Google introduces cookie that improves advertiser’s life

Written on 7th August 2008 1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Google Adsense has announced some key enhancements, based on the technologies of the in March acquired Doubleclick. These improvements will offer a “better experience for users” (meaning less annoying and less privacy) and “better value for advertisers” (meaning more statistics and control):

These steps will be introduced in the coming months:

Frequency Capping: Enables advertisers to control the number of times a user sees an ad. Users will have a better experience on Google content network sites because they will no longer see the same ad over and over again.
Frequency Reporting: Provides insight into the number of people who have seen an ad campaign, and how many times, on average, people are seeing these ads.
Improved Ads Quality: Brings performance improvements within the Google content network.
View-Through Conversions: Enables advertisers to gain insights on how many users visited their sites after seeing an ad. This helps advertisers determine the best places to advertise so users will see more relevant ads.

To be able to provide these new statistics, Google needs to follow your footprints through the Google Network. So Google will embed a cookie that monitors how many times you’ve seen an ad and whether you clicked on it. If this doesn’t sound like a good idea to you, there’s the possibility to opt out.

How about the not-so savvy users?

As a savvy user, you’ll be aware of this. But the majority of people browsing around the Google network still think there only is an analog version of cookies (the ones you’ll find in a jar). So how will they be able to know Google is tracking most of their online activity?

adsense, advertising, Doubleclick, google, Google AdSense, privacy, search

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Google Knol: How I reached Page 1 on Google in 24 hours.

Written on 25th July 2008 12 COMMENTS
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom

The Google Knol I created just yesterday entitled ‘How to Read the Russian Alphabet in 75 Minutes‘ is already appearing on Page 1 of a Google Search for “read russian” with 12,300,000 results following.

The curious fact that you can’t find the same content in a search within Google Knol is obviously a beta-release issue, but that’s still a pretty impressive result for content that I created and put online only yesterday. DISCLOSURE: Google say they’ll pay me from any Adsense revenue the page generates!

Well, we’ll see how it develops, but it looks like a fairly effective way to share your knowledge, get good search positions, and also perhaps make some money. Until someone pinches your content…

google, Google AdSense, Google Knol, Knol

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Google AdSense: No More Referral Fees!

Written on 10th January 2008 1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Do you refer a lot of people to Google Adsense and are you NOT based in North America, Latin America, or Japan? Then you will be making a lot less money starting February.

Since about a year ago AdSense referrals earned you $5 within 180 days of sign-up if the person you signed up generated at least $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days you’d receive $250. Lots of blogs, small business and even some high traffic sites have been displaying these badges for years now and have been making a lot of money from them too. But now Google has decided to kill the referrals program because it “has not performed as well as we had hoped”. Well, except in North America, Latin America, and Japan.

You will still be able to generate referrals for other Google products, just not for Adsense. You may want to replace any existing referrals promoting AdSense with referrals because “any conversions which occur after this change is made will not be recorded in your account.”.

Source: Inside AdSense: Upcoming referrals changes

Google AdSense, referrals

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