Using MyBlogLog could get you banned from Adsense

I wrote yesterday about the sorry tale of the now Yahoo! owned MyBlogLog banning Jeremy Schoemaker following Jeremy’s exposure of serious security issues with the service, but from from Jeremy today: MyBlogLog Tracks Your Visitors Ad Clicks.

Shortform: MyBlogLog is not only tracking visits from other MyBlogLog members to your site (if you’re using the service) they are also tracking clicks on your ads, INCLUDING Adsense ads.

I can’t speak for other users, but certainly when I signed up for the service I don’t remember anything being clearly mentioned about MyBlogLog spying on the ad clicks on my site.

Certainly, other 3rd party trackers do track this sort of behavior. I use Adlogger on a number of sites to track my clicks and to protect against click fraud, but notably I choose to do so and I run my own copy locally so that only I have control over the data it gathers. Services such as Alexa, Google Toolbar (both of which I use via the searchstatus plugin) and Compete send data on my surfing habits back to their respective companies, but they send MY data back, not the data of visitors to my sites, and I OPT IN TO those services, knowing to well the implications of doing so. MyBlogLog on the other hand is spying on my visitors (which I accept) but also their activity on each site (ad clicks), which I don’t accept. Notably I’ve also read recently (don’t have the link at hand) that prior to Yahoo’s acquisition of the company, MyBlogLog were trying to shop these stats to the highest bidder, so privacy of the data is questionable as well.

Are you using Adsense and MyBlogLog together? Remember the rule about not being able to disclose the CTR rates to third parties? MyBlogLog is gathering this exact data on your site if you’re using the service. Using Adsense with MyBlogLog could get you banned from Adsense!

As of 5 minutes ago I’ve removed MyBlogLog from my own personal blog. My Adsense account is too valuable to risk, and I’m outraged that MyBlogLog was stealing this data from my site. If you haven’t done so yet, I’d encourage everyone using the service to take it down immediately. For all it’s benefits (it’s still a fun idea) the risks far outweigh the benefits.

By Duncan Riley on 02.23.07 | Syndicate 901am

Origins/Optimized of High Paying Keywords

Many webmasters create a high paying niche but most of them don't understand why its a top paying keyword, and the other half aren't optimizing their high paying niche sites.

Reasons for high paying keywords

For webmasters that are in niches that are related to drawings, arcade games, music, etc;than your most probably your wondering why your CPC is so low. It's irritating when you read about those webmasters earning $2-$10 per click awhile your starring at your 2 cent average CPC. Anyone who you ask, gives that broad answer " It's because of the competition in that your niche". Well guess what, that's not the full answer, that answer cannot help you in anyway.

Let me show the example which reveals your problem:

Low CPC Keyword : " Injury"
High CPC Keyword : "Injury Lawyer"

Where does the difference lie? Let's say your typing the keyword "Injury", what are you mostly looking for, most probably pictures, stories, how to cure an injury; practically anything for your entertainment. Now lets head over the other keyword; "Injury Lawyer", why would you search for that keyword. Your most likely trying to find a lawyer to contact, there is no fun in searching "Injury Lawyer" unless you want to make a case. What does that mean, it means that the conversion rate for "Injury Lawyer" is high. That's the whole answer! The higher the rate of conversion on a specific keyword, the higher the CPC would be for that keyword.

Optimizing Your High Paying Keywords

This is exactly where the traffic tip of updated content on your site applies. The more pages of unique information you have which contains your keyword in the text, the more higher count of high CPC ads you would have on your site, since ( Increase in Pages = Increase in Ads). You want to make sure that you use terms at the end of your keywords inside your text so that it will generate a high conversion if your keyword plus that term appear as an ad. You also want to have a wide range of different high CPC ads on your site covering the same niche, only way by doing that is to keep posting on your site or blog, so new advertiser ads can appear on your site.

Social Bookmarking Networks are killing your CPC

Social bookmarking is the new "thing" right now. Over 90% of webmasters use it to generate traffic to their site. Some even receive 80% of their total traffic from Social Bookmarking Networks. But none of them realize that they are harming their CPC ( Cost per Click) if their using Google Adsense on their website.

The Truth

If your one of those people with a low CPR(Click Through Rate)and low CPC, then take another look at your tracker to see from where your traffic is coming from. If your receiving heavy traffic from Social Bookmarking Networks and other Traffic Exchanges, then you've found your problem. Everyone knows that Social Bookmarking Networks provide a low CPR to your site, but what everyone doesn't know is that because of your low CPR, your CPC is getting reduced!

Google wants to give its high paying advertisers good service, they want to put the advertisers ads on publisher sites that have a high CPR so their advertiser can receive quality traffic quickly.If your CPR is under 1%, then I'm sure that your average CPC is 3 cents or less.

This is a classic example of the phrase " The rich get richer and the poor get poorer". Google loves to send MFA ads, Click Bank ads, smart priced ads onto your low CPR sites. Google doesn't care at all for your service, you bring them such a low CPR that they have no use from you, they just bomb you with all the smart priced ads. Google wants to provide the high paying ads to publisher sites that have a high CPR, knowing that this publisher site can move ads very quickly. They want to please these high CPR sites with higher CPC ads, so the webmaster of the publisher site stays happy and loyal to Google Adsense.

How much traffic should you receive from Social Bookmarking Networks

It's always good to know how much traffic your allowed to have from Social Bookmarking Networks before it effects your CPC negatively.The percentage that you should be aiming for is 25%. The only time you should ever have a percentage of 50 is if your other 50% traffic is all Organic. Meaning that the other half has to be all from search engines. Traffic from search engines is always the best, the webmasters with high search engine ranking always have the best CPR and CPC.

How to trick the system

There is always a way around anything, well same thing applies here. Unfortunately you won't be able to apply this on your current website, you can make a new website to apply this. As some of you know, there are high paying keywords out there, most of them have a CPC of $1 as their lowest. Now what you can do is create a website that's in a high paying niche. So, even if you recieve a low CPR which results in the reduction of CPC, you will still be averaging a nice buck or so. You don't have to worry about using your high paying websites with Social Bookmarking Networks if your goals for it is low.

Optimizing your Pagerank!

0.15 + (0.85 x ( a share of the PR of every webpage that it links to it)) = Your webpage PR

The "share of PR of every webpage that links to it" is calculated by taking the current Page Rank of the webpage and dividing it by the total number of links on the page...


So, by removing ALL unnecessary links on a page, you will be able to pass more Page Rank to the other pages that you link to... Why is this important? Remember, the higher the Page Rank a page has, the better it will rank.

So, what are unnecessary links? Unnecessary links could be when you link to another website (link partner) and they don't link back to you. By linking out to a "link partner", you're giving them a percentage of your Page Rank that you could be passing to other pages within YOUR website. If this "link partner" isn't linking back to your website, there is no need to ever link to them. You're just hurting your ranking by doing so!

I have seen websites move up hundreds of positions by simply looking at their links pages and making sure that their link partners are all linking back. If they're not, then you should ALWAYS remove them from your links page. In doing so, you are guaranteed to benefit from this.