Disclaimer: This does not apply to lousy, content free sites. Build a quality site before using all of the Google Advertising tools. If you have a new, high quality site with low traffic, you can begin to get traffic and protect yourself from being banned by Adsense by using Adwords to drive traffic to your site. Google encourages Adsense publishers to use Adwords to bring traffic so you should learn how to do this. Why would this protect you? First the traffic you receive from Google Adwords can not be considered low quality traffic by Google, they sent it to you. Second, this quality traffic can lead to other quality traffic when visitors bookmark your site in sites like StumbleUpon and del.icio.us or when the Digg you or make a blog link. Third, if you see traffic coming in and clicks are happening the temptation to click on your own ads "once or twice" will be drastically lessened. And fourthly, this traffic is good for newsletter sign ups and other community involvement that provides for future traffic. So Adwords can bring you quality paid traffic and as a byproduct, organic traffic and it will lessen the temptation to violate terms of service eliminating the two main causes of Adsense bans, poor quality traffic and fraudulent clicks.
This is so true. There was a lot back in April/May about arbitrageurs getting banned - but it has since become clear that it was not because they were using arbitrage, it was because they were using Adwords to direct to MFA sites which are against the Adsense terms. I just had this email from Google and nearly fell off my chair: --------------------- Greetings from Google, Congratulations on your continuing success with Google AdSense. To thank you for your custom and help you to maximise the earning potential of your site, we invite you to try advertising with Google AdWords with a £30 free voucher. Why advertise with AdWords? Google AdWords is currently helping many AdSense publishers attract more and more visitors to their websites. When people search for topics related to the content of your site, your AdWords ad will appear as a sponsored link in the search results. This can help drive more traffic to your site and increase your AdSense revenues. Here’s the best part – you only pay when people click on your ad and visit your site. You decide what you’re willing to pay for each click and place a limit on what you’d like to spend each day. You can also display a variety of ad formats and even target your ads to specific languages and geographic locations. And you can keep a close watch on their effectiveness with helpful online tracking tools that are easy to use. This voucher is valid until 31 March 2008.
Glad to see that note from Google. And I am glad to see someone else who clearly understands the difference between arbitrage and content free MFA sites. Congrats on both accounts.
Thanks for sharing. I wonder how much are you earning this way? How much do you pay for Adwords and how much do you earn on Adsense (if you can tell us)? Isn't it too little?
It's not too little but there is a fine balancing act. You need to raise your bids high enough to get traffic but low enough to not exceed your eCPM in Adsense. Most months I can keep the Adwords cost at about 60% of Adsense revenue but it took a lot of experimenting to find the right niche and get the right content and layout (the layout in Adsense guide is close to what I ended up with).
Scientificallty this cannot happen. Think of it in one way. You drive 1000 people to your site. If your CTR is 3%, then assuming that your page views is 3x, then you will have 90 clicks. Now, since the niche your site is found in, is the same niche you are bidding in adwords, so as to get targeted traffic. Assuming the average click in adsense will pay you 30 cents. We all know that google takes its 50% cut from the total. Thus each click will cost the advertiser 60 cents, 30 for you, and 30 for google. Since you are an advertiser too (in adwords) then you should assume that you paid 1000 x 60 cents= 60,000 cents, or $600 USD to drive the 1000 visitor. Those 1000 visitor have just made you 27 USD. So you lose 573 USD a day. In physics, if you run an electric motor, and connect this motor to a dynamo to produce electricty, and you connect this electricity back to the motor to make it self running, it will drastically fail and stop! This is why you cannot use adwords to profit from adsense. There is simply something called the edge (which is here google's cut) Regards Yanni
Nope Yanni, that's where you are wrong (I believe) if you optimize the ad's displayed or even use the new affiliate links you can get higher paying ad's to be displayed, all you need to do is fine tune your purchasing and optimize your site for higher paying ad's. You don't need to buy expensive and competitive key words, you may be better off buying less competitive terms and staying away from the main stream, thus avoiding expensive ad' campaigns. What if you were to get/purchase 3cent-5cent clicks and have ad's worth 30-60cents a click on your site, then your above sample is proven wrong. It's the fine tuning and balancing that needs to be adjusted accordingly.
no, because google has always allowed all kinds of mfa sites to exist... google invented mfa'ers. google took action ONLY because the crappy arbitrage traffic was ripping off the advertisers. what tbarr60 keeps failing to mention is that you can't base arbitrage on lies and false keyword useage, and also come up with honest conversions for the advertisers... google proved that they will ban the pond scum that does that. so lets hear a plan for HONEST arbitrage.
your 30-60 cent epc will drop like a rock if you send untargeted arbitrage to the site... and when you can't pay for the best keywords, the traffic becomes less targeted. getting good arbitrage reminds me of screening and filtering image search traffic into something profitable.
This is not true. It doesn't work like this. Obviously not because many people make money doing this. If you bid low on more specific terms then you can get traffic in for cheaper than it's going out. You aren't really understanding how it works in your analysis.
This is not true. Cheaper keywords don't necessarily mean less targeted. In fact they could be MORE targeted (long tail) - there will just be less traffic for them. You could also low bid on more general terms and get some traffic from people clicking on the 2nd and 3rd page ads... In this case you've paid a little bit to get them on your site but you can earn a lot when they leave (via adsense ads.)
hey guys iam trying arbitrage and i am making good money out of it. I have different niche sites and i only make money through arbitrage. How I do i will be that will come in future post on my site. I am experimenting a lot with al these PPC programs and will share after i succedd.
First, don't worry about what Google payout on a percentage basis (it's well over 50%). Read the annual report, you should be able to deduce the cost of Adwords and revenue of Adsense. Next revise your calculations: Change CTR to something greater than 3% say 10% or 20%. Change what you pay to an eCPM of $110. Change what you get to an eCPM of $150. Even with out capturing some residual traffic (newsletter sign up, book marks, etc) you can make money. One thing to consider is you might get the sixth position in ad placement for $0.25 while the top guy is paying $2.00. All you need is a good spread between top listing and a lower but still traffic generating lower position and a site that is optimized for Adsense per Google's guide. What most people don't do is find the right niches.
Great post tbarr, I continually try to tell people that Google does not mind arbitrage. Some people just don't get the difference between honest arbitrage and MFAs.
wrong, in the majority of cases cheaper keywords do indeed mean less targeted and lower quality arbitrage traffic. guess what, that's why people pay more for better keywords ;-)