Recently in contextual advertising Category

Google is introducing yet more changes in its contextual advertising service, Adsense.

As a result of the latest changes which involve the introduction of "interest based" advertising, Adsense publishers need to update their privacy policy.

Fortunately Jensense have made available a sample privacy policy that publishers can use.

If you are an Adsense publisher you will need to have the new privacy policy in place by April 8th

Search engine giant Google has announced that it will allow gambling ads on its Adwords network to target users in England, Scotland and Wales.

Google banned gambling ads back in 2004, but is expected to add at least £100 million a year to its bottom line with this move.

As the ads will be targetting users based on those countries you can expect webmasters with sites attracting UK traffic to be rubbing their hands with glee, as the payouts on gambling related ads are traditionally quite high. Unfortunately Google has never fully divulged the percentages that it gives publishers.

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The OpenX team have released a number of Flash tutorials which include one on using OpenX to serve Google Adsense.

The tutorial is easy to follow and does not assume any prior knowledge of using OpenX, so it's perfect for beginners.

Amazon are always introducing new and interesting ways to hook into their content, however obviously not all methods work as well as others.

As of October 14 2008 the "context links" system will be retired.

The context links system seemed like a good idea, but it probably didn't work as well in reality as it did in theory.

In case you're wondering what they were:

Context Links - You create the content. We'll link it. Context Links are a quick and convenient way to add links to your page and help you monetize your content. Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products

There's still plenty of other link methods available, so it's no great loss!

Damien has put together a simple list of ways to make money from your blog, both directly and indirectly.

While he covers the more obvious ways, such as affiliate networks, adsense and selling ads directly (I'd chuck sponsorship in there as well), he also goes on to cover some of the book deals people have made, as well as the Irish blogs that have actually been sold to larger networks / media ventures.

Text ads are no longer the exclusive realm of Google and their adsense program.

Over the last few years several companies have launched alternative solutions to adsense.

One of the latest to go into beta is NetKlix

The system won't be launching until the second week of July, but you can sign up now as a publisher and get a 20 euro bonus. Payout level is set at 60 euro.

According to a post on the official Feedburner blog, Adsense for RSS will be launching soon.

Of course "soon" in Googlespeak is an incredibly vague term.

Whether we will see adverts in RSS outside the "A list" sites (as I presume this will be available to ALL RSS publishers) anytime soon is debatable.

However it is "in the pipeline" at least.

You can read more about it on the official Feedburner blog (via)

You'd have to wonder what goes on inside large companies like Google.

Wouldn't it make more sense to email their publishers BEFORE announcing a change on their blog, or at least at more or less the same time?

You'd have thought so ....

In any case Google sent out an email to its publishers this evening covering their withdrawal of Adsense referrals. It uses similar language to the blog post I mentioned already:

Hello,

We are writing to share some important information with you about
referrals to the AdSense product. As part of ongoing efforts to
optimize revenue opportunities for our publishers, we're
constantly experimenting with new revenue-enhancing features as
well as tweaking those products already available to our
publishers. This is the case for referral units directing visitors
to sign up for AdSense. After experimenting with this program
over the past year, we've concluded that there are other products
that are of higher value than this program to publishers in your
region. As a result, referral units for the AdSense program will
be retired in the coming weeks. Referrals to other products and
services remain unaffected.

If you're currently displaying referral units on your site
directing users to sign up for AdSense, read on below for details
about what to expect in the coming weeks. 

In early January, the option to add referral units directing users
to the AdSense product will no longer appear in your account. You
will continue to accrue earnings for all existing referrals yet to
generate $100 until late January, at which point the program will
be fully retired. Existing referral units will continue to appear
on your pages.

By the end of January, you should remove all referral units
directing users to AdSense from your pages. Referral units
that you do not remove will continue to be displayed on your pages
as normal, but conversions will no longer be recorded. We
suggest you replace the AdSense referrals with referrals to
another product or service or an additional ad unit.

Thank you for referring users to AdSense in the past. We
apologize for any inconvenience this news may cause.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

To add insult to injury the email is sent from a "noreply" address and has the charming footer "

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important new AdSense features."

Google haven't been in the "game" as long as companies such as Amazon, but they've grown incredibly fast. The Amazon Associates program has expanded and changed significantly over the past few years BUT you never see them telling you to remove ads. They don't remove promotions / products that earn them money (and obviously their publishers money)

Of course this isn't the first time that Google have made changes and it won't be the last. Being a "market leader" may protect them from user backlash for a while, but you'd wonder about the longterm effects.