Category filtering feature being developed

One of the top requests we've heard from publishers is to have more control over the ads appearing on their sites. We've been working to address your feedback, and today at ADSPACE, our team announced an upcoming beta test of a new feature in the Ad Review Center called category filtering.

Category filtering will give publishers the ability to block ads that fall into specific categories such as dating, religion, and politics. Regardless of how ads are targeted, they'll be filtered if they're within one of the selected categories. We'll also show the percentage of recent revenue that ads in each category generate, so publishers can predict how filtering selections will impact their revenue.

We'll be launching category filtering as a beta to a small group of publishers to collect initial feedback about the feature. Here's a preview of what the feature currently looks like, but please keep in mind that the layout and categories may change based on feedback from beta test participants.


Although we're not able to expand the limited beta to additional publishers at this point, we wanted to give you a glimpse into one of the ways we're working to give you more control over your ads so you can ensure a positive experience for your users. We'll continue to refine this feature, and hope to be able to roll it out more widely in coming months. Please stay tuned to the blog for any updates, and feel free to leave us a comment in the meantime. 

Extending the category filtering beta for English-language ads

n April, we gave you a sneak peek into category filtering, a new feature we've been developing to give publishers more control over their ads. Today, we're excited to announce that we're extending the beta to publishers in a number of English-speaking countries including, but not limited to, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S.

As a reminder, category filtering lets you prevent ads from up to 5 specific categories such as religion, politics, and dating from appearing on your pages. Your filters will be applied to ads in English, regardless of how they're targeted. In addition, you'll be able to see the percentage that each category contributes to your earnings, which can help you understand any revenue impact you might notice as a result of filtering.

Based on feedback from our initial beta testers, we've also made a few improvements to the feature:

• Ad impression impact: To give you a better sense of how many ads you'd be filtering, we've now added an extra column to show you the percentage of ad impressions on your pages which fall into each category.
  
  
• More accurate percentages: Ad impression and earnings percentages are now calculated based on impressions from the previous 30 days instead of three. This extended time frame should provide a more accurate picture of the types of ads you're receiving and how much revenue they're contributing.
  
• Category descriptions: We've added details about each category directly within your account to help you understand the types of ads that may fall into each. 

To see whether category filtering has been enabled for your location, sign in and visit the Ad Review Center, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. We're working on expanding this beta to additional languages and countries, and will be sure to announce any updates here on the blog. If you'd like to learn more about category filtering, please visit our Help Center.




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Category Filtering beta now available for AdSense for feeds English-language ads

Like we announced on the more general Inside AdSense blog a couple weeks ago, we have extended our category filtering beta to English-language ads on the AdSense network, which we are happy to announce includes ads that appear in AdSense for feeds.

This feature allows to you filter ads in up to five categories such as Dating, Drugs and Supplements, Weight Loss, and Get Rich Quick. Your filters will be applied to English-language ads, no matter how they were targeted.

To have these settings take effect for your feeds, from Ad Review Center, make sure you select a Client-ID that starts with ca-feed-pub. Note that this allows you to select different categories for your feed than for your site, but also means you will need to select filters for both your feed and your site in order for filters to be applied to both these content types.


To see whether category filtering has been enabled for your location, sign in and visit the Ad Review Center, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. We're working on expanding this beta to additional languages and countries, and will be sure to announce any updates here on the blog. If you'd like to learn more about category filtering, please visit our Help Center.

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AdSense policy clarification on using AdSense for feeds and AdSense for content

This is just a quick clarification on AdSense for feeds as it relates to the AdSense for Content specific policy of only allowing three ad units and three link units per page.

Many publishers have asked the question "Since feed items often get displayed with many feed items on a single web page, can using AdSense for feeds jeopardize the status of my AdSense account?"

The answer is no. Having three ad units per page is a product specific policy for AdSense for content. Product specific policies can be read about here.

In essence, the variable ways in which feed items are displayed are controlled and optimized automatically by the AdSense for feeds application and the choices you make as a publisher in your AdSense account when configuring your AdSense for feeds ad units. This means we may automatically suppress ad impressions when we detect there are too many feed ad units being displayed, resize ads based on the size and length of your content, and adjust the ads that are displayed based on the device in which the feed is being read.

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How to Make Money With Google Adsense On Blogspot.com

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A blog on blogspot.com

1. Step1
   First, you should have an established blog on www.blogspot.com. It is recommended that you have at least 20-25 blogs already written and a few followers. You may look at my blog for an example, while you are there, check out my ads on the right hand side to see how they can look: http://hotbellymama.blogspot.com/
2. Step2
   Next, go to the "customize" option on your blogspot. Choose the "layout" option.
3. Step3
   Here, you are given the option to "add a gadget." Click on it and scroll down to the "AdSense" option and click on it. If you do not already have an AdSense account set up, you will be prompted to do so. Here is the website for AdSense: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount. Click on AdSense.
4. Step4
   After you have set up an account with Adsense, you will want to be sure to list your blog with AdSense. This is VERY important because even if you have an ad on your blog - you will not make money until you post your blog link with AdSense.
5. Step5
   Next, promote your blog to others. You make money every time someone clicks on the ad. I made about $9 my first week. I enjoy writing my blog, so it is nice to have some bonus revenue for doing this.
6. Step6
   Change the layout of your ads on your blog. Also try placing them in different places where people can see them. And I would even let others know about it so that they can support your venture and possibly do it for themselves.
   
   
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Blogspot Template Search engine Optimization Features

I’ve been using this Blogger template myself for quite sometime (I own a few Blogspot blogs  ). SEO/AdSense Template Rounders 2 is fully search engine optimised.

Like with my WordPress AdSense/SEO themes only the home page and archive pages uses a H1 header for the name of the blog in the header area (the big blue block at the top) on single blog posts the name of the blog is within span tags instead of H1 headers (no SEO benefit wasted).

Headers are not wasted on the sidebar menu, (most Blogspot themes use a H2 header which is such a waste of SEO benefit!) on the home and archive pages the name of each blog post is within a H2 header as a link to the single post, (or archive page if you have single posts disabled: recommend you have single posts on).

On single blog post pages the title of the post is within a H1 header (on most Blogspot themes it’s a H2 because the blog name is in the H1).

This is all basic SEO 101 for me, but 99 out of 100 times missed on other templates (that’s for Blogspot and WordPress themes).

The title element is formed with SEO in mind, home page and archive pages the name of the blog is used for the title element (so ideally name your blog with a keyword or two). On single blog posts the name of the post is used as the title element: name your blog posts with SEO in mind (that’s keyword rich titles) and you’ll do well in the search engines.

Although meta tags hold no real value these days I’ve included the description meta tag and keywords meta tags. Trust me from an SEO perspective they are worth no more time discussing.

Things I don’t like about Blogger/Blogspot as an SEO consultant.

Since there’s no Categories in Blogger/Blogspot you have to use the monthly archives to get your blog fully indexed, these pages are not very good SEO wise (in WordPress I never use them, I use Categories which add SEO value). With Blogger we are stuck with them as otherwise the site won’t be fully spidered and indexed!

Unfortunately the anchor text to the archive links are useless (the anchor text format is 01/01/2010 – 02/01/2010), so you should treat the archive pages as a sitemap (they will not pull in much traffic). To protect link benefit AND more importantly reduce SEO damage caused by the poor anchor text I set the SEO/AdSense Template Rounders 2 to only show the archive links on the home page and other monthly archive pages. In this way your single blogs posts (which should pull in most search engine traffic) are not damaged by a dozen or more text links with poor date related anchor text.

AdSense Features

I’m happy with the AdSense placement etc… of this theme, if you’ve used my WordPress AdSense/SEO themes you might be a little disappointed with the lack of easy option changes, but it’s Blogger and their template code is not as easy to manipulate as WordPress code is.

I have the AdSense code set to blend the colours with the theme, there are 6 AdSense code sections and if you wanted to change the colour scheme or ad sizes you’d have to manually edit all 6. If you are happy with the ad sizes and colour scheme all you have to do is search and replace my Google AdSense publisher ID with yours, You must do this on all 6 code sections, easiest way is load the template file into a text editor and run a simple search and replace.

Not a great deal I can add about the AdSense ads, they are placed in key locations that I’ve found works well.

Download the Free Blogspot SEO/AdSense Template Rounders 2

Most visitors probably saw the header above and jumped straight to this section skipping all my well thought out advice, well, if you don’t want to know the meaning of life here’s the download link 

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Click farm

A click farm is a form of click fraud, where a large group of low-paid workers is hired to click on paid advertising links for the click fraudster (click farm master or click farmer). The workers click the links, surf the target website for a period of time, and possibly sign up for newsletters prior to clicking another link. It is extremely difficult for an automated filter to detect this simulated traffic as fake because the visitor behavior appears exactly the same as that of an actual legitimate visitor. In conclusion, click farms are a product of an increasingly global economy, where a few dollars per day for relatively easy work is much sought after by workers in third world countries, who are not to blame, but rather the click farmers who are organizing the crime and collecting the money.

[edit]Filtering

Pay per click providers including as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN have made substantial efforts to combat click fraud. Automated filters remove most click fraud attempts at source. In effort to circumvent these filtering systems, click fraudsters have begun to use these click farms to simulate actual visitors.

[edit]Methods

The first method is by hiring competitor fraudsters to deplete the advertising budget of the competitor so that they will be able to have their ads shown in higher pay per click rankings at a lower cost. In this case, the competitor is weakened instead of being outbid in the pay per click bidding system. The investment on the click farm made by the fraudster is only a very small fraction of the amount lost by the competitor.

The second method is by hiring the click farm workers to click on the click farmer's own ads. This way, the money lost by the advertisers is gained by the click farmer rather than by the search engines and content networks like it is in the first method.

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