Having never actually used Google as a way of advertising...I'm curious (before I go through the process of purchasing clicks):
How does the system work? I assume it's an auction like system, where the highest bidder gets top sopt? If this is the case, how do I know whether my price will put me in the stop spot? Am I expected to keep upping the bid until I discover I'm in first place? Do they publically disclose who spent what on what position for what keywords???
It would be really nice to know that compan XYZ spent $0.50/click for the number one spot, so all I would have to do is bid $.51 to jump into first place although I cannot see this being a reality.
Anyone have any experience with Google AdWords?
Google AdSense
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alex.barylski
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- Josh1billion
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Re: Google AdSense
I think you mean AdWords, not AdSense (AdWords and AdSense are the two divisions of Google's advertising service, AdWords = advertising and AdSense = publishing ads)...
I have a lot of experience with AdSense, but not any with AdWords. But I do know a few things from other sources...
Basically, I think the process is that you choose which "keywords" you would like to use. Example: "games" or something. Then related sites are determined by those keywords.. oddly, the price of your ad is apparently determined by which keyword you use, not which site it's on. So I've heard that you can find a great keyword which is making great results and which is just in your price range, then the next day/whenever, it suddenly jumps high in price.
I have a lot of experience with AdSense, but not any with AdWords. But I do know a few things from other sources...
Basically, I think the process is that you choose which "keywords" you would like to use. Example: "games" or something. Then related sites are determined by those keywords.. oddly, the price of your ad is apparently determined by which keyword you use, not which site it's on. So I've heard that you can find a great keyword which is making great results and which is just in your price range, then the next day/whenever, it suddenly jumps high in price.
- Chris Corbyn
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Re: Google AdSense
We used AdWords for a project called IRIS. We didn't keep using it for long because it started out at like 10c per click then they kept increasing the cost (it got right to something like 50c per click) until we just threw it in. We also didn't belive their click-counting was true to what was really happening (I can't verify this however). I wouldn't use AdWords again personally.
I use AdSense on my own web pages but even then I'm not convinced they are paying out on every click.... the results Google claim don't pair up with my observations. I've seen other people make this claim before too where they've actually added their own JS to the page to track the clicks and they simply do not match up (in Google's favour). Of course, this is against Google's rules so you can't really dispute it. I can't really say there is any other ad service I'd use on my sites since I can't stand image ads.
You'd probably do better paying for a sponsored link at the top of SitePoint or something where you 100% know who your target audience are. Other sites do these sorts of affiliate schemes too.
I use AdSense on my own web pages but even then I'm not convinced they are paying out on every click.... the results Google claim don't pair up with my observations. I've seen other people make this claim before too where they've actually added their own JS to the page to track the clicks and they simply do not match up (in Google's favour). Of course, this is against Google's rules so you can't really dispute it. I can't really say there is any other ad service I'd use on my sites since I can't stand image ads.
You'd probably do better paying for a sponsored link at the top of SitePoint or something where you 100% know who your target audience are. Other sites do these sorts of affiliate schemes too.
Re: Google AdSense
I have observed the price increases as well. You can place a bid for 5 cents which may run a few days and suddenly google will stop displaying the ad and force you to increase your bid to 10, 15 or even 25 cents. I have seen this happen with hundreds of keywords and/or phrases.
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alex.barylski
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Re: Google AdSense
Interesting replies...never heard bad things about Google AdSense before...
There are some sites whose claim to fame has been made strictly on AdSense...a well known example in Canada is Plentyoffish.com -- I have read in several papers and magazines the owner pulls in something like 10 million a year -- sole proprietor. I guess it's the odd successes that make media though...the failures don't exactly get boasted.
There are some sites whose claim to fame has been made strictly on AdSense...a well known example in Canada is Plentyoffish.com -- I have read in several papers and magazines the owner pulls in something like 10 million a year -- sole proprietor. I guess it's the odd successes that make media though...the failures don't exactly get boasted.
- Josh1billion
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Re: Google AdSense
I believe this to be true as well. Google says it is part of their fraud-detection software, though.. they're always touting that supposedly sophisticated click fraud prevention program. So it seems their "fraud" detection program is filtering a percentage of real clicks as well.Chris Corbyn wrote:I use AdSense on my own web pages but even then I'm not convinced they are paying out on every click.... the results Google claim don't pair up with my observations. I've seen other people make this claim before too where they've actually added their own JS to the page to track the clicks and they simply do not match up (in Google's favour). Of course, this is against Google's rules so you can't really dispute it. I can't really say there is any other ad service I'd use on my sites since I can't stand image ads.
I'll throw this into the ring:
Personally, I like Project Wonderful more. They go for a "cost per day" scheme instead of "cost per click." So if you're advertising, you find an ad box you want to advertise on, and you bid on the amount you want to pay per day to have your ad displayed there. Of course, you don't have to have your ad displayed for the entire day if you don't want to (you can set when ads begin and expire). I publish ads through Project Wonderful on my site, and I have to say that it has usually been very successful so far. I've also tried advertising a bit (since advertising and publishing accounts are all the same account, conveniently), and they have useful features for advertisers. You can monitor advanced statistics to see exactly how much you've really profited from an ad, because they have a system (optional) that will add a few query strings at the end of your URL when someone clicks on your add. So then you can prase those $_GET variables in your homepage code and see exactly how many users registered from a particular ad bid or campaign, for example.
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alex.barylski
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Re: Google AdSense
Project Wonderful seems kinda low key. If it's one hting I learned about advertising many years ago is that you get what you pay for.
I struggled to find "cheap" ways of advertising, like paper classifieds, bulletin boards, etc. I spent about 2g and made about nothing.
My target audience is small/mediaum businesses. Not the general public (which is why Google ads both appeal to me and turn me off). My other concern with using Google Ads is that I know my competitors deliberately click there competitors ads while browsing Google. Shamelss perhaps but I guess it works.
I need to find a medium/directory in which I can accomplish effective business to business advertising...
I struggled to find "cheap" ways of advertising, like paper classifieds, bulletin boards, etc. I spent about 2g and made about nothing.
My target audience is small/mediaum businesses. Not the general public (which is why Google ads both appeal to me and turn me off). My other concern with using Google Ads is that I know my competitors deliberately click there competitors ads while browsing Google. Shamelss perhaps but I guess it works.
I need to find a medium/directory in which I can accomplish effective business to business advertising...