Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas

Happy holidays and merry Christmas everybody. From me and my whole family we hope you have a great time and enjoy yourselves.

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Notice "Top Channels" Missing From Your Google Adense Report?

That's because the feature is currently malfunctioning. And yes being in the holidays it will be a while before it's fixed. A topic on Google groups is still asking for support but AdsensePro Ashley posted this a while ago:

Hi all, Thanks again for reporting this issue. Please be assured that it will be resolved in the coming weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience it causes you, and appreciate your patience in the meantime. Ashley

But there is some good news. If you go to the advanced reports tab and chose all tabs you can see how each of your channels performed. So even though it requires an extra step those out there with a lot of websites can still keep track of how each is doing.

As to the origins of this problem Jensense seems to think it may have something to do with the new Google Adsense feature of saving large reports. However there is no way to this at this time. Let's just hope they fix this soon I am already annoyed with taking those extra steps and my PDA doesn't even load the Java on the Advanced reports that well.

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New Beta Interactive Google Adsense Unit

Not even a day after a new ad format by Google Adsense is revealed yet another one is spotted. This ad format is dedicated to Google Checkout and features products with pictures and descriptions. It looks interesting at best here's a picture of it:

The Google Adsense folks are just bent on making up new formats these days. I guess being the holidays they want to maximize on the holiday shopping rush.

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Around The Search Engines

First of all I guess an explanation is in order. Well after careful consideration I decided to start a daily roundup of not just Google Adsense news around the Internet but of search engines everywhere. I figure since many of my readers are also webmasters they would appreciate getting all of their SE news in one spot. For the next few days or so I'll play around with the format to see what works best. So here goes nothing:

Google & Human Quality Reviews: Old News Returns - Search Engine Land

A quote from Google's director of research Peter Norvig in an article at Technology Review about how human reviewers assess Google's search quality is starting to pick up play on the web and will no doubt grow. Problem is, it's not news. Still, I suppose it's interesting to those who are new to the space or missed the attention it got back in 2005. Some history.

New privacy tips video series - Google Blog

In order to give you the best possible information about the privacy settings for our products, we asked the engineers and product managers who actually designed them to explain how they work in a series of new videos we released today on our YouTube Privacy Channel.

Viacom and Microsoft Announce Long-Term Digital Content and Advertising Partnership - Microsoft

Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) and Microsoft Corp. today announced a broad-based, strategic alliance under which major divisions of both companies will collaborate on advertising, content distribution, event promotions and games over the next several years.

Taking feeds out of our web search results - Google Blog

We, at Google, prevent feeds from being returned in Google's search results, with the exception of podcasts (feeds with multimedia enclosures).

The Ultimate Fate of Supplemental Results - Google Blog

From a user perspective, this means that you'll be seeing more relevant documents and a much deeper slice of the web, especially for non-English queries. For webmasters, this means that good-quality pages that were less visible in our index are more likely to come up for queries.

Google Android Developers Battle Bugs, Frustration - Smart Money

Google Inc. (GOOG) claims its Android mobile phone software will usher in a new era of wireless communications. But for developers such as Adam MacBeth, Android has so far brought nothing but headaches and frustration.

Live Search Is Returning Google AdWords Ads In Their Natural Search Results - Raven SEO

Live Search is offering a new way for AdWords customers to get click-throughs — their own natural SERPs. They appear to be indexing AdWords ads from Google's own SERPs.

Google Talk Live Translation - Google Talkabout

If you want to try it, just add en2zh@bot.talk.google.com as a friend in Google Talk and send it a message to translate from English to Chinese.

Better flight stats results from Google - Google Blog

For the latest information on a flight's status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times.

Live Search for Mobile Updated - Virtual Search

The browser-based local search and mapping site for mobile has been updated with a bunch of new features. point the browser on your mobile to http://m.live.com/ to try it out.

Google Cache Temporarily Goes Down - Search Engine Roundtable

Earlier, a bunch of folks looking at the Google Cache couldn't find what they were looking for.

Recently Posted Research Papers and Biblographic Info by Googlers - Resource Shelf

Might give some insight into how Google identifies material on YouTube. A very technical paper but the intro and conclusions can be of value to the non-geek. And a couple of other papers.

Yahoo Search Marketing Christmas Gift 2008 - Laptop Case - CPA Affiliates

This years Christmas gift from Yahoo Search Marketing which is a slick looking Laptop Case.

That's it so far for today. More at the end of each day.

Thank You

Google Adsense: The New Political Battle Field

For those of you who don't know the race for the next preside of the United States of America has already startled. Many candidates are already vying to win their party nominations. Among others Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running for president. Now many people still have a problem with the Mormon belief and how it's going to affect his decisions if he is to become president.

He has sustained many attacks especially on the Mormon belief that before Jesus comes the Mormon religion will save the American Constitution from apparent disarray. This is what a new ad on Google Adsense is pointing a finger to. Not directly of course first it links to an anti-mormon website that points to a quote from a book they have that states that fact. Here's a picture of it:

Apparently the speech on his religion didn't matters none. Like he had hoped. But what is more troubling is how this is going to affect Google Adsense.

If this campaign against or for political candidates continues it may do more harm than good to many users who don't want anything to do with the political process. Especially sites based out of the US. Let's hope these new ads will use Google Adword's new feature to target ads geographically.Basically it's like being an advertising spot for someone or some rich candidate's fight with another one. Especially for political websites that tend to have their own views. Suddenly they have ads for democratic candidates while they are republicans.

We'll see where this goes if the campaigns keep moving online like they are this may present a problem. Especially compared to how online advertising is much cheaper than what political candidates usually advertise on.

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New Google Sitemap For Videos

Google just launched sitemaps for videos. The already have a nice FAQ setup for it too. This is going to help out a lot of webmasters who now can get their videos in the Google video search. Here's an example they provided for one:

http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html http://www.example.com/video123.flv http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123 My funny video http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg http://www.example.com/videos/some_other_video_landing_page.html http://www.example.com/videos/video1.mpg A really awesome video

I think this is going to create just about a whole new SEO stance. As users who are familiar with Youtube start searching other places for interesting videos, Google will be one of their favorite spots.

The are many video formats supported so far including: mpg,mpeg,mov,mp4,...So far though the information is minimal but I expect more updates soon. The process to submit one is also the same as a normal sitemap.

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New Google Adsense Format 2 x 2

The folks over at Google Adsense are testing yet another new format. This new 2 x 2 format looks pretty sweet not to mention very easy to blend in just about anywhere.

Here's a pic:

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Google Adsense's New Gift

As usual Google has sent out a unique gift to all high performing publishers. This year's gift apparently is a Card about the same size a credit card, but here's the catch it's a two gigabyte USB flash drive.

Chris Pirillo is apparently the first one to cop one.

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Maybe Google-DoubleClick Won't Happen

When Google announced that they had acquired Doubleclick many supporters of Microsoft quickly switched the now apparent winner of the search engine giants war. But maybe they were a bit too hasty. Across the world governments are changeling this merger in order to block what they think would be a catastrophe. It's a called a monopoly and in the end it's bad for any country's economy. The 3.1 billion dollar deal is perhaps the biggest deal Google has conducted ever since it started acquiring companies.

The EU decided today to continue it's review of the deal and not let it through just yet. While in the US the proceeding have been going on for some time now. But each of them are focusing on different aspects of the deal .The US is focusing on privacy as Doubleclick has uncountable data on users and not just what pages they visit but what ads they click on. With this information combined with Google's advertising methods the Internet marketing field would be cornered by Google. This is the aspect that the EU is focusing on. Realizing that such a monopoly on the online market might not be good in the long term.

The roll call is not finished yet. Now Microsoft has thrown itself in the midst realizing that this deal could completely throw it out of the war, it's leading the lobbying for more review of the case in the EU and the US. Microsoft itself wanted the deal with Doubleclick but I guess Google was more willing to pour the cash. Now it's trying to stop this deal in order to make for the mistake of not buying Doubleclick before Google.

No one knows how long this whole thin is going to last but one thing is sure and that is the fact that Google made a good decision by acquiring Doubleclick now we have to wait and see what happens.

The Problem Of Fake Pagerank

The problem of fake pagerank has plagued Google for the past couple of years now. And google seems not too adamant about doing anything about this problem. Meanwhile thousands of people are being duped into buying domains and websites which seem to be very high quality but end up with buyer's remorse when they realize after a Google PR update that their PR had been faked. In this post I shall explorer how pagerank is faked and ways you can protect yourself from ever being conned by fake pagerank.

How Fake Pagerank Came To Be

It started with a Google pagerank feature of being able to point the googlebot to your new website in case you change your domain name. This is a problem that had stopped many webmasters from moving their websites to new better fitted domains for their websites. They didn't want to lose all of the precious pagerank they had attained over the years just so they can get a better domain. So the ever helpful Google came up with a seemingly easy solution. The answer: 301 or 302 redirects to the new domain. That way your old website would be redirected to your new one and your pagerank along with it. But one thing they didn't count on was the fact that this worked both ways. So now if your new website had a pagerank it would be transfered to your old domain.

The funny thing in all of this is of course the fact that the new website doesn't have to have your code in order to be fast forwarded to through a 301 or 302 redirect. SO in essence you can redirect to any website you wanted regardless of who owned it. So users started redirecting their unfinished or private websites to Google so as to make sure a visitor isn't disappointed by the default list of files. But something funny happened when they did this. When they checked their pagerank after a pagerank updated it had changed to 10 or Google's pagerank. This astounded some of these users and the news spread fast.

Now all kinds of people fast forwarded their domains to Google to try to get that PR10. It was quickly found out however that after the next update when you had removed your redirect to try to show off your allegedly PR10 website your web site's PR went back to zero. This made users shy away from using this method for a while. But then domain sellers caught wind of this and realized the potential for it. It went something like this. Buy a new domain redirect it and wait till it gets that PR10 then change it back to your website and sell it quick before the next PR update. And here is the current problem as they have gotten smarter and started redirecting to lower Pr websites such as PR4 to PR7. This made the PR more believable as only about 3 websites have PR10.

How To Detect a Fake Pagerank

This is relatively easy as long as the faker hasn't changed his website back to it's original and still has the redirect going. Or even if he just changed it recently and Google hasn't had a chance to update it's cache yet. Basically all you do is check the web site's cache in Google and check to see if it matches the website showing in your browser. If it doesn't match then the pagerank is faked. There even is some tools that have been recently made to check for this here's one:

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SEO tools by

Another method is to check the site's info: query in Google. If the result doesn't match the website then it's fake. Or sometimes if it doesn't have a result it's also fake. As it should since it has a pagerank. This method is relatively new however and for the most part hasn't been proven quite as much as the first one so be careful on making your final decision about a website.

And the last method that probably won't be of any use is to check the archive.org's archives.If you use archive.org to view the site's history and the address and the URL changes when you click to view a result, then the domain was being redirected on that date.

Example: anysite.com on November 21 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071121...www.anysite.com/

In this example the end of that URL changes to another domain name, meaning that on the date the site was archived the domain was being redirected.But the reason why I say this is just about useless is the fact that archive.org rarely archives any website except major websites. Which means any website in their archives is almost guaranteed to be reliable.

But remember none of these methods is 100% foolproof since the faker could have turned the redirect off earlier.

What To Do When You Find a Fake Pagerank

Immediately notify Google and send me a comment telling of how I saved you from buying a fake website.

So How Will The Problem of Fake Pagerank Be Solved

Well there are two ways this problem could be solved. Either Google can make sure the pagerank isn't transferred from the new website to the old or it can ban any website that sets a 301 or 302 redirect specifically for the googlebot. Since users who are moving their whole website don't need to just redirect the googlebot but the whole website itself.

Conclusion: The Problem Of Fake Pagerank

In conclusion this problem seems to be unsolvable unless caught at the right time. So the best thing one can do is make sure that when buying a website or domain you don't base your decision on pagerank. Do it like back in the old days when there was no pagerank and do some research on your own and and use pagerank as just another factor.

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I'm Back!

Well it has been a while since I've posted and as you can see from my last post I chose to go off-line for a while in order to take care of some other business but now I am back. I am ready to take this blog back up to its glory days.

So you can expect more and more posts and updates about google adsense. Even a continuation of the series "How to Dig Adsense Gold".

Alright well that's about it and I'd like to thank all my old visitors who have stuck with me through all of this and also all the new readers that are sure to join us.

Thank You

Can I modify my adsense code?

People often ask the adsense support if they're allowed to modify the Google Adsense code but the support clarified that this is not allowed. Some things that are often used by publishers, but not allowed by Google are: using the adsense code in a floating box script, using iframes for your ads, changing the ads format and giving the adsense search box a default value.

Going Offline

I am now officially gong off-line. I am going through some personal problems that I can't explain right now. So if anyone wants this blog reply to this post or email me at you know where to find the email. Please show me some of your work and tell me why you would the best person for it. Thank You

Google Logos Showing up in Google Adsense Ads

Google loves advertising itself especially when it comes to it's own products. So it's no surprise that new Google Adsense ads were spotted with the Google Logo either in the right hand side or in the left hand side. These were found at SE Journal:

Why IS This So Important?

This is important because this could becomes the new Google Adsense Ads. And if so may mess up any blending you may have done with your ads. So it's important to watch out for these new variations in case something does get changed.

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Where Have I Been?

My life the couple past months has been a shallow mud of mess. Filled with school project after another. You see I decided to join the AP classes at my school and for the first semester it was all good. Until the second semester that's when the World grew dark. Believe you me when I say that I've been covered in school work for the past couple of weeks. I maintain a couple of blogs and could barely keep up with all of them.

But this is no excuse for not staying up to date with the Adsense World and making sure you folks receive your news. So I'd like to apologize for my absence and promise from now on three to four posts per week. There is no excuse for neglecting my responsibilities. So yes this means I am back and am preparing a whole load of posts to go with the updates and happenings I've missed.

I appreciate your concern to those who emailed me and those who commented asking for me. And thank you for your dedication and royalty to All About Google Adsense.

Thank You

Google Adsense Now Features Google Checkout

In a new development Google is featuring little Google Checkout icons on Google Adsense ads in what appears to be a test.

This is only happening to a limited number of websites and I have never personally seen them. But the ads seem to appear in from of products that are featured on Google Checkout.

The Google adsense blog is not telling us anything yet so this isn't an official feature so expect it not to be here to stay.

Thank You

Google Adsense Updates Policies

Google adsense just announced at the Google Adsense blog that they changed their policies. The new version includes a lot of things different from the last for example images next to ads has been expressly banned. Here's a review of the changes and differences from the last policy.

What are the changes? Well here's a little outline:

Competitive Ads and Services Policy

Now it even more restricted:

Competitive Ads and Services In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

Meaning ad programs like YPN cannot be used on the same website as Google adsense. That's right the whole website not just a page or two,and added to that is the fact that you can't rotate the ads 50/50 like Google Adsense publishers have been doing for a while now. But there is a way to display these we not at the same time but in different pages. As Jensense points out you can use the A/B method if the ads have different backgrounds.

Referrals

The numbers of referrals ads has been changed:

Up to two referral units from each referral product or offering may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units.

This gives you much more freedom in the sense that Google might be developing a full on affiliate program out of Google Adsense. With these new relaxed rules for referrals something is definitely in the works.

Domain Parking

Domain parking is still not allowed by Google Adsense as this would go against their policies to have content before ads are served.

Images Next To Google Adsense Ads

May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks. May not place misleading images alongside individual ads

As announced by the Google Adsense blog images next to ads is still not allowed.

Google Adsense Search

Now you are allowed to put a Google Adsense ad unit on the result pages of the Google search box.

Google Adsense for search results pages may show only a single ad link unit in addition to the ads Google serves with the search results.

This comes as a surprise since Google already had ads on the search result page. Adding your own unit really won't help anything at all.

Copyright Content

This new rule is to stop scrappers and many MFAs (Made For Adsense) out there. It states that:

Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.

That's about it overall these rules were already widely know bu these new changes present opportunities for Google Adsense to move into new fields. Thank You

What to Expect From Keyword-based Ad Filtering

News of Google adsense beta testing their new Keyword-based Ad Filtering tool has excited many adsense users such as myself mainly because of what this could mean for my revenues.

What is it?

This is a feature that will allow a user to select "negative keywords" for a site. Meaning those keywords selected will never be used in the google ads that are on the site.

What is to be expected?

This would greatly help webmasters that have been getting low paying ads on their websites because of some keywords. For example many users with websites like this get these CPM 0.07 ads from google with the keyword google inserted in the tool you'll never see them again.

That's just one example another would be use this tool to your advantage by eliminating all low paying ads not by website like normally, but by keyword. Which will allow for a block of several websites that all target a keyword.

When can we expect it to be out?

My guess would around spring as this is when the first quarter of the year is nearing the end.