Cash Keywords

The Secret Lab Document - Spam Recognition Guide

Henk van Ess was nice enough to keep the Secret Labs related "Spam Recognition Guide" that Google raters used to figure out whether a site or web pages are considered Spam in Google's Eyes.  Google Guy specifically requested that the document not be distributed.  But, it's still available on Henk's site as a Word doc download, and it includes specific categories of spam as well as lots of URLs as examples.  Get yer copy here!

The Secret Lab and How Google Uses Humans to Evaluate Websites

Don't know how I managed to finally stumble on this, but Henk van Ess wrote some fascinating entries on what seems like a peephole peek at a secret portal to Google innerworkings we know exists, but never get the real info.  Henk gives us a view on the "secret evaluation lab" - the official name being the "Rater Hub Google."   It's where Google employs testers around the world to evaluate websites for inclusion in Google's Index (hows the pay? $10-20 an hour).  Now we get to see how they recruit, insider Rater Hub screenshots and a Flash movie, too.

No Adsense Ads on Our Blog

Just wanted to mention (in case you wondered) we are not using AdSense Ads on this blog.  Our reason is to keep the focus on the posts, and really it would end up in a bunch of "AdSense" related ads anyway, if we included AdSense on these page.  We do have a few sponsored outgoing links from the blog, but we don't have any official advertising in place (and no plans to right now).  Our goal is to continue to provide a useful resource for AdSense publishers and our customers as well.  Enjoy! Roxanne

Free Click Fraud Monitoring - Free Pay Per Click Auditing - VeriClix

Link: Free Click Fraud Monitoring - Free Pay Per Click Auditing - VeriClix.   This new service is for AdWords, not AdSense, but if any of you are doing any serious AdWords campaigns for yourself or clients, you may want to know if anyone is clicking on your ads just to drive up your PPC bill.  Vericlix offers a completely free service, they host the data on their server, and you can also generate reports on your clicks as well.  All you have to do is place some javascript code on the landing page you want to track.  There are other click fraud tracking services out there, but not for FREE!

PPC fraud is a huge problem that the PPC engines will not (cannot) admit to a problem or they would have some major bucks tied up in refunds.  My experience with PPC fraud, when I brought a case of PPC click fraud to Overture's attention for a client (with log files for proof), Overture Support said they had to check on it "through their system" and get back to me. 

In the end they decided that 5 clicks from the same IP in the same 30 minutes was not a case of click fraud.  We weren't credited any clicks, nor could they provide any data on what they found.  Granted that was only 5 clicks and maybe $4.50 in extra costs, but it that was 1 incident, too.  This particular client spends thousands per month with Overture, and has for several _years_.  Nobody knows how much they have spent thanks to click fraud.

Increase AdSense CTR up to 400% Using Images

I was looking for some buzz in the Adsense world and while the latest topic seemed dry, I saw a post in one of the AdSense forums that really got my attention.

This webmaster took a small mention about including images above the leaderboard made by another member, took a look at an example,  and tried it.  The results he had of a 400% increase in click thru rate (CTR) are remarkable to say the least.

What's more, it wasn't a fluke. A long thread developed on this topic, and it seems every webmaster that used this technique enjoyed some increase as well. You don't have to copy these sites at all. I believe it can work for almost any topic as long as the images are related to the topic.

It's well known in the print world that images with captions get read.  On the forum member site examples I saw, the images catch your eye, you read the "caption" - aka the AdSense ad text  - and it becomes more compelling to click. For some reason, Google doesn't put the URL on the leaderboard format, so it just adds to the illusion of a captioned photo.  In  the thread, someone shares that they got the OK from Google to use this technique, but caveat emptor, and don't use it if you are concerned about breaking Google's AdSense TOS.

Using Articles for Content and Adsense - The Easy Way Out - Part 2

We all want to believe that a resource like the myriad of articles available online is good thing, and it is.  The problem lies in taking a good thing and going overboard with it.  I will get to the point and list some examples that illustrate why I believe using articles for content for AdSense sites is not going to last:

1. In 1999, I worked for a company that offered doorway pages, and you could buy a package that created dozens of optimized pages based on your site's look/feel and get ranked for a number of keywords.  As I recall, they used software to generate the doorway pages and it did work for the short term.  That technique started fading by 2001 as search engines clamped down (although like all my examples, some people still use it, and get away with it.  Usually if you do things manually and not using software to autogenerate, you can fly under the radar or for example building pages by hand, it's not a problem).

2. I am sure there are earlier examples similar to this, but back in 2002 a colleague of mine told me how a mutual acquaintance had taken his self defense site from nowhere to the top on Google by accumulating links.  As I recall, he had accumulated about 850 links coming in after discovering this little technique worked. And boy did it work.  In fact, he didn't need relevant links - a link from Grandpa's Hobby Site was fine - and this was before the Pagerank was even thought about - so all he had to do was keep accumulating. Today this site has only 56 links in Google (but 928 in MSN).

Word travels fast online, and withing 6 months we saw all kinds of sites asking for links, and Google started cracking down on links pages, in particular those created by software that left a definite "footprint."  Then we also saw link exchanges and link farms and while it was good at first, alot of people saw their site lose rankings or banned outright by the time Google was done.

3. More recently, many affiliate programs provided their affiliates with premade, private label/co-branded sites, that had the same content, product descriptions, pictures and included the affiliate links.  It was a handy way to quickly get a new site and promote affiliate products without spending any time or money.  Ask any affiliates using these "co-branded" sites, they have been systematically dropped or losing rankings in Google (and other SEs like Yahoo) over the last year.  The Webmaster forums had lots of complaints on cookie cutter affiliate sites filling Search Engine results and it seemed that nothing would be done about it (however, Google includes both doorways and Affiliate sites in their SEO Guidelines).  Typically it looks like nothing is happening to these sites/pages, then we have a Florida or Bourbon Google update and some people are up in arms that their sites are gone!

Bottom line:

1. Quick and Dirty may work short term, but long term it won't - especially if everyone is doing it AND you are using duplicate content and automated software to go crazy. But be ready and don't complain when the search engines catch up with you.

2. Doing things slowly (or on a smaller scale) is a pain - I know - but do you want revenues 1-2 years from now?  If making money for 3 months is OK, then quick and dirty techniques is fine for you. I have done both, but I know when I want to take a risk - and when I don't.

3. Are you able to keep ahead of the curve with new ideas?  If you keep jumping on ideas after it's been done by other people and well known, you will have a hard time to continue making money online year after year.  I am _always_ looking ahead for trends and new ideas, hopefully 6 months to 1 year ahead. Using ready made articles is not ahead of the curve by any means, and not unique enough content used as is.

We Interrupt Our Scheduled Posting - Adsense Teleseminar PDF

Willie Crawford announced release of his teleseminar with Joel Comm of Adsense Secrets in PDF format today.  I haven't read it yet, but get it while it's "fresh." I'm sure it's worth a look.

Note that Willie points out that Joel is making up to $26,000 a month now.  Must be doing something right.....

Using Articles for Content and Adsense - The Easy Way Out (For Now) Part 1

We recently surveyed some of our users and the topic of Article and "autogenerated" sites and pages came up.  It is the latest trend (more like fad) for AdSense publishers to comb the web for articles and feeds that they can compile into sites with AdSense ads generating revenue.  In order to create these sites, there's software available (sometimes called "autogenerators" or a variation of that "Feed Generator/RSS Feed Software") that will grab articles/news feeds/blog posts based on keywords, and then compile them nicely into a template for your webmastering pleasure. 

It sounds like a nice idea, and it all seems a bit more compelling content-wise than a scraper site using search engine results.  When it comes to being able to quickly develop sites, and have a vast repository of content to draw from, it seems to good to be true.  However, I feel compelled to address this issue based on what as an SEO for the last 5 years, and my personal experience as an Adsense publisher.

I am pretty open-minded to the possibilities of what constitutes content for sites using AdSense.  I do not ascribe to the good/evil, black hat/white hat view of SEO, and I know that in order to make money time is of the essence.  To be honest, I have no desire to push a smarmy, holier-than-thou Content is King message here (there's plenty of that around). But I believe that the users that come to Cash Keywords are smart people that want to have something making money over the long haul. I don't think building autogenerated sites are going to make it long term (even 6 months down the road). I'll outline why in my next post.

What do you think?

Playing the Numbers Game for AdSense Earnings Increase

Adsense Publishers on WMW making a medium amount of money on AdSense (defined there as between $300-500US a month) talk about ideas and tactics to double or triple their earnings per month. This thread doesn't require a membership to WMW to read, and is worth a careful look.

Getting more traffic and the quality of your website traffic becomes more critical if you are serious about generating more money through AdSense.  As this thread covers, just doing a quick AdSense math equation: impressions x Click Thru Rate (CTR) x click price = $X month  - doesn't work:

IF I get 150,000 unique visitors this month x minimum of 4 page hits per visit = 600,000 hits x at least 15% CTR = 90,000 click x $.80 per click (average) = $72,000/month.

"I once thought that way too but higher volumes of visitors doesn't always equate higher CTR or matching earnings. When you cast a very wide net you catch a lot of people who's interest levels vary in your topic and your site may not satisfy what they were looking for and they bail before clicking anything. "

In fact, as many of us have found, getting more traffic to the same pages results in a drop in click prices, sometimes by a lot. Then we end up with a frustrating process of more traffic and less overall Adsense earnings.  As I have talked about in another post, we have to account for AdSense Smart Pricing to assess your site and traffic, before we really know if the webpages we create will bring in the most money.