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Are you using Google's Adsense to monetize your website? If not, you should at least consider it. If so, are you complying with the Adsense Terms Of Service (TOS)? From what I have seen, a lot of webmasters using Adsense are making a lot of mistakes. They violate the TOS, don't understand the TOS, make really bad ad placement decisions, and leave quite a few pennies on the table because of silly mistakes.

Quite frankly, Google does not make it easy to understand the Adsense rules. Their TOS (see Terms & Conditions as well as Program Policies for the official explanation) are designed to be broad so that they can make judgment calls on which publishers to ban.

It's also not easy to come up with a mixture of Adsense ads that will maximize your site's income potential. Many webmasters spend years trying to figure out what ad placement works best. They will test one layout after another to find the one that puts the most money in their account.

Since we're all just trying to make a living online, or at least enough for lunch, I looked through several webmaster forums to find the most commonly asked Adsense questions. I'm going to give you my answers to each of them. While I am very confident that these answers are correct, I am not Google. When in doubt, you should always contact the Adsense team for specific queries. They may, or may not, respond to your questions, but at least my conscious will be clear.


Q: How many Adsense ads can I place on a page?
A: You can put up to a total of 10 ads on a page. A maximum of 3 ad units, 3 link units, 2 Adsense search boxes, and 2 referrals.

Q: Can I place images by my ads?
A: Yes. There is a lot of confusion on this as Adsense has recently addressed the issue of using images to mislead visitors into thinking that the ads are related to the pictures. A classical example was a site I saw with a horizontal ad unit. The site was about pigs. The horizontal ad unit had 4 text ads, and above each one there was a little pic of a tiny pig perfectly aligned with each ad. To many visitors, they thought that you had to click on an ad to find out what the little pig picture was about. This is exactly what Google is trying to stop. You can have images completely surrounding an ad, but just make sure that they don't mislead the visitor. Some webmasters accomplish this by creating a line as a barrier between the image and the ads, but this isn't necessary. Just make sure that you don't have images that trick the user into clicking on ads. Other examples of this includes arrows that point to the ads, placing the ads on top of images so that the ads look like part of the image, etc.

Q: Can I place Adsense on a MFA site?
A: Yes, of course you can! An MFA website (Made For Adsense) is exactly what the term describes: a site built to monetize with Adsense. When someone starts preaching to you about the evil MFA sites filling the net, you may want to just close your ears because they don't know what they are talking about. If your website is an informative one (designed to provide information), primarily monetizing it with Adsense is usually the best choice. If you are not designing your site with Adsense placement, key words, etc. in mind, you are the fool. Speaking of which, check out the Highest Paying Adsense Keywords list if you're interested in making some change.

Q: How much content do I need on a page to place Adsense ads on it?
A: Not much. Google does have a landing page quality factor that it considers, but the truth is that your page does not need to provide very much content to place ads on it. For instance, many proxy sites only have an address bar, image, and a lot of ads on it. There's nothing wrong with that. As these proxy pages provide a service, they easily meet the Adsense content requirement. With that said, I'm not advising you to have one word pages with 10 ads on them, as you will get banned quickly for that. Just ask yourself if your page provides a useful service or information. If it does, you should be just fine with placing advertisements on it.

Q: Can I place Adsense on pages with YouTube videos?
A: Maybe. Google has slapped sites that had thousands of pages with nothing but videos and ads on them. While that is no longer allowed, there is nothing wrong with having pages that show a video along with a paragraph or two that explains it. Additionally, remember that just because a video is on YouTube (yep, Google owns the site now), that doesn't mean that you can place Adsense ads on a page with the video imbedded in it. Some YouTube videos contain copyrighted or mature material that Adsense does not want to be associated with.

Q: Can I place Adsense on "skin" pages?
A: Sometimes. You can certainly place ads on a page with bikini pics on it as long as the "models" aren't topless. You can even get away with some lingerie that is in "good taste". What you can't get away with is any page that shows pictures that expose genitals, buttocks, or nipples. You really need to be careful on this issue because Adsense is very concerned about being associated with mature sites. It's so easy to cross the line here as well, so my best advice is to go no further than bikini pics that are tasteful. It's also a good idea to be careful about the wordings on these pages as they can tilt the scale as well. For instance, showing a skimpy bikini pic on a page and titling it "New Summer Swimsuit" will probably be fine. Placing that same pic on a page titled "Fine A** Girl Begging For My ****" is just asking to be banned.

Q: Can I place Adsense advertisements on a page about dating?
A: Yes. Some of the highest Adsense earners own dating sites. Just make sure that you don't cross the line into "mature content".

Q: Can I place ads from other ad providers on the same pages that I have Adsense ads on?
A: Yes, as long as the other ads don't look like Adsense's ads. Google just wants to make sure that your visitors don't mistakenly click on another content provider's ad when they they thought it was a Google ad (this is really a bunch of bull though because the true reasoning is to make sure that other ad providers don't copy the style of the Adsense ads which perform very well). I have seen some affiliate banners for LendingTree that are exactly like a vertical ad unit by Adsense. Using ads like this on pages with Google ads will cause you to get banned.

Q: Can I get away with asking friends to click on my ads?
A: No. If you need friends to click on your ads to make a buck, you need to forget monetization and focus on traffic. You need to realize that Google practically owns the internet. Most of us are using their browsers, asking them where we can find information, and using Googles other services on a daily basis. Google isn't just your "friendly neighbor" that watches you leave the driveway every day to head to work. This neighbor (Google) follows you to work, back home, and will even keep an eye on you while you are asleep. What I'm trying to get at is that Google is watching where your traffic is coming from, and what led them to your site and ultimately their ads. Google also monitors what someone does after they click on an ad. Did they pop in and out in a few seconds? Did they visit other pages on the advertiser's site? Trust me, you don't want to pretend that you are smarter than Big G by clicking on your own ads or asking others to do so. It's just a very dumb move. Go find some traffic!

Q: Can I ask my visitors to click on my ads?
A: No. Any trick that is designed to request clicks violates the TOS. Placing text over an ad unit that states "Visit Our Sponsors" is an example of a great way to lose your Adsense account. Instead, just use the headings "Advertisements" or "Sponsored Links" instead. It is tempting to ask visitors to check out the ads sometimes, but you really need to be careful to not do it.



Q: What link color works best?
A: Usually blue (#0000FF) is the best link color. Millions of people around the world recognize this color as being a link, so their eyes are automatically drawn to the link blue and they want to click it and see where they end up.

Q: Do Adsense image ads or text ads do best?
A: Usually text ads will outperform images. You should always test it on your site as it can vary, but text ads usually engage the visitor better than images.

Q: How many Adsense ads should I place on a page?
A: It depends. If your site relies on repeat visitors for the majority of your traffic, you probably want to keep the ads to a bare minimum as a page with too many ads tends to piss regulars off. If you rely on search engine traffic or ppc traffic, you need to maximize the profit potential. You are still usually better off with just 2 ad units instead of 3 though because 3 will bring in a lot of cheap ads most of the time.

Q: What size ads should I use?
A: Big ones. It can vary from site to site, but the big square ads (336 x 280 or 300 x 250) normally produce the best results. The worst performing ad size (usually) are horizontal banners (728 x 90), followed by vertical skyscrapers (120 x 600).

Q: Where should I place the ads?
A: It depends. If you mainly rely on repeat traffic, make the ads unobtrusive. If you rely on search engine or ppc traffic, you will make a lot more by placing most/ all of your ads above the fold (where the user does not have to scroll down to see them). Ads that are in the very center of the page tend to work best.



Q: How can I make a lot of money with Adsense?
A: Traffic. When you have thousands of unique visitors coming to your site every day, you can make a helathy living with adsense.

Q: What niche should I choose?
A: Most people will tell you to write about your passion. In other words, choose a niche that you are passionate about. I guess that is an OK place to start from, but eventually you should really consider writing to fill your bank account instead. While I personally love music, I will never create a site about music because the ads just suck for it. You can get 200 clicks a day on a music site, but that's still just $2 at the end of the day when the one penny ads are tallied.

Q: What color should my site and Adsense ads be?
A: The vast majority of all successful sites are predominately white in color. The most successful ads on these sites have white backgrounds so that the ads blend in. A primarily white background site, with white background ads, and the same color/ style text in the ads and the site--- that is a winning formula that many have retired with.

Q: Should I only monetize with Adsense?
A: No, but it's a great way to start. Adsense is the easiest form of monetization that you can get into. Google will scan your page to identify a theme, match ads to that theme, and people click on them pretty regularly. After you get comfortable with monetizing sites with Adsense, I would really encourage you to look into additional sources of revenue such as affiliates.

Q: What is a good click through rate (ctr)?
A: 5% is good, but it can vary. Some sites can have perfect placement, colors, etc., but never break a ctr of 2%. Other sites can completely suck yet reach a ctr of 10%. In my opinion, the goal should be around 5%. If you mainly live off of regulars, expect a low ctr. This is a very common problem with forums.

Q: How long does it take to reach the first $100 with Adsense?
A: It varies a lot. i would say that the average newbie webmaster that had never built a site would probably reach the $100 mark in the first 2 or 3 months.


Good luck all! Feel free to add to my thoughts, or spank me if I deserve it! You can even join this pet forum at http://www.bestforpet.com if you are a nice guy!

When you suggest to use only 2 ad units per page, does this include link units?
For example, if I had 2 ad units and 1 link units on a page, would you consider that page having 2 ad units or 3? Would that link unit affect the pricing of the other 2 ad units?

Thanks,
Boonee

Hey there.

You have 2 ad units and 1 link unit. That's perfectly fine, and normally that is the perfect setup.

Good luck!!