Adsense Firefox Referrals A Waste Of Space ?
I’m sure that most readers of my blog know that my nickname is “The FireFox Referral King”. For those of you that don’t know, it’s because when GrownUpGeek.com was only a few months old I had extraordinary success with Adsense Firefox w/Google Toolbar referrals. I had such great success that Adsense published the site as an Adsense Success Story. They also went on to include GrownUpGeek.com as an example of how to implement Firefox referrals in their online help pages. Since then, the type of traffic coming to the website has changed resulting in lower referral earnings - dropping from $150ish per day back in 2006 down to around $40-$50 per day for Firefox conversions for the last year or so. Even though earnings aren’t as high as they were way back then, I’ve still been pretty happy with the $40ish/day steady income from Firefox referrals..
So when overnight my Firefox referral earnings drop from $40 down to $5 for 3 days in a row I immediately assume something is wrong - several other publishers have posted seeing the same drop of 80%-90% in referral earnings at DP Forums and in the Adsense Google Groups, so clearly something has changed.
I sent an email to Adsense Support yesterday asking about this sudden, unexplained drop in earnings, and in less than 24 hours I had my response, which in part says:
Thanks for your email. I understand you’re concerned that you haven’t
received any earnings for some of your referral conversions. After looking
into your account, I noticed that you have some conversions that our
monitoring system considered to be invalid.
The email then went on to explain how important it is for Adsense to monitor activity, and that I can “Rest assured that your account is still being properly credited for all referral conversions we consider to be valid, as stated in our Terms and conditions.”
Well, I can’t rest assured of anything when i see an overnight drop in conversions of over 90% - CLEARLY SOMETHING IS BROKEN. I replied to the apparently automated response asking for a human being to look into the problem, but I don’t expect I’ll get much of a response. If referral conversions aren’t back to normal or near normal in the next few days I’ll be forced to drop them and replace their prominently positioned spots with something else. I will continue to recommend Firefox to visitors as it’s a great product, but if Google doesn’t want the Toolbar conversions anymore, I will probably just send everyone to Mozilla.com for a toolbar-free Firefox download.
Anyone else notice a drop in Adsense Firefox conversions?
UPDATE: Monday, March 24: I got another response from Adsense Support indicating they have escalated the issue to an account specialist for further review.
UPDATE: Wednesday, March 26: This issue has been confirmed as a bug.
Google Says: Jump.. I say “My Privacy Policy Is Updated”
Last week Adsense updated their Terms of Service. You probably noticed the change because they forced you to acknowledge the updates when you logged-in to your Adsense account. The TOS was the page that you scanned-thru to find the “I accept” button at the bottom so you could hurry and get back to looking at your Adsense stats.
I actually did take the time to read the changes, but I’m not going to dissect them here because that’s not what my blog is about - To read a good comparison of the changes “before” and “after”, jump over to Jim Karter’s blog. He has taken the time to put together a complete before/after comparison in this post (be sure to thank him by dropping a comment).
Anyway, the one big change that a lot of Adsense publishers are talking about is the requirement by Google to have a privacy policy on your website that discloses your use of cookies and ‘web beacons’ - AND it says you must actually abide by that policy. Here is the exact wording from the new TOS:
You must have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your user’s browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management.
Since I already had a privacy policy as required by Hotmail back when they decided I was a spammer, this was not a big deal. But now I had to update it, and actually make it available to visitors and members. As I was updating the policy it occurred to me that forcing Adsense publishers to have and abide by a policy like this is a very good idea. I think that Google is realizing that Adsense is partially due to the downfall of the internet by spawning so many millions of MFA websites and they’re attempting to root-out the krap. This is partially proven by all the grumbling and complaining I’ve seen in some of the webmaster forums. It’s funny how “real” website publishers don’t seem to mind all that much, but the “MFA’ers” are bitching and whining. I can’t wait to start seeing a Privacy Policy posted on all of those 1 or 2 page, worthless websites and it’s only a matter of time before we start to see all the of the “I got banned from Adsense for no reason” posts at DP Forums (and others) for the MFA’ers that choose to ignore or didnt bother to read the policy changes.
Updating my privacy policy wasn’t difficult, but it did take a few minutes of research. I added several things of my own, and borrowed a few ideas from some Google-owned websites. I also decided to place a link to the new policy that was visible on all pages, just in case Google decided to audit me (which I’m sure they’ll be doing at some point). Even though Premium Memberships are now generating far more income than Adsense - $4,500 vs less than $2,000 for Adsense in February ‘08, I still would not want to loose that Adsense income.
If you value your Adsense account like most of us do, you should probably take a few minutes to create or update your privacy policy. If you need help, there are several threads in the Adsense section of DP Forums. You can also have a look at my updated privacy policy. Feel free to copy & paste from it, just make sure you change the site name and other site-specific information. If you DO copy and paste from it or get any ideas from it for your new or updated privacy policy, please drop a comment.
Adsense Ads For Firefox Out Performing Firefox Referrals
Many of you know me as The Firefox Referral King, because my website was published by Google as an Adsense Success Story back on 2006. Since then, the sources of my traffic, the type of traffic and demographics of my visitors has changed, and I’m no longer making ~$1,500 $2,000 a month from (only) Firefox referrals. I still make a tidy sum from Firefox referrals, but probably only around half of what I was getting throughout most of 2006.
Back then (and still) I drive a lot of traffic from other pages on the site to my main “Firefox Information Page” where visitors can download Firefox via my referral link. I do this by adding a WordFilter (Drupal.org/Wordfilter) that converts any instance of the word “firefox” or “Fire fox” into a link to my Firefox info page. Anytime a member makes a forum post that mentions Firefox, a link to the download page is automatically created.. I also get a lot of direct traffic to the page, and use other methods to push visitors to the page, but that’s not what this post is about.
My Firefox info page has an Adsense for Content leaderboard across the top that’s always gotten a few (low paying) clicks per day. Beginning in December of 2007 I started noticing something odd - the ePC for those content ads was beginning to rise. More and more often I was seeing an ePC of nearly the full payout of a Firefox Referral, and occasionally even more than the $2 referral payout. It seems that the Arbitragers have been paying more and more to drive traffic to their own Firefox download pages and they are paying dearly for it. As a result, for the last two months or so, the Adsense for Content ads on that page have been earning as much, if not more than the Firefox referrals from that same page.
Realizing that my Firefox conversion percentage has been dropping and that a click on an ad is now virtually guaranteed to pay nearly as much as a full Firefox w/Toolbar conversion, I changed the Firefox referral on the page from a button, to a text link, making it just a bit harder to find. This resulted in an even higher CTR on the Adsense ads and even higher earnings. My next test will be to remove the Adsense Firefox Referral link altogether, leaving only the Adsense ads for Firefox downloads. My guess is that earnings will be even higher.
My point? If you have a Firefox referral ’squeeze’ page with a low conversion rate, try throwing some Adsense blocks on the page and see if they earn as well or better than your referrals.
Adsense TOS For New Publishers - Redux
It seems that not a day goes by that I don’t read a post at DP Forums or WMW from some poor Adsense n00b that has either had his Adsense Ads temporarily disabled or has been banned completely for a violation of the Adsense Terms of Service (TOS) that he or she genuinely was not aware of. To be honest, I did not really read through the Adsense Terms of Service and Policies until I had been using Adsense for 4 or 5 months. I skimmed over it when I first signed up and I can remember thinking to myself, “ehh, I’m not going to do anything stupid“.. Well, not knowing the TOS and polices is the first stupid thing I did.
The Adsense Polices and Terms of Service pages are huge, and will take a good 10-15 minutes to read - and unless you are a lawyer, most of it is extremely boring and difficult to understand. Because of this I have grabbed a few of the TOS and policy points that are most likely to get you into hot-water with the boys over at the GooglePlex if you weren’t aware of them and listed them here.
- DO NOT CLICK YOUR OWN ADS - Yeah, you would think this is common sense, but many Adsense publishers are not aware of this very important rule. Of course more webmasters are very aware of this and try to get away with doing it anyway.
- DO NOT ENCOURAGE CLICKS IN ANY WAY - Most webmasters know that you are not allowed to ask visitors to click on your Adsense for Content ads, but you also cannot place your ads or adlinks in a way that tricks your visitors into clicking them. An example of this would be making your ads appear as menu items. Note that this does not apply to referrals. In the past there was confusion about “endorsing” (or whoring as I call it) your referrals. This confusion was largely due to the wording in the Terms of Service. Google has updated and clarified their stand on endorsing/encouraging clicks on referrals, and it is allowed to endorse referrals. Have a look at Google’s own Referrals Endorsement Help page - Notice too that they use our site, GrownUpGeek.com as a shining example!
- WATCH YOUR CONTENT: To most (but not all) webmasters it’s obvious that Google does not allow Adsense ads on sites with “Adult” content. Notice that I did not say “porn”. There is a difference between porn and simply “adult” so be careful. Google also does not allow Adsense on pages that contain “hate” content, Warez, or anything illegal. But also be aware that content or promotion of gambling, weapons, alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs (or non-prescription for that matter), fake goods (like phoney Rolex watches), and even term papers or essays are not permitted. A good rule of thumb on content is that if you are not proud to show it to your grandmother, Google probably will not like it. Any kind of black-hat SEO on your pages can also get you banned from Adsense in addition to getting your site banned from the search index.
- COPYRIGHTED CONTENT IS NOT PERMITTED: Unless you own the content. This means that copying and pasting from another website can get you into trouble. This is also true for music and videos, meaning that you cannot display Adsense on pages that contain copyrighted music downloads or videos.
- DO NOT CHANGE OR TOUCH YOUR ADSENSE CODE: All your customizations should be done via the Adsense setup page.
- DO NOT PUT YOUR ADSENSE ADS IN YOUR SPAM: Everybody hates spam, especially Google.
- NO CONTENT, NO ADSENSE: Your pages must contain content! Pages with nothing but ads are not permitted.
- ONE ACCOUNT PER PERSON: You are only allowed to have ONE Adsense account unless you are authorized by Google to have more than one.
- YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ADS: It is up to you to ensure that you and your visitors do not violate the Terms of Service. Google is not obligated to notify you of a problem.
- GOOGLE CAN TERMINATE YOUR ACCOUNT WHENEVER THEY WANT: They do not have to give you a reason, but if they do terminate your account they have a reason.
- DO NOT DISCLOSE YOUR STATISTICS: This one is overlooked by many webmasters. You are not allowed to post any information such as click-thru-rates, impressions, eCPM, etc in public. You are permitted to disclose gross earnings, but that’s all.
- YOU ARE NOT A GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Nor are you in any “partnership” with Google. As an Adsense publisher you are simply a independent contractor
- Competing ad-services ARE allowed on the same page: In the past you were not permitted to display other contextually based advertising on the same page as Adsense ads. In May 2007 Google updated this policy. You are now allowed to use competing contextually based advertising on the same page as long as that advertising does not have the same “look and feel” of your Adsense ads and as long as they cannot be confused with Adsense.
This is NOT A COMPLETE LIST of the Adsense rules and policies. These are just a few of the rules that I have seen broken most often by new Adsense publishers. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend that you read the complete Adsense Terms of Service and polices available here:
Adsense Terms and Conditions of Service
Adsense Policies for U.S. publishers
