Hello everyone. I'm new to the message board and after reading some of your threads, I have some questions. 1) What kind of traffic do you guys usually get a day? Is it ok to divulge that information? 2) I have a website where I post articles about movies, games and stuff like that. It's getting quite popular lately, and I could really use some extra cash, so I decided to go on AdSense. The thing is, I read about the guy who had a scam about creating a virtual community whose rule was to have every member clicking on his ads, or something along those lines. I can understand that is cheating. Does that mean I can't post a little side note on my site asking people to click on the ads they're interested in to help me? Is that also considered cheating? 3) I live in Canada; how will the tax thing work? Thanks, guys.
1) Anything from 0 to a few thousand a day. (Depends on the site) 2) No, you can't ask anyone to click it - you will be booted for that. You can place the ads in a prominent position though. 3) Don't know - I'm in the UK 4) Welcome to the Forum
Thanks a lot, guy. Hmm, 0 to 1000, that would make a medium point of 500 a day then? I was thinking about putting the Ads and then explaining to people that it would be nice if they gave me a hand, maybe promisse more frequent updates if they clicked on the ads... but oh well. Better play it nice. Hope my readers are generous Just wondering, how many unique visits do you have a day? Compared to my friend's standards, I have a lot of visits (500~600 a day, can go up to 1500 if my articles are linked in a big website, which happens quite frequently), but of course thats relative... Thanks again
No... It all depends on how frequently people are looking for the search terms you are targetting. I'd rather not post details of the traffic my sites recieve (If you don't mind) But my blog for instance gets around 650-750 a day (It's gone up over the last couple of weeks).
Hmm I'm not so sure I understood that, would you mind explaining? No problem at all. Just out of curiosity, is it because of some sort of legal ramification, or you just prefer not to? Hmmm... I know we're not supposed to discuss figures but, with the traffic I get (500 pageviews a day) is it possible to actually make some money? I'm not talking about getting rich or anything, any decent income would be good. That's the question I had in mind... because if you guys have websites with over 10 thousands hits a day, and don't get that much money, I think I'm just wasting my time on putting AdSense on my puny site Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna sound greedy but, c'mon, I guess it's safe to say we're all in it for the money. Capitalism, guys
Prefer not to. What is the site about... What would you like to come #1 for in google? Movie reviews? That kind of thing? Maybe something like "[movie name here] reviews" would be more attainable. Hell yes. My blog, which sounds like it has similiar traffic to your site makes next to nothing. I think I'd be pretty lucky for it to pay for the hosting to be honest with you. It all depends on where you put the ads on the page, how well they intergrate (Or not) with the site, and what the ads are for. If you are getting 10 clicks a day and they are only worth $0.01 then it may not be worth putting the ads on your site (For now at least). If you are getting 10 clicks a day, and each click is worth a dollar, then it might be worth keeping the ads on there. It's up to you really.
Typical CTR varies between 1 and 5%. So out of 500 views you could get 25 clicks (@5%CTR). If your site shows 'Buy Thin Air' ads, you're likely to get 1 ct per click resulting in 25 cents per day. If your site shows ads about real estate or asbestos lawsuits, you could get up to say $10 per click resulting in $250 per day. In other words... It all depends... Try it and see what happens.
I understand. But it's more likely that I'd get a little more clicks than that. Don't wanna sound cocky, but a lot of people like my weblog, and I'm sure they'd click on the ads just to help me. So I'd be considering something closer to like at least 50 clicks a day (if only 10% of my readers were interested on the ads, or just being generous) The thing is, what defines how much I'll get for each click? How can I change that? $1/click sounds pretty good, if 50 people clicked on the ads everyday... Sorry for asking so many questions right in the beggining Silenced, what's your MSN?
AdSense shows ads relevant to your site. On blogs though, it often just shows ads about blogs, not about what you type. The ad is paid for by an AdWords advertiser. They determine what they want to pay for a click max. Some words are more expensive to buy than others. All depends on supply and demand and how lucrative the word is.
Oh, ok. Just out of curiosity, how are they going to know that I asked my readers to click on the ads (specially considering my website is not in english)?. How do they control that? Is it really unethical to ask the readers to support the website? Just wondering.
Just stop thinking about it. It is unethical, it's theft and fraud and spam and you rip us AdWords advertisers off with useless traffic clicks. Just forget about the whole idea right now. It's against all internet etiquette and especially against AdSense TOS. You WILL be banned eventually and Google has a LONG memory. If you want to stick around on the web, you'll have to play according the rules.
Chill, guy I was just asking. Can't hurt anyone with a question... No need to be aggressive, or make threats like that. Maybe your intention wasn't to make a threat, but it sounded like it. I was just curious if there was any sort of system to automatically search for "frauds" like that. I'm a programmer, and things like that usually get my attention. Now as to what you said... Theft? Hardly. That's kinda farfetched, don't you think? I don't think I would be stealing anyone if I asked my readers to click on ads. Isn't that why they're paying me for in the first place - making people click on their ads? What difference does it make if I ask people to do so? Do you see any? Not everyone that clicks on ads on their own are going to buy the products, and people you asked to click on the ads might even buy something. Even if they didn't, aren't they accessing the sponsor's links anyway? Sound's like they only made that rule to avoid publishers to earn more. I'm probably wrong, but that's just my opinion No need to get upset about that. Unethical? Saying something is "unethical" is assuming that everyone shares your definition of "ethics", which is obviously a fallacy. You can hardly prove a point by using an argument like that Now for the spam part, definately. Asking people to do something online, specially if it makes you get paid, is spam. But those advertisers are the same that flood my inbox on Hotmail, change my homepage to their sites, and download spyware to my computer. It sounds a little hypocrite to me if you demand someone don't use the same strategy you use on them. Don't you think? Anyways, although I don't agree that asking my readers to click on the ads is wrong (It's just my opinion), I will comply with the rules. After all, I signed the contract. Again, no need to stress I was merely asking a question, man.
Where did I stress? I don't even know what it is... I just gave you a strong warning. And listed the facts. Nothing aggressivein that post. Just fanatical against spam scumbags so trying to avoid you become one. There is such a fraud detection system but obviously, Google is not giving out ANY information whatsoever about it.
Sorry about my missinterpretation then. Since I can't really tell the "tone" with which you wrote the message, it sounded a little bit angry. The capitalized "WILL" in the phrase "will be banned" didn't help, either. But anyways, my apologies. Ok then, my mistake I highly doubt that, it would require too much AI to be able to tell the difference from spam to a simple text envolving the same key words. That means people would be "fragged" by accident/bugs all the time. Plus, they wouldn't be able to program that for every single language there is. It probably works thru an abuse report system, I dunno. Besides, I've seen websites where the webmasters pratically BEG for clicks. Not that I think that is right, though.
Capitalizing WORDS or making them bold is an attempt of adding tone or intonation to it. You are right in saying (and I have had a few silly Messenger fights because of it) that the tone is hard to establish. It was meant to sound sincere and strict as oppose to harsh and aggressive. That aside... Logging IP, referers, browser agents, time, geographical location, click patterns and social networking has nothing to do with AI. It's just a matter of taking note of what's going on. Then if anything unusual happens, look back at the log book and make your conclusions. Your friends probably live near by. Your friend might be emailing you with Gmail. Your friends probably have the toolbar and browse similar stuff. Your friends might have AdSense too. Now these friends click your ads... What will G think? What will G do? Or your visitors click the ad and hit the back button within a second. Then click the next, to 'support' you... Easy to trace fraudulent behaviour.
Yes, it does Either someone uses that information or they just automatically frag the alleged "criminal". I can't imagine how they would handle all that information using humans (too many sites to monitor), so it's more likely that they would use some sort AI to cross check the factors. But then there's the "accidental fraggin" thing... Exactly. All that might mean I'm cheating, but it's just a PROBABILITY. That's what I meant with "fragging people by accident". Even if most of my readers were my friends (which they are not), and lived nearby (which they don't, I live in Canada but I write in Portuguese so only people from Brazil and Portugal read my website), and have the same browser (not likely, I don't use a mainstream browser), and mailed me thur Gmail )which I don't use), that is not grounds to say I asked them to click on the links. It's a probability. Get the idea? There can't be an AI to handle that. Instead of just processing information and pointing out certain patterns, you would need to really investigate. Unless of course if you don't mind having people punished just based on "probability". That's why I was curious. I can't imagine HOW they could trace every single page thru an AI system without making large amounts of mistakes. That's what I'm afraid of: people doing that because they think that it would help me :S PS.: The Gmail thing kinda scared me. Are you sugesting they actually trace my emails and/or read their contents? That can't be legal. Are you sure about that?
So my Statcounter javascript code is Artificial Intelligence? Come on man, that's nonsense... Logging has nothing to do with AI. Looking back in the logs neither. I'm sure they do use AI in an attempt to improve on the fraud detection but like yoo said, it's too complicated to let a computer decide indefinately. As long as you don't ask for that or make it an requirement, it's fine. Then they will only click out of real interest. If they still click to 'support' then fine. It will be such low numbers that Google and the AdWords advertiser won't care. I have no way of knowing for sure. But they do know and the law sure as hell won't stop them from using the information they gather to their advantage. The whole Orkut deal is about getting to know how social networking works as well. The Gmail invite process is an extention to that again as well. In the end they will use this to improve search. But it can be used for all sorts of purposes, whether the mass likes it or not.
You didn't get my point Getting information about our websites (and possible frauds) doesn't require AI. HANDLING that information and taking decision does. So what if a computer knows my friends live nearby and they're clicking on my ads? If a computer is going to take that decision, meaning, if i'm automatically booted for displaying such patterns, THEN it's AI. It's either that, or someone double checking EVERY website. Which is more likely to you? Exactly. Judging by the amount of websites there are under the AdSense system, I think it's unlikely that they have people making sure no one is doing something stupid. That's the thing: there are some people that really like me, and they might think "I'm gonna click ten times so SuperKid gets a lotta cash!!!1111 lol!!!"; in that case I'm screwed and it's not even my fault. But, there are people that also hate me, so I'm afraid that saying "Please don't do that cuz it'll get me in trouble with the advertisers" will cause my stalkers to do it on purpose :S Trust me, I've had people finding out my phone number and posting it on over 10 gay messageboards, or playing around with my pictures on Photoshop... that is not cool.