Reapplying For Adsense - YouTube and Blogger

Due to some of the recent changes at AdSense publishers are finding it impossible to resubmit their application for Adsense using a new blog URL or a new YouTube Channel. Some folks are calling it a "bug" although I'm not entirely sure it is a bug. If it is, it has been ongoing for some time now.

There is a process for submitting a new URL, but what you can't do is change the URL in the application you already submitted. When you try to apply with a new or different blog in your Blogger account, the application is automatically submitted with the same URL you submitted with your first application. The same is true if you try to apply for Adsense using a YouTube Channel - if you applied for Adsense with a blog or website (and were rejected) before you applied from YouTube, the URL from your old application may automatically be submitted to Adsense, instead of your channel.

In either instance what you'll need to do is first create a new Google Account and a new Gmail account for that new Google Account.  WAIT!  No, you don't have to delete your current Google/gmail accounts and no, you don't have to create a new Blogger or YouTube account to do this.

The first step is to log out of your current Google Account. Then create your new Google and Gmail accounts. Once created and verified, log out of that new account you just created.

The next step is to login to your current (or old) Google Account, and then go to your Blogger Account or YouTube account/channel. Now you're ready to submit a new application to Adsense using a different URL than you previously used. Yes, it's a little confusing but once you know the steps, it isn't that bad.

YouTube Steps

Go to your YouTube Channel that you want to submit and find the Monetization tab. On your monetization tab you'll see a list of guidelines and other information you should know. Click the little down arrows next to each one to expand those sections and please, DO read the information.

Notice the section that says "How will I be paid" - there's a link there to associate an Adsense account with your YouTube channel. Click that after you finished reading this information and it takes you to a page with further instructions. READ those, then click next. That should bring to a place like this one:

PLEASE NOTE: You must be 18 to apply for Adsense, and that the information you fill out on your application (such as your REAL name) must be correct - double check your entries for spelling errors because you won't be able to fix them later on.

Follow the steps on this page to apply for Adsense using your new Google Account - remember that you are still logged in to your current Google Account - the one that's actually associated with your channel, so you'll see your current email address and google account on this page. At the bottom of the page are two blue boxes - the first one says "yes apply with (current google account shows up here)" - you don't want to do that. Not if you submitted an application previously using your current Google Account.

What you want to do here is select "Use a different or new Google Account". Once you select that, it will ask you for the information for your new Google Account. Fill that in, and complete your application using your current YouTube Channel.

Note that if you have multiple channels that use different emails/different Google Accounts, you can also use these instructions to associate those channels with your approved Adsense Account.

Blogger Steps

The steps to reapply through your Blogger account with a new Google account are the same. Make sure you are logged in to your current Google Account and sign into your Blogger account. Select the blog you want to submit and go to the Earnings tab.

You should see something like this page:

Click the "Sign up for Adsense" button and you'll get the steps to sign up for Adsense.

Make sure you understand that you cannot apply if you are under 18.  This page will show your current Google Account/email address (the one associated with your Blogger account). When trying to submit a new or different blog than one you tried before, you can't resubmit using your current Google account. Choose the orange button that says "Use a different or new Google Account" and give the information for the new Google Account you created, then complete the application for Adsense.

For both YouTube and Blogger,  you'll have 2 Google Accounts - one associated with your Blogger or YouTube account, and one associated with your Adsense account. These steps essentially link your accounts, so make sure you do keep track of the login information for both of your Google Accounts.

by J.Gracey Stinson

Time for AdSense, Blogger and YouTube Updates

In the last several months there have been quite a few changes for Adsense users. Over the next few months I'll be trying to explain some of the changes and give you my own thoughts on them or if I can, offer some answers. The Help Center has been updated with a new look and navigation system, and the dashboard in your AdSense account has been updated as well.

Recent additions include the Scorecard, which for some people seems to have created a small panic. The Scorecard really is just a way to see where you might be able to improve your site(s), and your AdSense earnings or traffic. Suggestions made in the Scorecard are just suggestions.

Just as an example, if your "Revenue Optimization" on the Scorecard shows less than 5 blue dots, you can find out why by clicking the little down arrow next to "Revenue Optimization". The sections listed are "Recommended Ad Formats" (are you using all the most recommended ad sizes and formats?); "Text and image ads enabled" (have you enabled all your ads for text and image?); and "Crawler Errors". All of these subsections will have a green checkmark, a yellow exclamation point (recommends changes) or a red exclamation point (needs work). The small arrow next to each section opens up to display their recommendations.

In this screenshot, the recommendation is that switching to recommended ad formats can help increase revenue, with a "learn more" link next to that. If you click the "learn more" link, it will take you to a page like this one:  Most successful ad sizes. 

So what do you do? The first thing you do after reading the information is really take a look at your own site - you know it better than anyone else. Consider why you are currently using the ad sizes/styles/formats that you are using right now. You chose them for a reason. What was that reason? Was it the same when you chose them as it would be now if you were putting new ads on your site?

Recommendations aren't always right, so it's up to you as the site owner and publisher to think about what works best for your site and for your visitors. Don't arbitrarily make changes to ad sizes just because Adsense says you might earn more. If your site's size (in terms of screen width) can't support larger ad units, don't use them just because Adsense automatic suggestions think you should.

Most site owners who have an interest in providing a good experience to their users will first consider how the larger ad units might affect that user experience, and whether or not larger ad units actually fit well into the ad space provided. If your site appears to have too much space taken up by advertising, then using larger ad units is probably not a good choice to make.

Don't blindly make changes that Adsense suggests to your site - keep in mind that these suggested changes are basically "auto initiated", so nobody physically has gone to look at your site. That much is apparent when it's been suggested I use a 970 pixel wide leaderboard on a website that is only 800 pixels in width - it seems rather obvious to me that an ad that large simply won't fit across the width of my site so I'm certainly not going to institute that change.

The same can be said for all the suggestions made in the Scorecard - you should fix things that actually require fixing (crawler errors), and you should review their recommendations and suggestions, but don't panic about instituting those changes if you are happy with your site layout and/or can't make all the changes they expect.

In my Scorecard under "Site Health" (Page Speed Performance) there is always a yellow exclamation point. Why? The pages they list for recommended change include a website that includes articles as well as a lot of free images and textures, they expect me to reduce the image weight so the images will not slow down the page load time, but ... well, it would be pointless to optimize the images to the point where they look crappy. I'm a photographer, I don't want my images looking bad so they load super fast. All of my images are already optimized for web, and they're optimized to a level I can live with. I'm not going to optimize them any further just because Adsense thinks I should. They're not the one whose reputation is on the line, I am. So I'm the one who has to decide that, not Adsense.

The other page they list as a slow loading page (it isn't slow, actually so I have issues with that but ...) is a blog hosted on blogger. All of things they say cause the slower load are (a) blogger coding and (b) adsense ads (only 2 on each page, and no other ads). I guess they want me to fix the Google issues?

So having taken the time to review their recommendations I decided against taking them, and left my pages as they were. None load so slowly that it's an issue, and making whopping changes to get a page to load a few nano-seconds faster isn't really worth the time, nor the issues that would be created by making those recommended changes.

Having five blue dots on the Scorecard isn't my goal. My goal is to provide useful information and products to my visitors, and I believe I'm doing that reasonably well on my monetized sites.

In the end, it's really up to you - the site owner - to decide which changes make sense for you, and which do not. Your decisions should never be based on the fact that "you are losing revenue", because you may not be losing any revenue at all. In fact, sometimes making the recommended changes may cause you to see lower revenues than you previously had.

Approach any changes to your site with thought and consideration before running off and making major changes.

Help Articles for the Scorecard

About Your Scorecard: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3006004?hl=en&ref_topic=3131279

Changes to Your Scorecard: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3131280?hl=en&ref_topic=3131279

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Coming in the next round of Update Articles - Signing Up from Blogger and YouTube, Resubmitting Applications with a new URL, and ASense Accounts from an AdMob Upgrade.

Putting AdSense Ad Code on Your Blogger Blog

If you're new to blogger, new to web publishing, or new to AdSense you might need a little help getting your ad codes onto blogger. For those of us who have been using this platform since it came out, placing ad codes seems like a simple thing, but for newbies it can be confusing. Particularly since blogger seems to be constantly changing the way things are done.

With blogger, there are multiple ways you can get your codes onto your blog. There are several types of gadgets that will work, or you can use the earnings tab, or you can even paste code directly into the text area. Keep in mind, pasting code into the text area may not always work. It will depend on the type of template you are using for your blog - usually a standard blogger template works best for that. If you use third-party free templates, or blogger's dynamic template, posting ads in the text area may not work at all. The instructions below are for using normal blogger templates (standard ones, not the dynamic ones).

Using a BLOGSPOT URL

If you use the free blogspot URL, almost all the available methods will work if you've been approved to place an ad code.  Keep in mind that being asked to place the ad code doesn't mean the ad will display right away, so all you may see is a space where the ad is placed (in some templates, you might not see any space at all).

Because the approval process can take a few weeks to complete you might see ads for a short period of time when first placed, then they suddenly disappear. That's because ad code/ads collect "impressions" (that's visitors coming to the page) and when there are enough impressions, the second part of the review will begin, and you won't see ads for a while again. Not until they approve your blog.

So, to place the code you can use the AdSense gadget (which places code for you, so no copy/paste required), or you can paste ad code that you've been given or created in your AdSense account into an html gadget. You can also choose to have ads between your posts if you'd rather have that - you can edit the post template to choose that option. The simplest method is to use the earnings tab in your blog dashboard, choosing where to place the code using the radial button. Some of these options may not work if you are using a custom domain with your blog (the earnings tab may not be available).

You can use the AdSense Gadget from the layouts page. OR
You can use the html gadget and paste code into it from the layouts page.
On the layouts page, simply click +New Gadget and choose the type you want.

Blogger's Adsense gadget offers several options for ad types and sizes in
the drop down menu. There is no need to paste code into this gadget.
You can choose the colours for text ads once you've chosen the size and type of ads.

To place ads between posts, go to the layouts page and in the blog posts template
Click the "edit" button.

When the "edit template" dialogue opens you see the options available.
Scroll down until you see "show adsense between posts" and select that.
Don't forget to click "save" at the bottom. Also note that choosing ads between posts
means you need to set your homepage not to show more than 2 or 3 posts, or you'll have
too many ads on a page. Ads in sidebars and other gadgets also count towards the total ads.

Using the Earnings Tab (when available)

On the earnings tab of approved blogs, you can choose where
you want your ads to display, and blogger will place them automatically.

Using a CUSTOM DOMAIN

When directing a custom domain to your blog, not all of the above options may work. If the earnings tab isn't available, or the AdSense Gadget shows an error when adding it, you'll need to use the html gadget and ad code from your account.

Use the html gadget to place ad code from your "MyAds" tab in your
AdSense account. Once saved, you can drag the gadget to any spot on
your layouts page that accepts a gadget. Be sure the ad size is compatible
with the space you place the gadget in.

Placing Ads in the Text of your Blog Post

You may find some tutorials on other blogs for parsing AdSense code and placing it directly in the html of your blog's template. Personally, I find this option less than satisfactory, and it can result in errors from clicks not being recorded, or sometimes the ad not being clickable, or the ad being in the wrong spot in the post. Once it is in your template, it shows up in the same spot on each post you publish.

This isn't always a good thing. Some posts you may not want ads on, or some posts you might want ads in a different spot. Keep in mind that no matter how you place the ads in your blog, publishers are allowed no more than 3 Adsense ad units on any page, so if you have ads in gadgets, or are placing ads using any of the other methods listed above, placing another ad in your post MUST NOT lead to having more than 3 ads on the post when it's published.

When I have a popular post where I might want to place a third ad (I generally only use 2 in my sites), I simply copy the ad code from my account and paste it directly into the post editor, using the html option, rather than the "compose" option. Keep in mind you need to add a couple of line spaces manually, or you'll have an ad that's far too close to the content (and cause a violation). Make sure the ad size fits within your posting space. Don't try to paste an ad code for an ad that's too large into the space, or it will cover contents, or part of your sidebar.

Click the HTML button at the top of your posting editor while preparing or editing a post.
Paste the ad code into the text area, being sure to add a few line spaces. Publish your post.

Once your ad is visible, check the placement to make sure the ad isn't
too big for the space, and is far enough away from the content.

Questions? Just ask by leaving a comment and I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson