How to Open a US AdSense Account?

This is a question that has the world's easiest answer. You DON'T (ie: CANNOT) open an Adsense account in the United States unless you LIVE in the United States.

Giving information in your AdSense application that IS NOT TRUE is considered fraud. Fraud can get you into more problems than you ever wanted to face. Tax problems, government problems ... even legal problems. US tax regulations are fairly complex, which means the chances of a non-US individual actually understanding them, or understanding the ramifications of lying on an application are fairly small.

When you sign up for Adsense, you must provide true and correct information, and by submitting the application and accepting the terms of use, you are certifying the information you provided is true. If you give a false name (ie: someone else's name), or a false address you are now committing fraud. So right away, from the moment you sign up and agree to the terms, you are setting yourself up for legal sanction.

US Terms of Service for Adsense

12. Representations; Warranties; Disclaimers

You represent and warrant that (i) you have full power and authority to enter into the Agreement; (ii) you are the owner of, or are legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of, each Property; (iii) you are the technical and editorial decision maker in relation to each Property on which the Services are implemented and that you have control over the way in which the Services are implemented on each Property; (iv) Google has never previously terminated or otherwise disabled an AdSense account created by you due to your breach of the Agreement or due to invalid activity; (v) entering into or performing under the Agreement will not violate any agreement you have with a third party or any third-party rights; and (vi) all of the information provided by you to Google is correct and current.

I fail to see how providing a fake US address to Adsense is "correct". Obviously, it isn't.

What makes this the most ridiculous is that by providing a wrong address or wrong country when signing up, you're pretty much ensuring you will not be able to collect your earnings from Adsense. Oh ... I guess you didn't know that, right?

Regardless of what other blogs will tell you about getting a US account when you don't live there, the problem you'd face in certifying your tax information will prevent you from being able to receive earnings. When you have a US address in your AdSense account, you have US activity (or a US presence), and that means you cannot claim that you have no US activities. Unless you have a tax exemption from the government, you can't claim an exemption from filing the tax either. You have to provide your SSN in the tax submission, and if you don't live in the US, you don't have one. If you get a TIN (tax ID number) from the US, you end up having to file income taxes in the US.

Are you getting it yet? You can't do this without getting into trouble.

US tax laws are designed to prevent this sort of activity - receiving earnings using fake information. This would pretty much ensure that you wind up being investigated for money laundering by trying to trick the government (which is what you're doing by signing up with a US address if you don't live in the US or don't own a business* or property in the US).

*note that some businesses owned by non-US citizens that actually have a US presence/location can use a US address provided they qualify under the tax laws for business in the US. 

So people ... have fun with that. Because you are seriously messing with your future by trying to get around the country rules for Adsense.

Apart from that, if your AdSense account has a US address, then you need to have your payments deposited to a bank account physically located in the US, so I guess you'll be getting on a plane, flying to the US and trying to talk some bank into opening a bank account for you, even though you don't live in the US.

The only payment method available in an account with a US address is EFT (no more cheque payments, and no Western Union). When using EFT, the bank account must have your name on it (ie: the name of the payee in the AdSense account, which you cannot change to that of another person), and it must be located at a bank in the US (Adsense Payment Methods).  Trying to use a bank with someone else's name will not work (most US banks would reject the deposit if the names don't match, and 99% of the time, you will not be able to change the country in your Adsense account after approval), nor will a bank outside of the US work:

Why did my test deposit fail?

There are a number of reasons why your test deposit might fail. We have provided a detailed list below.

• Incorrect bank account number or bank codes (the required information will vary by country)
• Bank account is closed
• Bank is not located in the same country entered in your AdSense account
• Bank account is not in the local currency of the country entered in your AdSense account
• Bank account is not set up to receive incoming ACH/EFT
• Your bank code changed as the result of a recent bank merger

Nearly all the major banks require you live in the US or at least have an actual physical address in the US (property you own), and photo-ID and documents to prove that before they'll open a bank account for you.  (Note that depending on where you live, virtual bank accounts cannot be used for collecting earnings. In some cases Adsense requires that you have a physical brick and mortar bank account - that means a real bank, not a virtual one.)

We tried to set up one ourselves (a real bank account at a US bank) - not for Adsense, I get paid just fine to my Canadian bank account, but because we holiday in the US nearly every year and figured it would be easier to have money in a US bank so we could access it while on holidays. Because we didn't live there and didn't have property there, no bank would open one for us. Nice huh?

So in the end, the simplest answer to the question "how can I open a US Adsense account" is "move to the US", because giving false information can get you in big trouble.

As a friend once said to me ... "lying to the government is bad juju". And lying to Adsense can be just as bad.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

Ad Blockers: Let's Talk!

There are many different adblockers available in the market for a variety of different browsers. But the one most people seem to complain about, is one that seems to be the most well-known. Adblock Plus is a much-used adblocker. Publishers hate it (well, some do - I do not) because so many people use it. According to ABP, 75% of their users don't mind some types of ads, while 25% of their users want to just block everything. Keep in mind that for those users who just want to block every type of ad and refuse to see any advertising at all, nothing you do will make them change their mind.

But AdBlock Plus isn't the villain here. At least, I don't see it that way. In some cases, the problem is the publisher themselves. They have too many ads on a page from too many different ad providers. Or, the ads they use are intrusive, cutting into a person's ability to read content without being interrupted by advertising. Intrusive and annoying ads will create a poor user experience, and may actually lose you visitors, especially if you are begging them to turn it off.

AdBlock Plus has a feature called "Acceptable Ads", and the criteria for acceptable ads isn't hard to understand, even for users who are less web-savvy. You can turn on, or turn off the Acceptable Ads feature. Some will just leave it off and see no ads, either because they just simply hate ads period, or because they aren't sure how to use it, or how to change it.

Is it any wonder people use adblockers when
faced with this sort of assault?

If you go to ABP's website, you can see the criteria for acceptable ads. The first thing to note there is the ad placement. Have a look at what isn't acceptable ... see that red block in the middle of all the text? If you've got ad placements like that on your site, you don't fit the acceptable ads criteria.

And note that ABP has the same criteria as Adsense does for being able to tell the difference between ads, and content. Ads should clearly be different than the content so visitors aren't fooled into thinking the ad is content. There are other criteria on ABPs acceptable ads list, such as the size of ads used, on what type of pages ads should be displayed, the colours and styles of ads allowed for acceptability. If your site qualifies, you can apply at ABP's site to be added to the acceptable ads list.

I'm guessing a bunch of you will go running off to the site to apply, without meeting the qualifications for inclusion on the list so, prepare to be disappointed.

It's interesting to note that ABP also uses the requirement of having lots of content on a page. If there is no primary content, or not enough primary content, you shouldn't have ads on the page.

They also have a list of ads that aren't considered as acceptable and don't qualify for the "Acceptable Ads" listing in ABP. Such things as ads that refresh when the page isn't refreshed (so, ads that rotate would be included in that), animated ads, ads with auto play sound or video ads, expanding ads, oversized ads, interstitial ads, overlay ads, pop ups and popunders, and rich media ads. That's a long list of "no-no's", so if you use these types of ads on your site, you are more likely to find adblocking users aren't seeing them at all.

The problem here is that advertising providers (including AdSense) produce these types of ads. In some cases, publishers have the option of not using some of those ad types on their sites. But the ad providers really are the ones who need to adjust the types of ads they serve if they don't want people blocking their ads. With their efforts to entice visitors to have some interest in the advertising, they've stepped over the bounds of what many people consider acceptable.

Publishers need to take note as well, because with too many ads and too many things moving on your site, people will simply block everything, they won't just pick and choose which ads to block.

Even if your site makes it onto the AcceptableAds list, you may still have lots of adblocking visitors. Part of that is because visitors may not understand how adblockers can be customized to their own needs, so instead of notices begging people to turn off their adblockers, try educating them instead. Explain the ease of making the adblocker work to block overloaded sites, or intrusive ads, or specific ad urls and how they whitelist sites they trust.

With so many publishers complaining about adblockers, everyone is looking for a solution. The solution isn't to badger visitors because no matter how great your content is, similar content can be found on dozens of other sites. Sites that are ad-free, or that don't care if people use adblockers. By using the wrong solution, you could be driving your would-be visitors onto another site that doesn't hassle them about their adblocker.

Of course, in the end the decision is yours to make but if you aren't going to be part of solution, there's no point in complaining about the problem. Complainers don't help fix things. Bold turn-off notices don't help. More ads doesn't help. I'm no expert, and like many others, I don't really know how to fix it.

What I do know is how not to annoy my visitors even further.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

How Would You Change AdSense?

Here's a question for all of you - or any of you - that have had frustrations with Adsense. Sometimes things don't work as intended, do they? This can be particularly true of companies that use automation for much of their processes. I'm sure at some point in their AdSense career every publisher has probably said something like "If I ran Adsense, I'd __________!". So, let's fill in the blank.

What would you do if you ran the AdSense Program; what would you change, fix, or drop? How would you make those changes work? After all, it's easy to say "this should be better", but it's not always easy to come up with a viable way to make those changes work.

Here's my lists:

Publisher Pluses

1. Good publishers would be rewarded. Maybe with quarterly bonuses, or a premium-style ad format. By good publisher, I don't mean "high earning publishers". I mean publishers whose sites contain no violations, who practice good ad placements, who don't promote their sites using non-approved methods, etc. etc.

2. Payment thresholds would be lowered a little (maybe $75) and the process for validating a publisher's address would be changed to uploaded documents when crossing the threshold, instead of waiting for a PIN by regular mail. Since very few countries have check payments any longer, verifying a person's country address by documents makes more sense, and creates less waiting time, meaning publishers may be able to collect their first earnings a little quicker.

(a) country changes could be requested through the account, rather than publishers having to close their current accounts, however, in order for a country change to be approved, publishers would have to provide (i) documentation for the address they signed up with and (ii) documentation for their new address. They'd have to prove they lived at the first country address, as well as that they've moved to a new country.

3. Publishers would not even have the ability to change a spelling error in the payee name, however, they could submit a request to Adsense to correct it. Name changes would not be allowed except in the cases of marriage (normally a woman who changes her name when she marries, but in some cultures, that could be the man who changes their name); death of a spouse, where the surviving spouse becomes the account owner if the spouse is the heir; the transfer of an account from a parent to a child who has reached 18 and qualifies for their own account (in which case, the parent's name would be removed from AdSense so the parent could qualify for their own separate account in the future).

4. Business accounts (for actual, real already existing businesses) would have a separate platform for ads and would not use AdSense. Businesses must provide proof (by documentation) that they exist and can support themselves without the "BusinessAd" platform. Nobody would be creating a business name just to get Adsense ads. The business would need to be a viable business on it's own before they qualify.

5. Publishers would have varying levels of support from email to phone, based on their years with AdSense and their site's quality ratings (oh yes, publishers sites would have quality ratings), and not be based on how much they earn. This of course would mean slower response times, but since I'd envision a lot less publishers, and even less of them who would require support, it would probably work.

AdSense Pluses

1. I'd drop the YouTube program (sorry tubers) and start up a new format for YT.

Publishers would be invited based on specific videos, not entire channels. If one or two videos on a channel are selected, that's all that would be monetized. Not the channel, just the videos. Videos would be selected for monetizing after a human review for quality, length, language (ie: no "f" words), content compliance, and copyright. That would make it a lot slower, but end up with less problematic videos, and with videos long enough to actually be monetized. It's pointless monetizing 7 or 10 second videos.

2. I'd enforce the age requirement. If you aren't 18, you can't "use" Adsense, not even with a parent's Adsense account (sorry young'uns). Why? Because a lot of the youngsters we see using AdSense simply don't understand the rules and guidelines and don't bother to follow any of them.  Some sign up using a parent's (or other older relative) name without the knowledge or approval of an adult. This is not only wrong, it's bad.

A minor who is 13 or older could use a parent's account under certain circumstances. That would involve a direct telephone interview with the parent and a staff member, with confirming information that the parent will be monitoring their child's site/channel for community behaviour, and for contents. (yeah, that's tuff ... not many kids would want their parents seeing some of what they do). A parent would be required to review each video or blog post before it's published. Basically, this would mean the adult then becomes responsible for everything done by the minor. I wonder how many parents would agree to this?

To be fair, we've seen some very mature youngsters who do everything right, but they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.

(What's also true, however, is that many adults appear to be even more immature than some of the younger folks.)

3. I'd set the bar higher for quality and content. So high, some of my own sites might not even qualify to show ads. Every application would be reviewed manually, once it passed the initial crawler review. Doing that manually would slow things down tremendously, though. Publishers would wait months for a site review. But manual review should guarantee that only those with the highest quality content that is all original, and actually useful, would make it into Adsense (that is, if I've trained my staff right). AdSense is (er, would be) for content "creators", not for content copiers, aggregators, or those who make websites for the sole purpose of making money from ads. And sites would need to be at least a year old, with a minimum of 100 visitors per day. No "viral" sites with sensational headlines that don't match the contents properly would be allowed into AdSense if it were up to me. They're mostly nonsense, and mostly copied. That would be one category of site that simply wouldn't make it under me.

(a) Every approved publisher would not simply be able to use their ads wherever they like. They'd be required to submit each new website for human review and approval before they can place ads on them.

(b) All accounts would be monitored monthly. Each site would be re-reviewed quarterly. If sites fail the quarterly review, ads would be removed from the site.

4. News sites of any kind would not be monetized (sorry newsmongers), BUT, I would set up an entirely different form of Google advertising for news sites (maybe something like "NewsAds). Haven't quite figured the details on that, but moving news sites to a platform that is separate from AdSense would make sense for AdSense Publishers, and for the news sites.

5. Accounts disabled for clearly fraudulent activity would be reported to authorities and would have no chance for appeal. Accounts disabled for policy violations would be paid out whatever funds they earned on pages/sites that didn't violate policy, but would not be able to use AdSense again. Accounts disabled for invalid clicks would lose whatever earnings were earned from invalid activity, but retain whatever amounts they earning from valid clicks. Both policy and invalid click disabled accounts would have a chance to file an appeal.

6. People wanting to fill out an application for AdSense would first need to complete an online test that costs $1 to take. Once the test mode is entered, you cannot leave or close it, nor get access to the help files or blogs or anything else. You have to be able to answer the questions about Adsense and it's uses and policies on your own. If you can't answer the basic questions right, you fail. If you fail, you don't get to fill out an application. You can try the test again after studying the guidelines ... for another $1.  If you pass the basic test, you can fill out an application. A maximum of 2 applications can be made free of charge. After that, if neither application is accepted, you must pay $2 to complete and submit further applications.  This will help to avoid people creating multiple accounts and trying crappy website after crappy website. If you have to start paying, you might actually take the time to have a suitable website FIRST.

Of course, all of the above would take a great deal more staff than what's currently available, which means I'd have to put out a lot of money in salaries, so perhaps have to keep more of the percentage - either that, or things would move even slower in AdSense than they currently do.

... I have a lot of other things on my list and most apply for pre-approval or website quality.

And here, at last, is the real point of this post. Stop complaining that Adsense is what they are. They could be much worse.

Obviously, most of the above post is "tongue-in-cheek", since it would never happen.

I'm afraid that I would be a much more difficult taskmaster than the people that are running Adsense right now, and things would move much slower than they do now, so for those of you who complain about how tough it is to get an account, or to get a site approved, or that you have no direct contact, all I can say is thank your lucky stars that Adsense works as well as it does, and is as lenient as it is.

If it were up to me, 90% of the applications would probably be rejected and 50% of the currently approved accounts would be terminated (with pay of course).

Be thankful for AdSense even if it isn't perfect. They've given you a chance many others may not give you. It's up to you to make the most of that chance, and return the favour to AdSense. Be a good publisher, follow the rules and guidelines, and make good contents of your own.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

Your Best AdSense Moment in 2015

What was your best moment with AdSense during 2015? Was it a month with really great earnings? Was it a month where you got a lot of comments on your articles or videos? Or was it something even simpler, like finally getting approved after several tries? Was it learning something that you didn't know, or producing some content that you're particularly proud of? Was it solving a problem that frustrated you, or was it helping someone else fix a problem?

If I had to pick just one moment, I think it would be the conference I attended, meeting "Top Contributors" from all over the world, and meeting up again with our AdSense in English help forum family.  For me, that probably outweighs almost any amount of earnings I'd get. (See here for information on becoming a Top Contributor for Google Product forums.)

As 2015 is only half a month away from being over, I want to wish my friends and readers a successful 2016. Every day is a new day, giving us a chance to do better, and to be better. Not just with Adsense, but in our personal lives. As 2016 comes closer, maybe we should all think about how we can make ourselves better in the upcoming year ... be kinder; be more caring; share with others; support those who need help; be less judgemental; accept others for who they are, and where they are ... I think there are any number of small, everyday changes we can make in our lives that might make a difference in the lives of those around us.

Many have had a tough time with Adsense this past year - there have been a lot of changes to how AdSense works; changes to how your dashboards look; and even changes to the help forum platform. We've been attacked by bots, and redirecting ads, had to add EU-cookie compliance, and some have even had to deal with hacked accounts. This is probably one of the toughest years I've had, just like a lot of you.

Overall, it's been a year of new things - some in the ad industry, some specifically with AdSense. For some of, changes in our personal lives made dealing with our web properties more difficult too.

Let's go into the new year carrying the thought that 2016 will give us all a fresh start, with a new mindset and new ideas, and hopefully ... new and popular content, because that's what it usually boils down to. When we use our own mind and skill to create unique contents, we're not only providing what advertisers want, we're enriching the web by sharing our knowledge!

December is also a month full of holidays, festivals and celebrations. As a Christian, we celebrate Christmas, so from me to everyone out there, Merry Christmas! To those who celebrate something else, or nothing at all ... have a peaceful, successful, and happy celebration.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

High Paying Keywords Waste Time

WHAT? Yes, it's true. Not only does spending time playing around with keyword values waste time, it's unlikely to result in higher paying CPCs. And there isn't any one single reason that it's true, but multiple reasons.

Hundreds of blogs write lists of these mythical keywords ... they're pretty useless, unless of course you're looking for humour. Even as far back as 2006, there were smart publishers out there who understood what was and what wasn't true about these mythical beasts.

Raise your hand if you've done it ... gone looking at lists of high paying keywords?

Yep, just what I thought. An awful lot of you have, especially the ones new to the world of advertising revenue. That isn't surprising actually. There are a plethora of unauthoritative blogs out there eschewing the greatness of using high paying keywords but the truth is ... that's a fallacy (ie: untruth, fib, lie).

Oh sure, maybe way back near the beginning of the online advertising word, these keywords were useful but in the early days, advertisers didn't have as much information, data, and knowledge available to them as they do today. Now, advertisers are a lot less willing to waste their money advertising where it doesn't count (or, put another way, a lot smarter about how they spend their advertising dollars).

Today, keyword tools can still be useful in helping you with your own website - making sure you've got a good match between the contents on your site, and the keywords your site ranks for in serps, but otherwise, they probably aren't going to help you make more money. You certainly won't make $50 for a click just because your website has the keyword which supposedly pays that much.

What's most important in determining what to write about is not keywords, or what their value is. When it comes to determining the actual CPC on an ad, many factors are involved, but the content itself is critical.

Now we come to why keywords make a lot less difference than you might think when it comes to how much you'll earn.

Keyword Tools

How AdSense determines CPC for ads on a publisher's website isn't from the figures seen in the AdWords Keyword Planner. Those values are "suggested" values for advertisers to BID to get their ads to show up on Google's own search results pages, and have nothing to do with what a publisher would get paid for ads on their website. The Publisher Network is different than the Search Network. In other words if you own Google.com, you might be able to get paid $50 for a click on some ad, but if you own joestechsite.whatever, you're more likely to get a couple of cents for a click on an ad.

The keyword planner won't help publishers get paid more. It can be useful to see how popular certain keywords or phrases might be for the content on your site, and whether or not you've left off some, but you won't get paid what that tool shows as a bid price.

The tool shows relevant keywords for your site, and the average number of searches for those keywords in a month, and the level of competition for those keywords, along with a suggested bid price. All of these are used by the advertisers. That's what the tool was designed for. If an advertiser wants to purchase ads, it's helpful to know a little something about the competition in search results for those keywords, and also to know how much they might have to bid.

This has nothing to do with what you get paid because what an advertiser bids, isn't necessarily what the advertiser will have to pay. Are you getting it yet? The tools is for advertisers on Google's search pages, not your website. But, we aren't here to discuss AdWords. That would take an entire post of it's own. The point is the keyword tool is for advertisers.

Ad Targeting & CPC

AdSense ads are targeted to a site in several different ways. overall site keywords; interest based advertising; placement targeted ads; geographically targeted ads; language targeting.

Interest Based Advertising is targeted to visitor interests and previous search/surfing habits. What that means for a publisher is even though your site might be about fashion trends, visitors to your site might get ads for cell phones, or frying pans. Or, like some publishers ... you might have spent a lot of time checking into high paying keywords (the myth) and creating a site about car insurance ... only to find your clicks are earning you about 3 or 5 cents, instead of the $20 you expected. 

That's partly because your visitors might not be seeing ads for insurance, but ads for things that interest them, like the latest cell phone, or ads for dog collars and leashes. That's what IBAs are all about. Presenting ads to visitors based on what THEY are interested in because the visitor is more likely to click an ad like that. (And might also be partly because of "smart-pricing - more on that later.)

All that work looking up high paying keywords resulted in ... not getting the payment you expected.

That doesn't mean you wouldn't sometimes get insurance ads, but even if you do, you still won't get $20 per click.

You can turn off interest based ads in your AdSense dashboard under allow & block ads, but unless a visitor has also opted their browser out of the IBA cookies, they're still going to see interest based ads.  Several things you'll want to read about ad targeting can be found in the AdSense help center, which if you took time to read before doing all that keyword research, you probably wouldn't have wasted your time with the keywords.

How Interest Based Ads are Targeted

Interest Based Ads and Placement Targeting

Targeting by Language

Targeting by Keywords

Smart Pricing

Lots of clicks on your ads does not always equal advertiser confidence, nor does it mean you would get anything even remotely close to what an advertiser bid for a click on the ad. 

Why? Because of smart pricing. 

Smart Pricing is designed to ensure the advertiser gets some sort of return on investment (ROI = the value the advertiser received for paying for the click).

If you get lots of clicks, but advertisers aren't seeing much (or any) value in the visitor you sent to them (ie: the advertiser is looking for a sign-up, or for subscribers or for a product purchase and none of that happens), then you could find that smart pricing is turning your "high paying keywords" into 1 cent clicks.

Since the smart pricing is not determined for a whole website, or on an entire account basis, but on the click itself, smart pricing doesn't mean "all" your clicks are smart-priced. If a lot of clicks are from people who only click the ad because they want to help you out a little (which is not the purpose of adsense) and really don't have any interest in the advertiser at all, that click could turn out to be very low paying, even if it was on an ad for what someone "perceives" to be a high-paying niche. To quote AdSense directly:

"To appear on AdSense content pages, AdWords advertisers bid on ads and compete in an auction to appear on your pages. When advertisers compete to appear on AdSense for content pages, they're looking for business results from their clicks. These results differ from advertiser to advertiser, but could range from an online purchase to a newsletter sign-up. To ensure that advertisers are getting value from their bids on AdSense sites, we determine how likely a click is to lead to a business result for an advertiser. If our system determines that a click is less likely to lead to a business result, the advertiser's maximum bid may be reduced."

Smart pricing is a little more complicated than that, but the fact that it exists to help the advertiser means it has an affect on how much you might earn.

If all your clicks end up being smart priced, you could earn very little, even from thousands of clicks. On the other hand, if you have a lot less clicks, but most of them are made out of true interest in the advertiser's products or services you could earn a lot more from a lot less clicks. So more clicks does not always = more earnings.

What's the Point?

The point I am slowly trying to make is this. I encourage you to write about whatever things you are passionate about, regardless of what value the keyword has. A keyword has no value at all if someone doesn't click the ad.

When you write with passion; when you write from your own experience and with your own feelings, you produce real content - better content! And better content that's not like anyone else's is worth a lot more to advertisers than 10,000 similar articles about cell phones or how to make money online.

By writing from your own experience, what you're giving to your audience is part of yourself. It's entirely unique because it's you - it's your feelings, your expressions, your likes and dislikes. And unique content gives the advertiser a good reason to pay good values to appear on your site, and can also entice an advertiser to target ad placements (see placement targeting above) specifically to your site.

That's less likely to happen on websites with the same articles found on other sites, or articles re-written from someone else's content. And just to show you that I follow my own advice, one of my own websites is in a fairly low-paying niche (free stock photos and images for blogs), but because all the images I create are unique, and I write articles there as well ... I've seen clicks that range in price to $5 on that site, and I've got ads that are placement targeted to my site.

A low paying niche can earn as much as a higher paying niche if the content created is unique and original, and let's not forget that IBAs mean the ads shown can be from many different niches.

Summary

1. Don't waste time trying to write for high paying keywords. That's a myth.
2. Use keyword tools to help ensure your site contents are using keywords relevant to your content instead of using them to look up false values.
3. Don't use keyword tools to decide what to write about. Write what you love instead.
4. Don't use software, tools, link sites, or traffic generating sites to get useless traffic. Grow your audience naturally.
5. Don't waste time trying to write for high paying keywords.

Yeah, I know ... I said that twice. But I suspect that if I said it 100 times, some people still wouldn't believe it. That's their loss.

Hopefully, the smart people out there will finally get it, and stop writing about using something that simply doesn't work for publishers any longer.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

Where to Find Google Product Help

One of the things that frequently occurs in the AdSense Help Forum are posts from people looking for help for other products that Google Supplies. I expect a lot of this might be due to the fact that the AdSense forum is first on the list of help forums on the Google Support Forums listing page. I imagine lots of other help forums run into this problem too because the AdSense forum gets lots of posts moved into it from other forums.

I'm not sure why this is such an issue - the the support forums listing has direct links to most of the help forums for Google products, but there are several related forums that currently don't have their own help forum (AdMob doesn't have an active help forum; Google Accounts doesn't have a help forum), and I guess when people just want to complain about anything related to Google they'll post on the first forum they find ... fairly often it's AdSense.

So, to that end ... here's a list of forums and what help they offer.  A lot of these products also offer the ability to use Adsense with the product itself, so it's understandable if someone posts in AdSense instead of the product help forum. It's hard to know which place you need to post for help.

In some cases, like YouTube or Blogger, if it's a technical issue that relates to the actual function of the product (like a channel, or video, or blog or blog post), you'd need to ask for help at that product forum, rather than Adsense. If it's an issue that is specifically Adsense (ie: your payments, earnings, or AdSense account, or creating ad codes, etc.) then you'd ask at the AdSense forum.

Google Analytics Forum:
-referral and event spam discussions/help
-implementing GA code, tracking issues
-GA account issues, help with reports and data
-features and discussion
-bug reports
-feedback or suggestions

Webmaster Tools Forum:
-crawling, indexing, and search ranking
-security, malware, help with hacked websites
-image and video content indexing
-Webmaster Tools search console help
-website verification
-removing content from search
-internationalization
-help with sitemaps
-help for structured data and rich snippets
-app indexing

Gmail Help Forum:
-gmail problems
-tips for using gmail effectively
-peer discussion group
-feedback on gmail
-account access, security, safety
-composing or sending messages
-reading/receiving messages
-how to manage settings in gmail
-contacts and syncing

YouTube Monetization Forums:
-learning and understanding video monetization
-help with videos not showing any ads after monetizing
-disabled monetization
-issues related to youtube-adsense linking and earnings
-payment questions (bonus, pre-adsense monetizing)

YouTube General Forums:
-problems with playing and watching videos
-uploading, managing and handling your videos
-setting up your account, sign-in information and troubleshooting
-the homepage/channels, socializing and subscriptions on youtube
-using YouTube Live
-information on YouTube for non-profits

DFP Help Forums:
-help with setting up and getting started with DFP
-account administration
-creatives
-inventory management
-tagging, reporting & traffic forums

Google Custom Search Help Forum:
-creating, editing, and implementing your search bar
-indexing and results from your search bar
-troubleshooting and bug reports
-suggestions

Google Chrome Browser:
-reporting issues with the browser
-troubleshooting help
-providing feedback on Chrome

Google Play Forums:
-help for apps and games
-help for google books
-help with movies, tv, music (radio?)
-Google Newsstand section
-other Google Play contents
-provides tips for product uses; help to fix an issue or problem, share feedback and suggest new features, and discussion forum

Google Business Listing Help Forum:
-help with incorrect business information on the business page
-verification help
-technical issues
-announcements relating to Google Business
-advice from the community

Google Chromebook:
-report and get troubleshooting help with chromebook
-discussion forum

Chromecast Help Forum:

-how to questions and answers

-technical issues

-discussion and feedback

-chromecast set up

-casting from apps

Google News Help Forum:
-help for google news users
-help for google news publishers
-discussion forum

There are still several other products that have their own help forums (see the link in the first paragraph for the rest) but most of the time, the ones above are the ones we see questions for in the AdSense help forum.

As with any form of help, if you ask for help in the right place, you get better help, faster. When you go from forum to forum looking for the right place you can become very frustrated about being bounced around.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

AdSense 30 Day Suspensions - How to Fix

A recent change in how AdSense deals with invalid clicks has publishers wondering how to deal with it, and naturally, all of them want to "fix" it, and everyone wants to appeal it.

The 30-day suspension period isn't fixable.  This is a decision AdSense has made in order to give the publisher time to try and correct the violations that caused the suspension.

"We may temporarily suspend if our policies are repeatedly or egregiously violated. This will provide you with a final opportunity to review all of your sites and take the necessary corrective actions so that your account is not disabled.

Please note that we’ll continue monitoring your account for compliance. If additional violations are accrued then we may need to disable your entire account. If this occurs then we may withhold earnings for a period of 60 days prior to the date that we disable your account.

We encourage publishers to use this 30 day suspension period to review all of their content, remove existing violations, and put safeguards in place to avoid future policy issues. When reviewing your sites for compliance, we recommend paying close attention to our content and ad placement policies."

For further help and links to steps to take see the help page in the AdSense Help Center.

"An account suspension provides the publisher with 30 days to make the relevant changes to their sites. If you have been suspended, you'll still be able to log into your AdSense account. However, no ads will be shown for 30 days, and you'll notice a payment hold automatically added to your account.

At the end of this suspension period, we'll automatically re-enable ad serving, remove the payment hold, and monitor your account to ensure compliance. Please be aware that if additional issues with policy violations or invalid activity persist following an account's suspension period, we may permanently disable the account.Note that account suspensions are unappealable."

Additional information on this page in AdSense. 

And before you start complaining about this 30 day period, consider the alternative. In the past, Adsense would simply have disabled the AdSense account, and most of the time, that disabled account is permanent. It means no more Adsense. If you received a 30-day suspension, you have a chance to fix the problems.

What Problems?

Most of the time the suspension is related to invalid clicks, invalid activity, or traffic problems. We've discussed invalid clicks and invalid activity in the past - this doesn't necessarily mean that you've clicked your own ads or asked others to do so (but if you have, then stop it. NOW.) Invalid clicks/activity/ can come from lots of other activities. Just a few of the things that might cause problems:

- people using the same IP as you
- clicks from small groups of people, like forum members, or from schools, or internet cafes, etc.
- on a website or blog, even improper ad placement can cause invalid clicks
- improper ad placement on mobile devices (ads are too large or cover too much of the screen)
- using links exchanges
- using sub4sub
- improper promotion of your property (website/blog/channel/app)
- traffic coming from bad backlinks
- advertising improperly using social media or ads on social media (there's a right way, and wrong way)

Before suspending your Account, AdSense has thoroughly examined your account, your account history, your traffic patterns and the properties you are monetizing. They haven't done this "automatically"; it hasn't been suspended by bot; it hasn't been flagged by some visitor; it hasn't been done without an investigation. And that's probably one of the reasons it cannot be appealed.

AdSense has 2 choices: they can suspend your account for 30 days, or they just disable your account totally.  This 30 days suspension can be looked at as a warning that something isn't right with your account/site/traffic, and should be a "wake-up" call.

Why the Suspension?

Really? The answer may not be what you think. It's not to punish you.  Given Adsense's history of disabling publishers for non-compliance, you might think this is just another way to make your life miserable.

Well, it isn't.

AdSense wants to help you keep your account; to become better publishers and to gain a better understanding of the right way to do things. They want to give you a chance to be better - to do better!

What to Do During the 30 Days

The first thing is "what not to do" ... don't just sit around for 30 days waiting for the suspension to be lifted. Although the problem may not have been caused by you, the is a change that it might have been caused by you unknowingly.  This is particularly true if you haven't reviewed the policies recently (they do change from time-to-time, so it's important to keep on top of this). This means it important for you to figure out what the problem(s) might be, otherwise you won't know how or what to fix.

What you need to do is launch your own investigation.

- check your traffic sources (ie: referrals, where traffic is coming from)
- if using unauthorized traffic, get it stopped asap
- make sure you haven't used poor or non-allowed methods of generating traffic
- make sure your traffic is organic
- check your ad placements/locations and sizes
- thoroughly review the policies with respect to ad allowances per page/sizes allowed where
- make sure you take steps to protect your properties as well as possible
- if you did/are clicking your own ads ... shame on you. Stop it. Don't do it again. Ever.

Take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that there are no further problems: do this BEFORE the 30 days are up. Show AdSense that you are taking pro-active steps to try and correct whatever the issue is.

No, they aren't likely to tell you "exactly" what is wrong. Whatever wording is in the email you received is about the only wording you'll get from AdSense directly. If you've taken time to investigate and still aren't sure what the problem is, or if you've fixed the problem then ask for help in the AdSense forum. The forum questions are mostly answered by your peers - others who may have already had to deal with a suspension, or others who might understand the best way to figure out the possible issues. Discussion is a good way to double check what you've already fixed and make sure you didn't miss something.

Be pro-active and reactive. Don't loaf!




Oh yeah, one last thing ...   

posted by J. Gracey Stinson