profit, it is also possible to make good money with Google advertisement programs.

Technorati tags: Google, adsense

Inside Google AdSense

Many people would like to find better ways of getting revenue from their sites. It has been known for some time that the best advertisement system on the Internet nowadays is due to Google. The adsense program is not the first, but is the best way of generating revenue through well target ads that can be placed on any web page. A good way to start learning the tricks of adsense is the google web site itself. For example, check the adsense blog. This is a blog written by the guys at google, discussing the best techniques to generate clicks. As an example of the latest tips, there is an entry about a recent experiment by engineeringtalk, showing how good positioning strategies can positively impact user behavior.

Technorati tags: Google, adsense, advertisement

New trojan modifies Google AdSense code

According to JensSense, a new type of trojan script is infecting computers of several Internet users. The trojan targets only advertisements created with the adwords program.

According to the report, the trojan program "replaces Google AdSense ads with their own ads. The replaced ads sell products in dating, viagra, sex and weight loss industry. This is probably the first appearance of contextual advertising trojan."

There is apparently no solution for the recently found problem. However, the trojan modifies only the local copy of the web page. Thus, there is no real harm for the advertisers using the adwords program.

Technorati tags: adsense, adwords, google, advertisement, web, internet

A diagram of the adsense program

Did you ever have doubts about how the adsense and adwords programs work? I am sure it is difficult to get the whole picture at the beginning.

Now, you can get the whole picture. Well, at least something as close as possible to the picture. This diagram show the several parts of the adwords/adsense programs and how they interact.

The author disclaims that some of this information is not official. Certainly, there are parts of the program that only a few engineers of Google know how it works. Nonetheless it is a great help if you want to visualize the idea of the program.

It is certainly a nice picture to put in your office, it you are a hard-core adwords advertiser.

A prediction for Google adwords in 2006

2005 is comming to an end in a great way for Google. The company became the undisputed leader of online advertisement with their adwords and adsense programs. With the end of the year, the question is: what are they preparing for the adwords program in 2006?

The logical step for Google is to continue to extend their advertisement program to other media. We know already that the company is producing ads on paper magazines. I think that this program will expand to acquire the same features as the web adds.

The great criticism of the magazine ads by Google is that a lot of adds are in the same page, disconnected from the main text of the magazine, and therefore become ineffective. One scenario where this could be improved is the following: instead of selling just blank pages, companies would sell small spaces along their articles.

Google just needs to receive the contents of the article a few minutes before publication, and it generates automatically an ad that fits that space, using the same algorithms it developed for the web adwords program.

This requires a small change in the production of the magazine, but the return in terms of quality of the advertisement as well as financial rewards would be very appealing for magazines and newspapers worldwide.

In other words, I think that Google has in its hands a fantastic way of generating additional revenue from the adwords program in the traditional media, it is just not using it to its full potential (yet). I have no doubt that the company will spend the next year trying to make this possible.