Adsense integration now easier than ever with Blogger's Monetize tab

Have you noticed the new "Monetize" tab at the top of your Blogger dashboard?

 

This new section of our Blogger dashboards makes it easier than ever to integrate Google Adsense in our blogs and see just how much our blogs are earning.


Google's Adsense program is a simple solution which many Bloggers use to monetize their sites. For some time now, Blogger have made it easy for us to include Adsense ads in the sidebar (as a page element) and around blog posts (as an option in the Layout>Page Elements section, when you click the "Edit" link for your blog posts). 

If you have already configured Adsense in your blog by adding an Adsense page element to the layout, or enabling ads between posts, by clicking on the Monetize tab you will be able to see statistics for your earnings, like this:

On this page, there are also links to view your Adsense Payment History, earnings reports and to switch the account associated with this particular blog. You can also choose to "remove ads" from all aspects of your Blogger layout at the click of a button.

For those who have not yet chosen to monetize their sites with Adsense, or who have configured Adsense manually in their templates, you will see a page like this instead:

This means that your Adsense account has not been associated with this blog. No earnings reports will be displayed, even if - like me - you have manually configured Adsense by adding the required JavaScript to your Blogger template code.

For those of you yet to add Adsense to your layout, simply choose one of the ad-layout options most suitable for your needs anc click the "Next" button. You may be required to set up an Adsense account (or associate an existing account with your Blogger profile), after which your ads will be immediately placed in your layout. Then when you visit the Monetize tab, you will be able to see details of your Adsense earnings for the ads you have placed in your layout.

What you need to know about Adsense monetization and the new Monetize tab

Although Blogger have made it very easy for members to add Adsense to their blogs, not every applicant will be successful in getting their own Adsense account.

Adsense reviews all applicants to the program before agreeing to (or denying) a new account. In order to apply for an Adsense account, you must be over 18 years old and have a website which complies with Adsense policies. If you post any questionable content on your site, you really should check these policies to ensure your site complies before submitting your application.

Also, the reports displayed on the Monetize tab will only show page views and earnings from the time that you connected your Adsense account with this blog. If you have previously linked your Adsense account with your Blogger profile, it seems the "All Time" earnings will display earnings from today onwards (one of my blogs uses an Adsense Page Element, but is only displaying earnings from today).

A new channel in your Adsense account for each Blogger blog you monetize

If you log into your Adsense account, you will notice a new channel has been set up for each of your blogs, which contains the URL of your blog in the title.

The information from this channel is what's used to present the earnings data for the Monetize section of each blog you write.

Not yet an ideal solution for everyone...

I am very happy to see that the Blogger team have put such effort towards integrating all of the Google services we Bloggers currently use. However, I am a little disappointed at some aspects of this new feature.

For my own blogs, I have added Adsense manually, by editing the Blogger template and inserting ad codes where I would like them to be displayed. For this reason, I am unable to see any reports on the Monetize tab. In fact, it appears as though I have not set Adsense up at all.

Also, the earnings displayed on the Monetize page will only include the earnings for this particular blog, not your total earnings from any different sites operated.

However, these are small issues, and perhaps these issues will not affect most other Blogger users.

What do you think?

Will this new "Monetize" dashboard feature make it easier for you to connect your Adsense account with your blogs? How well do you think this feature performs so far?

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.

Google AdSense Update

Earlier this week, Google announced that they would no longer accept referrals to their AdSense program from publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan.

However, in response to the utter disappointment and responses from publishers, Google have decided to reconsider this decision!

Now Google have agreed to pay publishers for targeted referrals, regardless of the publishers location:

The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You'll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You'll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January. (From the Google AdSense blog)

This does mean that you should target your AdSense referral ads to be displayed only in North America, Latin America and Japan, as you will not earn anything from referrals to people in other continents.

If any of you have noticed your recent referrals do not show in your AdSense account, this will probably be due to an error in the system which Google are currently working to fix (I was rather surprised to see a big drop in my earnings for this month, and finally know the reason why!). So don't worry: you will still receive referral credits for previous referrals, even if they are not currently displaying in your dashboard.

One final note: there will be a reduction in the earnings for GooglePack and Firefox. Currently, we can earn up to $2 for GooglePack referrals, but from the third week in February, this will drop to only a $1 maximum.

Many would complain that halving the revenue earned from GooglePack referrals is unfair, but for me, this is a small price to pay in exchange for AdSense referrals which have the potential to earn far more.

Google will also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China.

There is no specific reason for this on the AdSense blog, though I suspect this change may be due to China's restrictions of the Internet and external media.

For more information about these changes in Google referrals, you should take a look at the AdSense blog. You may also be interested to read Problogger's open letters to AdSense (highly amusing reads!) which you can find here and here.

I will of course post news of any further changes to the AdSense program here to inform you of anything which may impact your own advertising revenues.

A great big AdSense slap for foreign webmasters

I've just read about a huge change in AdSense terms and conditions which is going to greatly affect the earnings of many AdSense publishers. These changes affect everyone who publishes referral ads for Google's AdSense program, and promises to be an even bigger slap in the face for those of us who live outside North America, Latin America and Japan.

There are two main changes to the AdSense program for ad publishers:

Changes to payments through the referral system

About a year ago, experimental changes were introcuded to allow AdSense referrers to earn good money through recommending Google's advertisement service:

• If you referred someone to AdSense who made $5 within 180 days you would get a payment of $5.
• If you referred someone who made $100 within 180 days you would get $250
• If you referred 25 people who made $100 within a 180 day period you would get a bonus payment of $2000

But this is about to change back to the way things were before. SO from now on, if you refer someone who makes $100, you will only receive $100. This will make little incentive for publishers to refer small websites to the program.

But the changes get worse for publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan...

AdSense referrals are retired for publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan

WHAT IS THIS GOOGLE!

When I first read about this on ProBlogger, I could barely believe it was true, and had to see with my own eyes. Here is what the AdSense blog has to say about the changes:

- If you're outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we'll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We've found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. (Read the full entry)

I'm truly shocked.

No doubt, AdSense will lose a great deal of its own income from restricting its referrals to these three areas. I myself will be greatly affected by this loss since I live in the UK, as I'm sure many more of you will be too.

Lately Google seem to be upsetting a lot of people with their restrictions on content. Now that their popular advertising program is being affected too, many more of us are losing all faith in Google.

I wonder what the next big Google slap will be?

Please do leave your comments and opinions below. If I hear any more about the changes to the AdSense program, I will be sure to post it here to advise you of the situation.

Are your ads acting strangely?

Over the past couple of weeks, a few people have emailed me about problems displaying ads in their Blogger blogs, most particularly with regard to AdSense ads. For many Bloggers, there are blank spaces where ads are expected to be displayed, even if there are already fewer than the three ads displayed which we are supposed to be able to show on each page.

Unfortunately I don't have any answers: I don't know why the ads won't display (particularly on the front pages of blogs), and despite my best efforts at fixing this, I cannot offer you a solution to this problem.

Due to recent events concerning Google and other methods of advertising/blog monetization, I do now have several concerns which I would like to share with you, and would like to know about your own opinions and experiences regarding advertisements in your Blogger blogs.

Problems displaying Google AdSense ads

The terms of Google's AdSense states that:

• Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
• A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
• Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.
• Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes and link units specified above.

(Source: AdSense Program Policies)

However, many Bloggers have noticed that two or fewer ads will actually display on their pages, most especially on the home page of their blogs. On my own home page, I only feature code to display one Google ad (in the sidebar). However, this single ad will not display on the home page, only on my post pages.

From what I've seen in the Blogger help forums and the emails sent by several readers now, it seems that many of us are experiencing this same problem.

Problems displaying codes for TLA

Other Bloggers have experienced difficulties displaying Text-Link-Ads in their blogs, especially when trying to use TLA affiliate banners. I was forwarded this email from a friend who had consulted tech-support at TLA in an attempt to discover the source of the problem:

There are currently some issues with our affiliate code and some sites, such as Blogger or Wordpress sites. We are definitely aware and we are trying to work on a fix for them. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, we will have the affiliate ad codes fixed as soon as possible.

Recently bloggers who use TLA have been penalized for their use of this service. Could this be linked to the problems in displaying such affiliate codes?

A coincidence, or something more..?

Strangely enough, there seem to be few (if any) similar problems displaying AdSense or Text-Link-Ads in Wordpress and other blogging platforms. In recent weeks, Google has "slapped" bloggers who use TLA, Pay-Per-Post and other methods of blog monetization by lowering the PageRank of such sites (for PPP blogs, many have found their PageRank reduced to nil!).

It seems that it was about this time that blank spaces began to appear in my own blog where AdSense ads should appear. From what I've been told by blogging friends, the problems in using TLA codes began around the same time too.

We all know that Blogger is owned by Google. So is Google trying to tell us something? Are we being warned against using too many methods of advertising in our blogs? Perhaps Blogger is trying to protect us from future loss of authority in the PageRank system by reducing the number of paid links which are displayed throughout our pages. As yet, I can only speculate, though I would like to know if many other Blogger bloggers are experiencing similar problems with their blog's ads.

Please feel free to leave your comments, opinions and experiences below. If you have any further information or could provide some clarity about this issue, I would love to hear from you!

Adsense beneath Blogger post titles or at end of posts

A key placement of AdSense is within the body of a blog post. You can easily feature ad units beneath every post title or at the end of each post by adding AdSense code to your templates HTML. Here's what to do to achieve this.

1. Log into your AdSense control panel and choose the ad unit you would like to be displayed. Be sure to keep the width of your posts in mind: some are wide enough to feature a 468x60px banner, while others may be restricted to the half-banner width of 234px.
2. Copy the code and paste into a text editor (such as Notepad). You'll need to change some of the characters in this code in order for it to display in your blog. Don't worry, this doesn't contravene Google's T&C's for AdSense, as I'll explain later.
3. Your code will look something like this: You'll need to change the < and > in red to the following:

   < = &lt ; > = &gt ;

4. Now, log in to your Blogger dashboard and go to Template>Edit HTML, and tick the "Expand widget templates" box. Ensure that you backup your template before making any changes.
5. Find this section of code using the search function of your browser (usually CTRL+F):

   <p><data:post.body/></p>

6. To feature ads immediately after your post titles, insert your AdSense code just before this section in your template. To feature ads at the end of every post, paste the code immediately after instead.
7. Save your template to see the ads in action!

Do be aware that if there are more than 3 ad units on a page, not all of the ads will be displayed; if you feature a number of ads on your main Blogger page, ads will not display in all of the posts, though they should be displayed on the post pages.

As I mentioned earlier, modifying the AdSense code in the way I have described will not contravene AdSense terms and conditions: all you are doing is substituting the < and > for the HTML encoding for these characters. When you look at the source code for the page, the AdSense code will display as it was originally written. This modification will not alter the functionality of the code at all, and ensures that it will be displayed. The code as first presented will not display in the body of Blogger posts!

For examples of how this code should be implemented into your blog template, take a look at this page (opens in a new window).

Next: How to display ads in the body of the post itself.

Technorati Tags: adsense post+titles blogger template

Adsense in Blogger posts (the basics!)

Like many bloggers, I see no harm in including AdSense (and affiliate ads) in my blog, as a way of making a little money to help me pay for my blogging costs. This short series of posts will explain methods you can use to feature AdSense in your Blogger blog, including how to feature ads in the body of your posts.

Google's AdSense seems to be the most popular system of advertising in blogs. This free service for web-publishers is easy to use, especially as ads are contextual (they change depending on the content of a particular page to display relevant ads for your readers). Most bloggers are eligible to sign up for AdSense, which you can do using this link.

Ensure you are aware of Google's policies for AdSense publishers, including sites which are prohibited from featuring AdSense, site and ad behaviour, and the number of ads allowed in a page.

How many ads can be displayed in a single page?

In any single web page, you can have:

• Up to three ad units
• Two AdSense for search boxes
• Up to three link units
• A maximum of three referral units

These regulations can be especially important for bloggers who choose to include ads in their posts, since the main page of your blog can feature a number of posts, and you cannot feature ad units in all of them. However, there are methods of displaying ads in posts only on post pages, as I will explain in a later installment.

How does Google decide which ads to display?

Keywords from your title and blog posts are used to determine the most relevant ads to display. It's best to try and keep each blog post on one particular subject and include relevant keywords in the title and at least a few times in the article itself. Problogger features some great advice on ensuring relevant ads are displayed on your site.

How do I place ads in my blog?

Blogger now has widgets you can use to include AdSense in your sidebar. You can configure the colour schemes and size of these ads to suit those of your blog.

Alternatively, log in to your AdSense control panel and click on the "AdSense setup" tab at the top of the page. You can then choose the type of ad you wish to use and get the relevant code, which you should then paste into your template where you would like the ad to be displayed.

Next: How to display ads beneath post titles or at the bottom of posts.

Technorati Tags: google adsense blogger advertising