Payment In Process!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh for joy! The "payment in process" line is showing on my adsense account!

As you can see the date noted is January 25th - today - which happens to be on a Friday! Normally this would mean that if I were using the EFT transfer then the adsense money / payment would not show up in my account until Monday. But there was an occassion when I got the "PIP" line in my account on a Thursday but didn't actually have the money in my account until Saturday which while I was grateful to get that adsense money - it seemed kind of weird to have the access on a Saturday.

Now that I know that the "payment in progress" line is showing in my account I will have to see how long it takes for my adsense earnings to actually appear in my bank account. I was hoping that since the "PIP" line appeared during the early afternoon that it might appear in my account today. But you never know!

Could The Rumors Be True?

There has always been a bit of speculation as to the order of how adsense processes their payments. I have recently seen a post from someone who has received their adsense payment by both options - EFT and regular check in the mail. It is their opinion that adsense does indeed process payments for those that have the check option simply because it takes them longer to receive the payment than if they chose the EFT option.

Of course this is only an opinion and adsense does not tell us how and in what order they process their payments. But by being online I have been seeing bits of information about adsense's payment process and even though it is my opinion too it looks like adsense does process people who have the check option faster than they do those that have the EFT option. I base this on the fact of the posts that I have seen where people have posted that they have gotten the "PIP" line on their adsense payment history and they are located within the same general area as I have which makes me wonder why I haven't seen the "payment in process" line on my own adsense account.

We Have Our First Sighting Of A Payment In Progress For This Month - January 2008!

Well we're at the monthly "waiting for the adsense payment" game! I have been looking around looking for some sign of someone getting a "payment in progress" line on their adsense account and today (EUREKA!) I found it!

Someone has reported that they have gotten the "PIP" line - they are from NY and they are getting their payment by check.

Now I have seen some postings that have said that adsense pays those who have the option of being paid by check earlier but adsense themselves say that this is not true.

Personally I was trying to guess-ti-mate when my "payment in progress" line would appear by looking for a past month that had the same date configuration as January 2008. What I found was that May 2007 had the same date configuration and according to my past adsense payment history I received the "PIP" line on the 23rd - so I thought the same thing would happen this month. It didn't because we're now at the 24th of the month and still no "payment in progress" line for me yet. But at least I know that someone else has received it which means that the rest of us can't be too far behind.

Thanks to the Webmaster's Forum For the January PIP thread!

It's Tax Time! - I Have To Report My Adsense Income This Year!

As an adsense consultant I do have to "practice what I preach"!

What that means is that as an adsense consultant I myself earn an income from having adsense ads on my site. In fact I have earned so much income from adsense last year that now I have to report it on my income taxes! I suppose that I could complain and grumble about this but the fact of the matter is I LOVE getting and spending that adsense money!

Just in case you're wondering you have to earn something like $400 - $600 with adsense before you have to report your income.

This will be the first year of reporting my adsense income so I'm not familiar with how much I'm going to have to pay yet.

What I do know is that I can offset the income by claiming the right and relevent deductions. I am able to deduct things like the cost of printer cartridges and supplies. I even got a webcam last year so I may be able to deduct that as well!

I Made It To $100!

As you can see I made it to earning the $100 minimum that is needed to get an adsense payment next month! (with 14 cents extra!)

You will also see that I didn't have a "cajillion" impressions and I'm slightly under a 10% click-thru rate. However 10% is my click-thru rate goal. Sometimes I have reached it, sometimes I have surpassed it and sometimes I am under 10% as far as my click-thru rate is concerned.

I also hope that this goes to show that you do NOT have to have a site that gets a huge amount of traffic.

I still believe that "content is king!"

So I have the rest of the month to make even more adsense money!

My Site / Blog Is Not Making Any Money!

I am seeing a lot of posts from people who are complaining that their sites are not making money with adsense.

If your site is not making money with adsense and you want it to you are going to have to find out WHY!

Probably one of the best pieces of advice that I can give to you is to make sure that your blog has a theme! It seems blogs of a general nature just won't "cut it"!

Let's say for example that you have a site that is just about you - which would be classified as a general site because you would be talking about things in a general kind of way. That means that the adsense ads that appear on your site will be of a general nature too.

You can turn that around by making your blog more specific. If your site is about you then find something specific about yourself that you can write about. You can always include other information about yourself but find a theme and generally stick to it.

Take something that you love (or hate) and make your site about that.

One of Adsense's success stories is about a man who has a site. He is a handyman and his site offers good tips and content about repairs. His site is one of Adsense's success stories because he is making a lot of money with adsense.

You also have to do some "basic" work with your site if you want it to make adsense money. For example do you have a counter on your site so that you can track your traffic? What about a stats counter so that you can see where your traffic is coming from?

Is your site optimized for the search engines? That means does a link to your site come up in the search engines when people are looking for information that is related to the content on your site? You can go to my The SEO Consultant Blog to find out more about search engine optimization. You can also follow my own progress as I work to keep my (and my clients') sites ranking high on the search engines.

Here is a link to a blog post that I made about how much some people have been earning with adsense.

You should also have your blog or website looked over by someone else just so that you can get an objective point of view. Maybe there is something that you are missing but you just can't see it.

All in all I think that almost any blog or website has the potential to earn with adsense.

So Far I Have Earned Half Of The Minimum $100 Required To Get An Adsense Payment Next Month!

$50 and counting.......

Yes, that's right! I'm at the $50 halfway mark as of today! Of course you know that you have to earn at least a minimum of $100 to get an adsense payment the next month. So I am off to a very good start! In fact I believe that this is the earliest that I have gottne to the halfway mark as far as my adsense earnings go.

I also believe that this is a good testimonial for those who are getting frustrated with how little they are earning with their adsense accounts!

Believe me adsense is like riding a roller coaster (at least for me it is!) My earnings are not the same every month although I have managaed to earn at least the $100 minimum for the past 12 months. My earnings "see-saw" - so like I said its comparable to a roller coaster ride!

But I will say this - getting that payment every month is just pure bliss!

Need / Want To Send Feedback To Adsense?

need to contact adsense?

need to send feedback to adsense?

How can I contact adsense?

To send feedback to adsense you can email them using the email address below:

inside-adsense@google.com

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At last! The "PIP" line is showing on my adsense account! FINALLY!

Now here is an interesting predicament. Since the "payment in progress" line appears today (December 24, 2007) when will the earnings actually be "spendable"? Tommorrow is Christmas Day of course and unless the bank "overnighters" are working tonight I have no hopes of being able to spend my adsense money until at least Wednesday! I also noticed that the "PIP" appeared earlier in the day than it usually does. Someone posted that adsense usually waits until the banks close before the "PIP" process begine - not so this time.

I'll let you know.

Does Adsense Ever Issue A Payment On The Weekends?

source

Here's an interesting question!

Up until now I always thought that adsense didn't issue payments on the weekend but then I found this discussion forum where the question was asked and it turns out that the answer is

Yes!

Apparently if they do issue a payment over the weekend it won't show up until Monday.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the case now!

Google Offices Closed Until December 27th!

I have to credit oncameratalent for providing this information.

First of all I have found out that Adsense's payment process is automated - and seeing that they are such a big company and probably have a lot of publishers this is quite understandable.

I have also found out that their offices would be closed until December 27th.

Now how does this relate to those of us that haven't received a "payment in progress" line on our adsense account? The only thing that we can do is wait.

Can I Get My Adsense Payment via Paypal?

In a word "No". Adsense pays by check and EFT only. In some areas they are just starting to issue payments via Western Union but that option isn't available in the United States.

There are also some other opinions as to why adsense doesn't pay via paypal

"Google owns Google Checkout, a competitor to PayPal, so I wouldn't really see a reason why they would want to offer PayPal payments.

I've emailed them about this already and they said no, they are not and will be not offer paypal payments."

There are also some good arguments about not using paypal to receive your adsense payment:

not a good idea to use paypal, they take a percentage on YOUR hard earned clicks. PLUS ive noticed it takes 3 days to transfer your paypal balance to your bank.

Payment In Progress Line Showing In Some Areas!

Adsense Payment In Progress

For December 2007

(for November 2007 earnings)

(PIP for short)

Has this appeared in your adsense account yet?

The December 2007 "payment in progress" (for November 2007 adsense earnings) line is showing in some of the adsense accounts. One of the places that the "PIP" line is showing is in India. Also the same line is showing in Portugal, the Philippines and Egypt! There are even some people in Canada that have posted that they got their "payment in progress" line! But so far its not showing in my own adsense account (I'm located in the US). As someone else has pointed out

This sucks!

Why Does The United States

have to wait so long

for their adsense payment!

It is also not showing in the UK.

Like I posted before there was a discussion of the adsense payments being early this month because it seemed like each December the payments came early (or as some people have said - late)

But let us keep our fingers crossed that we can get our adsense payment BEFORE Christmas!

---

Update - December 21, 2007 - As of 7pm EST, there is still no "PIP" line. Again I'm on the East Coast of the US and there is still no "payment in progress" line that appears in my adsense account.

Meanwhile there are about a dozen other countries that have received their PIP - and actually they have received it as early as the 19th which could mean that some of them actually already have access to their Adsense earning to a point where they can spend it during the Christmas holideay.

Unfortunately I can't say the same thing for myself (and the rest of the adsense publishers in the US)

How Long Before You Got Your 1st Adsense Payment?

I was reading somewhere on the boards about how it took one person a whole year before they got their first adsense payment.

Personally it took me three months to get my first adsense payment - or is it two months? I'll let you decide.

I first started using adsense in October 2006. I believe I made around $16 that first month - so I was really, really bummed that I wouldn't be getting a payment the next month. Well somehow I got over that but it just made me more obsessive the next month! For the month of November 2006 I earned around $99! - Yippee! I would be getting an adsense payment the next month! (Actually now that I'm looking at these numbers I'm thinking about what a good accomplishment it was to go from $16 during the first month to around $99 the next month. That means that I more than

tripled

my adsense earnings during my first two months!

Now it's your turn to answer this question. I have added a new poll to the side of this blog title - "How Long Before You Got Your First Adsense Payment?"

Will We Get The Adsense Payment BEFORE Christmas?

Hot topic of debate going on about whether or not adsense will be sending the payments before Christmas.

Personally speaking in December of 2006, I received my "payment in progress" (PIP) line on December 20th. Now I have come to find out that in previous years adsense paid as early as the 16th of the month! But those who have been with adsense longer have posted that the "Christmas" adsense payments have been getting later and later with each coming year. The only problem that I have with that is that as I posted above I received my PIP line on December 20th, 2006 but I have seen other people posting that they got their December payments AFTER December 25th.

Of course there are a whole lot of different speculations as to whether or not the December 2007 adsense payment will be received before the 25th.

Some people have said that Adsense will want to get the payment out early because that will get the "paperwork" out of the way and they can go home and enjoy the rest of the holiday season. Others have said that they will wait til the last possible moment to send out the payments.

As a reminder it seems that the usual "payment in progress" line appears on the last Tuesday of the month - Guess what? - The last Tuesday of THIS month is Christmas Day!

Only time will tell. We still have a few "spending" days before Christmas.

I will keep an eye open for the next "Payment in Progress" discussion to see if anyone has gotten the "PIP" line yet.

Adsense Reports Not Sorting Properly

I have to give credit where credit is due!

Adsense Reports Discussion

It seems that the adsense reports are not sorting properly. Usually when you view your adsense numbers your numbers are sorted by earnings. But lately there really seems to be no kind or order to the numbers displayed.

Until the problem gets fixed, here is a temporary "fix" for the situation:

To view results sorted "properly" I must select:

view all AdSense for Content channels

then click "earnings" so it will sort that way...

Optimizing Your Blog To Get More Traffic

I'm currently working on increasing the traffic to a client's blog.

The first thing that has to be done is to monitor the amount of traffic that the blog has already gotten.

Actually Adsense is good for this because I can track the number of page impressions and use it as a standard tool for keeping track of the client's blog traffic.

Right now my current goal (for the client) is to double the amount of traffic that their blog gets per month.

I have had a chance to look at their adsense totals for the month so far and as of today they have already passed the total number of traffic / visitors that they got last month.

So I'm going to monitor for the rest of the month to see if their traffic number doubles that of last month.

Keeping Track Of My Adsense Earnings....

It is very important for me to keep track of my adsense earnings. Not just for my own personal information but as an Adsense Consultant I have to show that I am able to "practice what I preach" and one of the things that I do often "preach" is that one has the potential to optimize their blog for more adsense earnings.

As of today, December 11, 2007, I am well past the half-way mark towards earning the minimum $100 one needs to earn in order to get an adsense payment for the next month. I say this because so many people are complaining about how they are not making any adsense money at all. Now I don't have a lot of websites and I don't get a million visitors a day but so far I have managed to earn at least the minimum $100 needed to get an adsense payment for the next month.

For the month of November 2007 I did meet the minimum of $100 and I'm waiting for my adsense payment - which usually comes around the 25th of the month but THIS month the 25th is Christmas Day (and it also happens to be on a Tuesday which is the average day that the adsense payment in progress line appears). So its going to be real interesting to see when that "PIP" line shows up for the month of December 2007.

As a side note I have mentioned before that the earliest that I have received an adsense payment was on the 21st of December. I remember this very well because that gave me the opportunity to do some more Christmas shopping!

---

Update! 12/13/07 - I checked my adsense numbers today!

I met my goal!

I passed the $100 adsense earnings mark today!

So I'm assured to get a payment next month!

And the month isn't even over with yet!

It Is Possible To Get $1 Per Click (and sometimes even more!)

I checked my adsense numbers today and was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of my sites generated more than $1 per click (Actually it generated over $2 per click!).

This has happened to me more than once and I'm sure that other adsense publishers have experienced the same thing.

The one thing that is hard is figuring out what word or term that adsense crawled for to get such a high-paying advertiser? Say for instance you saw that you were getting $1 or more per click and you would like to go to that site to see what content you had that generated such a high-paying click. It would be near-impossible to do because everytime you access your site the ads will change so you won't really know what high-paying ad that was so you wouldn't be able to tell what content generated that high-paying ad.

This is much different that targeting your site with high-paying keywords. When you do that you expect to see higher click rates anyway.

I'm working with a list of high-paying keywords just to see what kind of high-paying clicks they will generate.

Payment In Progress - November 2007!

Well it took a while (a long while!) but the infamous payment in progress (PIP for short) showed up! This happened on November 26th for this month. Since I'm located in the US on the east coast this should give you a good indicator to see if your PIP line showed up yet.

For some strange reason it seems that some people located outside the US get their PIP lines before those in the US do.

Well next month looks interesting in that the last full week in December is the week of the Christmas holiday. So if Christmas is going to be on a Tuesday its going to be real interesting to see when the PIP line will show.

Did You Get Your Adsense Payment For October 2007 Yet?

Everytime that I wonder about my adsense payment I go to the following discussion board:

Adsense Discussion Forum

Whenever someone receives their PIP (payment in progress) line on their adsense account they will post to this board so that others (like me) can compare the status of our own accounts.

So far it looks like the PIP line has shown for adsense publishers outside the US. Nobody in the US has gotten their adsense payment notification yet.

So the waiting continues..................................

Think I Can Make $10 More Dollars Before The Week Is Over?

I'm currently $10 away from earning the $100 minimum that's needed to get an adsense payment next month. Think I will be able to get there by the end of the week?

Stay tuned and see.............................

---

Thursday, November 15, 2007*

I Did It!

It took me 2 days but I managed to earn at least the $100 minimum needed to get an adsense payment next month (and I still have the rest of the month to go!

The Poll Results - so far....................

So far over 14 people have voted in the poll that appears on the side of this blog. (Just scroll down if you can't see the poll). The poll asks how much money have you made per month using adsense and the majority of votes seem to be that people have made $49 or less with their blog monthly. Now $49 isn't all that bad and you could get an adsense payment at least every 3 months if you made at least $49 dollars a month with the adsense program.

But I'm sure that people are interested in making much more than $49 a month with adsense!

The way to make more money with adsense is to optimize your blog (or website) for the adsense program. You can do that while still remaining "true" to your blog. You will just have to work a little bit harder on your blog. Things like working on the content of your blog so that your blog's content attracts higher paying advertisers and increasing the traffic to your blog so that you get more visitors to your blog and that means more potential clicks on the ads.

One of the very first things that you should do is find out where your traffic is coming from. When you find out where your traffic is coming from then you can work on increasing your traffic flow. I note several instances of how traffic comes to my blogs and sites on my SEO Consultant Blog.

I think the question that the majority of people ask is whether or not their blog can become an adsense moneymaker and of course the answer is yes. But you do have to work on your blog. I know a lot of people say to treat it as a business but you can do that but still remain true to your blog. It's sort of comparable to having your own magazine that has ads in it. The ads are there but so is the general content and objective of the magazine itself. You can do that same thing with your blog.

You have to take a good look at your blog to see how you can optimize it for earning more adsense money. The best way to do that is to make sure that your blog or website has a theme. It targets the advertisers more and it gives your blog a reputation (hopefully a good one) as a good blog to go to when one is looking for information that is related to the content that is on your blog.

You may think that its impossible or hard to make adsense money with your blog or website but really its not - You just have to work at it and keep working at it.

Why Does Adsense Ask Me For My Social Security Number?

Why Does Adsense Ask Me For My Social Security Number?

What Is A Taxpayer ID? / I Don't Have A Taxpayer ID

I Feel Uncomfortable Giving Adsense My Social Security Number

Adsense requires your social security number simply because when you start earning over a certain amount of money (I believe now its $400 - $600) you have to start paying taxes on it. Adsense is obligated to provide information on how much money they pay you (if its over a certain amount).

The Taxpayer ID is the number that businesses use as their tax identification number when they are filing their tax-related paperwork. If you operate as a business then you have to have a taxpayer ID number. However if you are working as an individual then your social security number acts as your taxpayer ID number.

Many people have said that they feel uncomfortable giving out their social security number but the bottom line is that you have to provide that information if you want to collect your adsense earnings.

If it makes you feel any better, rest assure that adsense publshers have to provide that information too. Adsense is not singling you out. It is required information.

Can I Add Other Ads To My Adsense Site?

or

"Can I Place Non-Google / Non Google Ads On My Website or Blog?"

In a word, yes you can have other types of ads on your adsense site BUT according to Adsense's terms of service agreement you have to make sure that your other ads do not look like your adsense ads.

Basically you can solve this problem by having your other ads in a different color scheme from your adsense ads color scheme - meaning make sure that they both don't have the same color scheme.

Other "ad" programs like Amazon and Ebay's Auction Ads can be placed on the same site or blog that you have your adsense ads on. Just make sure that they don't have the same color scheme as your adsense ads!

The Sad Truth Is...........................

The sad truth is if you are not making ANY adsense money on your blog then you are probably not doing it right!

Is it possible to have a blog and blog about something you love and STILL be able to make "adsense" money? Again the answer is

YES!

However one of the main things that people have to realize is that you can't just "slap" together a website or blog, add adsense to it and expect to make a lot of money! You have to continually work on your blog. Add new (and more) content. Increase the traffic to your blog. If visitors are not coming to your blog then you go to your potential visitors and get them to come to your blog! Monitor and analyze your visitor count! Add a tracking stats code to your blog so that you can see where your visitors are coming from - that way you will know what led them to your site and you can work on getting more of the same traffic.

If you have a blog and are not getting the results that you want (or even any results at all) then ask someone to view your blog objectively. They may see something that you may have missed.

Many people are making money with the simplest of blogs. Why them and not you? Find out why!