1. Use the nofollow tag where appropriate
Links that pass PageRank in exchange for goods or services are against Google guidelines on link schemes. Companies sometimes urge bloggers to link back to:
a. the company’s site b. the company’s social media accounts c. an online merchant’s page that sells the product d. a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product e. the company’s mobile app on an app store
Bloggers should use the nofollow tag on all such links because these links didn’t come about organically (i.e., the links wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t offered to provide a free good or service in exchange for a link). Companies, or the marketing firms they’re working with, can do their part by reminding bloggers to use nofollow on these links.
2. Disclose the relationship
Users want to know when they’re viewing sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make disclosure of sponsorship mandatory. A disclosure can appear anywhere in the post; however, the most useful placement is at the top in case users don’t read the entire post.
3. Create compelling, unique content
The most successful blogs offer their visitors a compelling reason to come back. If you're a blogger you might try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources.For more information, please drop by our Google Webmaster Central Help Forum. Posted by the Google Webspam Team
Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 loading methods that can optimize your viewability
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a
dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on
insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.
On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, 3 speedy ways to improve viewability, and 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability. In this post you'll learn 3 content and ad loading methods that can optimize your viewability rates.
Here is today's recommendation:
We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad
viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the
comments section below.
Posted by Anish Kattukaran
Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability
Tuesday, March 08, 2016
Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a
dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on
insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.
On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, and 3 speedy ways to improve viewability.
In this post you'll learn tips for laying out ads on a webpage or
scrollable page in an app in order to improve viewability rates.
Here is today's recommendation:
We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad
viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the
comments section below.
In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 content and ad loading methods that can improve viewability.
Posted by Anish Kattukaran
Why are my earnings down right now?
Friday, March 04, 2016
Four things to explore if your AdSense earnings take a dip
Today we'd like to share some insights about why AdSense earnings sometimes go down -- and look at how to troubleshoot what's going on when that happens. Google has a variety of tools and reports that will help you see what might be causing a decline and how you can respond to optimize your earnings.
- Clickthrough rate (CTR)
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Page revenue per thousand impressions (page RPM)
- Page views
- Promote your site with other major sites that cover the same topics.
- Promote your site through social media, and create a group of interested people who regularly visit your site.
- Use Google Search Console to make sure your site is being correctly crawled and indexed.
- Update your site regularly to encourage repeat visitors. You might also want to send out an email or a newsletter about your updates.
- See if you're using the best-performing ad sizes. Generally, our most successful sizes for CPC and CTR are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner. Learn more about the most successful ad sizes.
- Make sure you're not blocking ads you don't need to. Blocks on too many advertisers, ad networks, general or sensitive categories will often decrease CPC because there are fewer advertisers in the auction bidding on your inventory. The more inventory your site has access to, the greater the chance that auction pressure will drive up your CPC.
- Look at how seasonality can affect your advertisers' bids. For instance, swimsuit advertisers often increase their bids in the early weeks of summer. But if your site caters only to students, you should expect traffic to fall in the summer. Learn more about how the ad auction works for a clearer understanding of how these kinds of changes can impact your earnings.
- Blend, complement, and contrast: use these techniques to design ad styles that will be successful for your site.
- Maximize ad space with multiple ad units: be sure to see if three ad units is right for your site; it's also our policy limit.
- Use the best-performing ad sizes: As noted in the CPC section above, our most successful ad sizes are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner.
