Necessary Evil
Google’s informal (infernal?) motto is ‘Don’t be evil’. Opinions vary as to how well they’re doing. Though this benevolent dictator has deemed me terminally evil for one purpose (AdSense), I’ve lately found I’m not too evil for another (AdWords). Like Dante, therefore, I’m qualified to give some morality tips.
Google AdSense comprises ads you permit on your blog or website. When a visitor clicks one, you get a tiny commission. LOTS of clicking makes you modest money. I was so entranced by this passive income concept, I exhorted friends and family to click themselves numb on the ads assigned to my Surreal Short Stories blog.
This was unwise. It was also prohibited by the Google rules I didn’t read in my excitement.
Revenge was swift and total. Just as I reached Google’s US$50 revenue payment threshold, my account was cancelled. For life.
My subsequent confession, apology, blog rework and entreaties for Google mercy came to naught. I was officially evil. No more would my three years of blog content generate AdSense loot.
Fair enough too! Each time someone from my mob had clicked an ad to glean me a cent or two, some poor AdWords punter had to pay up to several hundred times that amount for the faux visit.
I was most surprised, therefore, when Google approved my AdWords account (and stopped addressing me as Paul ‘Significant Risk’ Hassing in their emails).
AdWords are phrases you ‘bid’ for to make your ad/URL appear prominently in Google searches. Keen to galvanise sales of my job ad writing ebook, I set bids of up to $1.24 for ‘job ad’, ‘perfect job ad’, ‘can’t find good people’, ‘attract and retain staff’ and many more.
Within an hour, my Google account was reeling from deductions that would take decades of AdSense action to recover. I paused the campaign to learn that my words were too generic and my bids too high.
I’m now working my way very carefully though the help system and running a very very timid campaign. I’ve had clicks, but no sales. I plan to report further findings in a later post. For now, if you plan to sortie in Google Land, ALWAYS read the instructions. And if you’ve already been deemed evil, don’t despair.
With Google, it’s better the devil you know!
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Paul,
AdWords = you pay them, of course they’ll approve you!
There are alternatives to AdSense for click revenue (things like Adgitise, Kontera and so on), but that kind of revenue only works on pages with very commercial content. Cars, gadgets, laptops – things people buy. Put AdSense on any page with the words “make money online” and you’ll get a massive influx of crap adverts about earning $43,000 in your sleep. Which no one clicks.
If you REALLY want to look at SEO and keywords and stuff, there’s a couple of top references. For SEO, pop over to HubPages and search for Peter Hoggan. He did a short tutorial series which is wonderful.
For traffic and other make-money-with-adsense help, Grizzly is your man: http://makemoneywithadsense.today.com/2009/03/18/how-to-get-blog-traffic/
For AdWords, I believe most of those things like the Rich Jerk and Chris Thingumajig who “beat the system” are based on finding close-to-same-as-the-big-names-use words that are cheaper and then doing a bit of SEO manipulation and traffic generation to pump clicks into them. Or something.
And you should be able to get AdSense back, I think, if you beg hard enough.
Mate!…It’s gunna take at least a couple of days for the tears to recede…I’m hoping that not too long after that I’ll be able to inhale :- )
Seems like you’ve encountered a necessary evil, had a moment of becoming unnecessarily evil and suffered the wrath of evil necessarily :- /
Gathering your own minions???? No, no no!
You forgot Rule One!…THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Should we now consider that even ‘Evil’ evolves? Perhaps those who once ‘preyed’ on the innocent are now ‘praying’ on the innocent? :- P
Perhaps their ‘Lawyers from the Dark-Side’ have cottoned onto a couple of ancient universal disclaimers like:
– the Universe doesn’t understand the command ‘Don’t’. e.g. “Don’t think about Monkeys”…see ? :- ); and
- Backward Masking doesn’t count! e.g. Evil is Live spelled backwards. And ‘Google’ is ‘elgooG’ (or ‘The Big Egg’? :- )
Kinda throws a different light on things like:
- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 King James Bible – http://kingjbible.com/john/1.htm); and
- the Casting of ‘Spells’ :- ) (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spell).
Having cast the above ’spells’, I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge that everything else may evolve too…including ‘Learning from Experience’ at the ‘Deep-End’ :- ). You sure have take that to a new & courageous level Paul :- )
Forgive them Farther, for they know not what they do? :- )
Cheers
Some non-corporeal entity that is not from Google, temporarily in possession of Stephen G
Hi Paul,
It is clear that there is a lot of scams on the internet and it is not easy to sort out the wheat from the chaff and a lot of people have to learn by experience. I have been caught several times myself.
I see great potential from AARP.org (previously the American Association of Retired Persons) with 40 million members to be encouraged to go down the path of accreditation for suppliers on the internet, but is early days yet. Change is a matter of evolution rather than revolution for the internet, but you can see it starting to happen now.
Regards
Jack Taggerty
http://5starinnovation.com
http://5starmindtools.com
Thank you, Spike, for your generous and hope-inspiring response. I’ll check out those links and contacts with great interest!
Dear AntiStephen, thank you for your comments. You make even more sense that Stephen does when he’s in control of his body. May I suggest that you apply for permanent residency? I have a couple of friends downstairs…
Thanks for dropping by again, Jack. It’s always a pleasure to get your 40 years of expertise on the case.
Hey Stephen, whatever you are on I want some! How is the pizza business going, has it kicked off yet and where can we get it? Can we get a pizza with pineapple and beetroot?
Hi Malcolm :- )
Yeh sure mate!…I’ve got a bit left ;- )
Re: Pizza Business?: – not quite, but almost…I reckon I’m about 6-8 weeks away from kick-off (mind you, thanks to some heretofore unnamed banks & finance companies, I’ve been saying that for the last 6 months – Hmmm! Global Financial Crisis? I wonder why?…:-P ).
Anyway, the mobile oven should be in my driveway by end of next week. The refrigerated servery arrives at the end of the month. Then I’ve got my Food Business Retail License inspection (the next big hurdle). The risk with that is that if they (Government Health Inspectors), are having a ‘bad hair day’ and don’t like the color of my soap, I’ll have to wait 10 days for the next inspection…very costly. But once I’m licensed the noSh-it! hits the ‘fans’, and finally I’ll be able to put a good ol’ ‘noSh-it! eatin’ grin’ on a few faces :- )
Re: “Where can we get it?”: In ‘byooodaful’ Canberra, where everyone can hear you scream but only the dogs care :- ). You can check my bookings (when I begin accepting them…so far I have turned away nearly a year worth of bookings…did I mention costly delays & banks? :- P), on my Website and then track me down at my scheduled outdoor events. For those lucky enough to have a ‘Lear Jet’ in the shed, they can pop over anytime ;- ).
Re: ‘Pineapple & Beetroot Pizza’?: I’m sure there’s a few lines in that one mate? ;- ) But no! You can’t have a bluddy Pineapple & Beetroot Pizza!…Yuk! It’d be all soggy! How about Kangaroo Prosciutto with baked peaches, lavender and goats cheese? :- )
Actually, that one’s in the pipeline…I intend to start out with a very simple menu and keep the ingredients very high quality (as local & as organic as possible)…I can get all ’smancy’ when I’m a bit more established and if the fine folks I serve are keen for it.
Thanks for asking :- )
Howz thingz with you? :- )
Cheers
Stephen G
When I uninstalled Google Chrome just now, I was asked for my reason/s. Here’s what I wrote in the ‘extra info’ box:
I’m very upset that I can be an AdWords client, but not an AdSense client. I’ve learned my lesson and tried very hard to make amends and plead my case, but nobody at Google will listen. It’s such a shame, as I want to spend a lot more money on Google products and recommend them on my small business blog. Oh well.
I wonder if it’ll cut any ice. :\
Hubpages is great specially when you are just starting out to learn how to earn online. Hubpages is spidered frequently so you know that the pages you create will get found by the search engines soon enough. When writing a hub, concentrate on finding a profitable topic and don’t worry about promotion when you’re just starting. Soon you’ll see a trickle of earnings. The trickles will turn into real income if you just keep at it.
Many thanks, April. A few people have recommended Hubpages to me. It’s high time I checked it out. I’d love to hear how you go with it over time, so please come back soon! Best regards, P.