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Approved for Google Adsense

Sep 08, 2003 9:55 PM
Tags:

update Apparently, they check for compliance with these rules.

It took me a full week, but I've been approved. You can see the ads on my front page, in the top-right corner. Hopefully, this will pay for my hosting costs, making this site self-financing.

I'm supposed to get a few cents every time someone clicks on of those text-only ads, which are supposed to be matched up to my site's content. So far it's all ads for blogging software and hosts, plus one to subscribe to the Jerusalem Post.

It took Google a full week to approve me; I guess they have an employee personally browse the site. I'm not sure what, of the many possibilities, is the reason behind that.


Comments: Approved for Google Adsense

I'll be interested to see how it works for you putting those ads on the main page. I chose to put mine in the individual article template because I reasoned that most of the traffic I get to my site is via Google and they tend to get pointed to one page and then never go back to my home page. When you don't have ads on your individual articles I fear you won't generate any clicks from Google referrers, and odds are pretty good those are the ones who will generate the most clicks for you, not your regular readers.

Good luck with the program!

Posted by: john on September 9, 2003 8:36 AM | permalink

That's an interesting idea; my referrers are also, primarily, Google and Yahoo search results.

I'll think of how I'd incorporate it into the individual entries' layout.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on September 9, 2003 10:49 AM | permalink

My guess is that Google (which I believed is a subsidiary of Yahoo) does not want to be associated with certain sites (because of content, or the spamming nature, or those with a million pop-ups, etc). They were just checking that it was kosher.

Posted by: Dan on September 9, 2003 12:08 PM | permalink

"Google (which I believed is a subsidiary of Yahoo)"

You're mistaken. At one point, Yahoo paid to use Google's technology for their search results. They've done the same with Inktomi.

"does not want to be associated with certain sites"

That may be one reason, but there are a long list of things that might be undesirable (pirated software, porn, etc.). Another could be wanting to prevent scams (e.g. sites that are fake and just use some program to rack up "clicks").

So it's still speculative why they take a week for something that, given the information they've made public, could take a minute.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on September 9, 2003 12:23 PM | permalink

I am glad to know that Google and Yahoo are now different. I really haven't found different results from each (and I know longer use any other search engines), but it is still nice to know.

Posted by: Dan on September 10, 2003 11:15 PM | permalink

No more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.