Monday: 29.January.2007

Modifying Code to Accommodate Google's AdSense Custom Placement Packs

Been working on modifying code as detailed in previous post, regarding Google's new Custom Placement Packs.

From researching this topic, I learned advertisers were unable to target their ads to individual web pages or directories of pages, being limited to entire sites. (Which seems odd, no?)

Google therefore devised a program called Ad Placement, which is designed to allow advertisers to target specific pages & directories (as they *should* be able to).

Google allocates 159 "custom channels" which publishers (such as myself) can use to offer ads on individual pages (such as the one you're reading now), or entire sub-directories (such as all pages contained in the Ghost guide).

Publishers first have to figure how best to allocate their limited quota of custom channels. (One for each guide seems a reasonable strategy.)

••• today's entry continued here •••

Google wants us-publishers to name and describe each channel you create. Since they limit the number of characters available for use, I created descriptive names such as: RadGhostGuide, and RadEncodingGuide.

The most time-consuming part is describing what each channel represents. Here they offer 255 characters (including spaces). That's about 3 or 4 short sentences.

So the implementation of custom AdSense channels is not particularly complicated, but it *does* require some strategizing, and *is* rather slow-going, especially for a site such as RADIFIED, where there exists many different themes, each of which seems to require its own channel.

To be honest, I'm not that stoked about tweaking ads. I've done it before, several times now. It's tedious work. (Boring as hell.) I'd much rather focus on generating & improving site content .. which offers far more creativity.

Some sites really know how to play the AdSense game, and I guess I should probably spend more time learning the ropes. But I just can't seem to get into it. (Sites focused solely on AdSense earnings seem, uh, slimy.) In fact, I can't wait until this latest round of tweaking is done .. so I can return to focusing on more creative aspects of the site. Gonna put down my head and plow thru it.

I'll let you know if I notice an increase in revenue due to this latest AdSense customizing. I certainly hope I'll see some benefit, but obviously, there's no guarantee my efforts will pay off. If I could realize a 50% increase (like I did last time), I'd be happy.

On another note, have you noticed I converted into blog-pages, many of the posts for January? Hadn't done that since August. It's not particularly difficult, except that the links need to be re-coded. (cuz of the way my blogging software works .. I use MovableType)

And since I tend to employ a generous helping of links ... it can take a while. But it's much easier to reference a previous post when I have a separate blog page (for that day/post). Otherwise I can only reference a monthly archive, which is, uh, inefficient.

The use of blog-pages to accommodate longer (larger) posts also saves space (size) on the home page, which allows for faster loading (better for readers, especially those still with dial-up connections).

End of today's entry. For more along these lines, here's a Google search pre-configured for the query-string: google+adsense+ads+custom+placement+packs





Posted by Rad at January 29, 2007 08:22 AM

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