Google AdSense

[HorseOptions]

Can someone put into english for me what is Google AdSense? Let me see if I understand it....

Is the program free?

Does google put relavent ads on my website?

Where and how often?

And I get paid if they are clicked on?

Will it be visually appealing?

Is it worth the hassle?

Will it help my site be searchable in google through various keywords?

Can I put general ads for my website on other websites without being penalized?

Thank you for your time.

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Can someone put into english for me what is Google AdSense? Let me see if I understand it....

I can try.

People pay google to advertise for them, googles outlet for this advertising is people who sign up for adsense. Ads are displayed on your site based on the content of your site. In other words a horse site will generally get adsense ads that are horse related.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Is the program free?

Yes.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Does google put relavent ads on my website?

yes, relevence is based onthe content of your pages and it takes a little while for google to asses your content and start placing relevent ads on your site.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Where and how often?

Where the ads are placed on your site is up to you, you place code provided by google on your site and you chose the shape/size/color(if its text) of the ads that appear. Ads will changte on every page load to some degree, depends on the ad itself.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

And I get paid if they are clicked on?

yes.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Will it be visually appealing?

Depends on what your opinion of visually appealing is.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Is it worth the hassle?

Once again depends on your idea of what hassle is and how much traffic you get. adsense can be very lucrative if your site has a lit of traffic.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Will it help my site be searchable in google through various keywords?

I dont beleive the ad content is factored into your site and its position in search rankings at all.

Originally Posted by HorseOptions

Can I put general ads for my website on other websites without being penalized?

Thank you for your time.

You can advertise your site how ever you want.

[HorseOptions]

Good Info - thanks. Do you happen to have a good example of a website that has Google adsense that doesn't look too gawdy? We still want our website to be nice and clean and not cluttered with advertising on the homepage.

Does anyone have any personal experience with Google Adsense?

Thank you for your time.

[Lhotch +]

Smarty has adsense ads.

You can log into google and see all the different display options yourself to se what ads look like. Google adsense ads are all over the internet and are easy to spot because the ad block says "ads by google".

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

One thing that I would warn you about using adsense on a classifieds website is that usually most of your google ads on the home page will be for other classifieds websites.

If that doesn't bother you and you don't think it will bother your sellers then go for it. You can specify certain ads for specific sites to NOT run on your site, but because it is site specific, that gets very tedious to manage IMHO.

-Mike

[HorseOptions]

That's what I am afraid of. I dn't think we'll use it.

Thanks

[petey]

If someone clicks your adsense ad you get paid but you also lose that visitor.

So you need to balance the visitor value vs adsense revenue.

I wouldn't assume it's not worth it - you gotta go test it.

If your site is new or has little traffic, then I wouldn't bother plastering adsense on it for now until you have a better idea what a visitor is worth to you.

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by petey

If someone clicks your adsense ad you get paid but you also lose that visitor.

Thats why we have 3 button mice, so you can click the center button and open link in new tab. Just cause someone clicks a link doesnt mean they are lost to you.

[petey]

Good point. But some people are "happy clickers"

If there is a way to have the adsense ads forced to open up in a new window no matter what button they click, let me know.

[Eric Barnes]

Just found this post about opening Adsense links in a new window.
How can I have Google AdSense ads open in a new window? :: Free Tech Support from Ask Dave Taylor!