OK, I'm Just A Little Bit Pissed At Adsense!

So I'm looking at my Blog Consultant Blog today and it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't see any ads on the blog - WTF!

I go look inside my adsense account and notice that there are two of my sites that have that "robots.txt" message on them! Now this has happened to me before - some time ago and I don't remember what I did or in fact if I did anything at all but I do remember that things went back to normal and my adsense ads were in place again. I also checked my email but I didn't see any email from adsense. I also checked my "spam" folder to see just in case any email from adsense was there - it was not.

So I go to do some searching online to find out what could possibly be the matter! Well there was a lot of information to go through! Come to find out that it seems that adsense has a new policy about not having the adsense ads look like the contents of one's site(s) and/or blog(s). So now I'm in a panic because I have quite a few sites and I'm wondering whether or not I will have to go through them all and change the look of them so that the adsense ads don't look the same as the contents.

I sent an email to adsense about a half an hour ago asking why there were no ads on my sites. But since this is a Sunday I don't expect to hear from them for a few days. But I got an almost immediate response from them saying that they got my email but because of the holiday? it might take longer for them to get back to me. What holiday?

In the meantime I checked one of my client's sites and their blog didn't have ads on them either! Again I repeat - WTF? So I go into a panic and change the layout and look of their sites.

In the meantime I'm looking at their blog and guess what happens? The adsense ads show up! WTF! So now I'm in a new panic because I already changed the look of their site! Now I'm going to have to go back and see how their site looks.

In the meantime I'm wondering whether or not I still have to change the look of the sites. Now that the ads are showing up again - does that mean that everything is alright?

As a side note I should also mention that I noticed on my adsense account that I stopped earning revenue for about a day and a half! And that is one of the reasons why I am just a little bit pissed at adsense right now!

OK - Time To Get Drunk!

Well my "Payment in progress" line finally showed today! It happened sometime between 5 and 7pm EST!

It's a good thing too because I have been looking at some of the message boards today and people are starting to get quite upset with Adsense and their late payments!

A List of High-Paying Keywords

Someone actually wanted a list of the high-paying keywords from me but they weren't willing to pay the price that I am selling it for. So my answer to them was no!

There are just too many free ways to find a list of high-paying keywords online that you shouldn't have to ask for mine if you are not willing to pay for it.

I'm not going to price this list too low and I don't want to price this list too high. But if you're not willing to pay the price that is listed then you will have to find these kinds of lists on your own.

There Has Been A "Payment In Progress" Sighting!

Someone from Greece has posted that they have received the "PIP" line on their adsense account. Another person has also posted that they received their "payment in progress" line also. They are posting from the Middle East!

While I am happy for them I can't help but remember back in December of 2007 when people were posting that they received their "PIP" lines on their accounts but all of them were located outside the United States!

I also keep an eye out for that first posting of a "payment in progress" line (since I never seem to be the first person to post that I got it) because when someone from the United States posts that they have gotten their "PIP" line then that means that my "payment in progress" line isn't too far behind.

The fact that someone outside the US has posted that they received their "payment in progress" line first has me a little worried about seeing my own "PIP" line!

I will keep you posted!

I'm Still Waiting On That Adsense Payment!

Well it looks like Adsense is being true to their form when they state that they can't give an exact date of the adsense payment(s).

Like I mentioned in a previous post, the month of December 2007 has the same date format as this month - March 2008. As I noted before there was a "payment in progress" line on my adsense account on Dec. 24th - of which it is now the 24th of March 2008 and there is still no "PIP" line appearing on my adsense account yet.

The general consensus is that the "payment in progress" line usually appears on the last Tuesday of the month - which is tomorrow....................

Wanna Lay Bets On When The Payment In Progress Line Will Show This Month?

For those of you that are curious..........

December 2007 has the same date layout as March 2008. In December 2007 the "PIP" line showed up in my account on December 24th (Christmas Eve by the way which meant that there was an additional day of waiting until the next business day)

So it will be interesting to see if the "payment in progress" line shows p on March 24th 2008 which is next Monday.

Personally I hope its sooner. Today is Friday and if a "PIP" line shows today then that means that one (meaning me) would have to wail ALL the way to Monday!

MFA

What does "MFA" mean?

It means "made for adsense".

In other words there are sites out there that have adsense ads on them but hardly any content.

I have seen sites like this that have adsense ads on them but then they have just a line or two of content. Some MFA sites that I have seen have lines of links to other site but they still don't have much content.

Apparently Adsense is working hard to cancel the accounts (or sites) that have these kinds of layouts. Although a lot of people are still posting that they still see a lot of these sites around.

I'm Getting Very Dis-Illusioned With Auction Ads!

I decided to check my auction ads stats - since I haven't done so in a very long time.

The results are not too good to say the least!

I'm looking at my page impressions and for one particular blog I got something like over 4,000 page impressions and maybe a few clicks but comparing with all of the sites that I have auction ads on it just seems like I should be getting more revenue from them.

I'm wondering whether that "run-in" that I had with them some months back has anything to do with it because I am quite close to taking them off altogether!

*BTW - Auction Ads is now known as Shopping Ads

"I'm Getting A Lot Of Page Impressions But Nobody Is Clicking On My Ads! - Why?"

Unfortunately if you are not getting "clicks" on your adsense ads - that just means that you have to work harder on the content that is appearing on your site.

Getting visitors to click on your ads ain't easy!

Although I find it hard to believe that you are getting so many page impressions but no clicks. It could have a lot to do with the ads not matching the content on your site but that really isn't adsense's fault - as much as I hate to say it the fault lies on your end.

You can't just expect to have a website or blog with adsense ads on it and automatically expect that people will click on the ads!

There have been quite a few postings about specific ways that people can optimize their potential for making more adsense money but to make it brief:

Think of your site as an instruction manual - whatever it is that your site is talking about (Its subject matter or topic) if people are more interested in it the more the potential for them to click on the ads that are relevent to your site - thus the more potential for you to make more adsense monies.

You can read my blog posts about how I'm tracking how long it takes me to get to the $100 minimum (that's the minimum amount that you need to earn during the month to get an adsense payment the next month) each month

BTW - For this month of March 2008 I did recently get to that $100 minimum! And I still have the rest of the month to go yet!

I Made It Past The $100 Minimum Needed To Get An Adsense Payment Next Month!

Actually I reached the $100 mark a few days ago but like I posted before I have been busy filling out and completing my income taxes. I'm almost finished with them - I just have to get one more form and fill it out and I will be finished with my income taxes for the year

By the way - I am getting a refund!

I Have An Article Published On Selfgrowth.com

I submitted my first article to Selfgrowth.com and it was accepted!

The name of my article is:

My Very First Adsense Check!

It feels very exciting to have my first online article published!

Please feel free to check out my article and let me know what you think about it!

I Made It! My Blog Is Ranked #1!

Well I finally made it! My blog is ranked first for the search term

"adsense consultant"!

I would have never known this if it weren't for me checking my "stats" and seeing that someone was searching for the term "adsense consultant" and I decided to check it out myself!

This is quite an achievement for me - especially since I also work as a SEO Consultant as well!

It has taken me a few months to get to the top ranking! There were a couple of sites that were ranking above me and I was trying to figure out and work on a way to get my blog ranked higher than theirs and I finally managed to accomplish that!

It just goes to show you that I was right about the "content being king"!

I'm Currently Working On My Income Taxes..........

This will be the first year that I am declaring my adsense income on my income tax return!

Just in case your interested, you are required to report your adsense income when it is over a certain amount - I think its $400.

I have a local tax on earned income in my local community and it looks as though I won't have to pay any tax on this adsense income.

As far as my state taxes go, since my adsense income is thought of as self-employed income that is what I will be filing it as. And since it's considered self-employment income I will have to fill out my state's Schedule C form - which I don't have and have to get! Schedule C is the form to report income (and losses) from operating a business.

My federal tax return looks to be completed. About the only deduction that I will be taking this time is the expenses for my PO Box. I filled out the federal Schedule C form to claim my business income and deductions. I also had to fill out a Self-employed taxes form since its not automatically taken out of my adsense income. So it looks like I'll be getting some money back because I qualify for the earned income credit. Without this credit (or if I didn't qualify for it) I would be owing the government a payment instead of getting a refund from them!

I'm making copies of everything just to keep for my records.

So right now I'm waiting to get the proper state schedule C form - and then I should be able to have completed everything else as far as my tax returns are concerned for the year 2007!

It was getting kind of nerve-wracking and frustrating at first because of all the different forms. But I'd rather be self-employed than working for someone else.

Plus it serves as a good reminder of keeping records and receipts for the things that I will be able to claim as a business expense.

To be quite honest with you I didn't think that I would be making enough in adsense income to have to report it but I realized that I was going to have to report it when I started making more than the $100 minimum a month. But any additional income is a benefit - especially when you will be getting BACK money from the government!