Every day I come across and courses which promise to teach people how to make thousands of dollars a day with AdSense by following a few easy steps – so I thought it was time for one that shows you how to guarantee to keep your blog from making money with AdSense. Here’s my top 10 tips for a guaranteed earning of 0.14 cents or less per month from your blog:
1. Position Ads Out of Sight – Ensure that you put any ad units that you put on your blog below the fold where they’ll be sure not to annoy your readers. If you do choose to put your ads above the fold (why you would I’ll never know) make sure they are placed in the white zones in the diagram to the right. Obviously the bottom of the page is best but the top right corner and right hand skyscraper positions can also work against you very well. Do your best to keep the ads away from the areas that people’s eyes will be drawn to (ie away from content, pictures etc). This helps keep the money from rolling in quite well.
2. Only post to your blog once every few weeks – Lull your readers into a hypnotic trance decrease the chances of them ever visiting your blog.
3. Unclear Post Topics – If and when you do choose to post make sure that your posts have as little focus as possible in terms of topic. Write about multiple topics in every post in an attempt to confuse the AdSense bots. Never blog about anything with a commercial aspect to it and attempt to keep your posts as uninteresting, unoriginal and as useless to readers as you possibly can.
4. Poor Post Titles – Never use the keywords that relate to your post in your post’s title. In order to get lower paying (and irrelevant) ads use the word ‘blog’ as much as possible both in your titles and posts. Also try to find topics to write about that AdSense has no ads in their inventory for. Do this by simply adding keywords into Google.com until no ads come up next to the search results.
5. Never set your ads to show Alternative Ads – If you do your readers will see ads that might make you money when Google can’t find any of their own to show (something that ideally you will have if you get #4 above right). A much better strategy is to just allow the PSA (public service ads) to appear which will guarantee you earn nothing at all.
6. Click your own AdSense ads – This might make your AdSense total go up for a little while but the chances are that you’ll never see the money because you’ll be banned from the system. You might even go into negative earnings if Google decides to get their lawyers onto you!
7. Break Other Rules – If clicking on your own ads doesn’t get you banned fast enough try breaking some of the other AdSense terms and conditions like blatantly encouraging your readers to click your ads, using obscene language, writing constantly about violent and adult topics, labeling your ads with things like ‘free prizes if you click here’ or by putting flashing arrows pointing at the ads etc. Another good one is to add YPN ads to the same pages that AdSense ads are on. This has the double bonus of possibly getting you banned from both programs in one hit! If AdSense do contact you to make a change to some rule you’ve broken it’s best to ignore these emails, or if you decide to write back be as argumentative and uncooperative as possible.
8. Make your ads stand out – Set your AdSense ad design to completely clash with the rest of your blog’s design. Blending your ads is for sissies – be bold! In essense what you’re aiming for is to make your ads look as much out of place and as ad-like as possible. Here’s a few of my personal favorites (keep in mind I’m not a very good designer – I’m sure you could do worse if you put your mind to it):
9. Never track your AdSense ads performance – Definitely do not use channels to monitor how your different ads perform. This way you’ll ensure that if you do happen to fluke some well performing ads – you’ll never know which ones they were and will never be able to reproduce the results elsewhere.
10. Lower your Traffic – Ultimate the probably one of the best ways to ensure you never make much money from AdSense is to work hard at maintaining as little traffic as possible to your blog. You can do this in many ways including:
- Ignoring any readers that do happen upon your blog
- Practicing black hat SEO principles to make sure you get banned from Google and other Search Engines
- Writing the worst content possible
- Stealing other people’s content (and other unethical practices)
- Post as infrequently as possible (I know I’ve said this already – but it’s worth repeating)
- Never promote your blog in any online or offline forums
If you do have an occasional surge in traffic you can always remove the ads from the page that is getting the most traffic. Some bloggers do this well by only showing ads on certain pages (like their front page) and not showing them on other pages that get traffic.
Bonus Chitika Tip – If you want to branch out from AdSense and not earn much from other ad programs you might like to join up with Chitika and try many of the above strategies also. Another good one with Chitika is to use the default settings and keywords. If you really want to push it with Chitika you should target keywords that are as irrelevant to the topic of your blog as possible. In fact you can use this strategy with many money making strategies for your blog – especially affiliate programs. The more irrelevant they are to your blog’s topic the less chance they will convert!
lol, lower your traffic… funny article
I’ve found the best way to completely keep myself from anything is by adding a display:none to the styling :)
Great Post Darren, I think learning how not to make money is more helpful than learning how. It gets the point across a lot better. Plus the amusement was worth the read.
E
I wish I was making .14 cents a month!
Follow the advice and “you too can make 14 cents a month”, squirrelinabox. ;)
That and 35 cents will get you a donut.
Aaron, were do you live? a donut for $.49? I want to move there, our donuts are $.56 and well I just can’t waite 4 months for a donut!
Funny but tough to read. I kept having to translate everthing from dont’s to do’s. Still above .19 cents a month though.
Strangest thing – after doing quite a bit of testing, I’ve ended up *with* a skyscraper on the right, doing very well. I think the secret is that at the same time, I removed the navigation stuff from all but the front page. If there’s no other disctractions, people *do* look at skyscrapers on the right.
That was great, but I’m waiting for the live “zero-figure blogging” course.
LOL,
you forgot about playing in google “sandbox”
This was too funny. Thanks for the laugh after a hard day.
Aaron, were do you live? a donut for $.49? I want to move there, our donuts are $.56 and well I just can’t waite 4 months for a donut!
Dude… it’s all in cost of living for the area. :)
Hmmm….Cheap Donuts…….
I think I know where my Adsense revenue is going tomorrow =)
Ok, but here is the question that bloggers everywhere have been asking. How do you make your blog template more “Adsense friendly”
http://gewinnvortrag.blogspot.com/
Here is my website, which has good content and gets decent traffic, and yet it doesn’t seem to be possible to put adsense in the right places using the default template. Are there any good sources for blogger templates that make good use of adsense?
[…] Ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον άρθρο με τον δεκάλογο του κακού τρόπου χρήσης των adsense. (Είναι γραμμένο για μπλογκς αλλά ισχύει παντού). […]
Thanks for the not to do tips and funny read too. 0.14 cents for one month… that’s a nightmare for adsense bloggers!!
Thanks for all the tips in this article.
I am just starting out in my blog and am looking constantly to improve it’s adsense performance.
How is everyone tracking their website visitors other then breaking the adsense ads into channels? Are you using some sort of tracking software and which one do your recommend?
I like sitemeter from http://www.sitemeter.com/. You know you are starting to make it when you see people hit your blog after having it come up on google results page.
Very good food for thought. I enjoyed reading this!! When everybody blogs about their earnings and how to maximize them, I like the fact that Problogger is different.
Today’s ads all look very ugly and out of place for Tech Themes like K2.
Thanks for this great post. I blog for the sake of blogging; ie not really a “commercial” blogger, but who would mind getting more than 0.14 cents per month?
Cheers.
[…] Darren Rowse de ProBlogger posteó estos diez pasos para no ganar más de 14 centavos con AdSense, que producen esa mezcla de risa y desesperación. El tono sarcástico del post es muy divertido, pero resalta algunas cosas que son fundamentales y que muchos pasamos por arriba. Esta es la lista de puntos que Darren propone para que tu blog sea un exitoso fracaso: […]
Hi Darren,
Great post. This is the first time in a long time I’ve seen you use sacarcism in your posts. I personally found it really good!
Btw, I also enjoyed your blog case studies recently, that was a great idea.
Regards,
Stephane Grenier
http://www.FollowSteph.com
http://www.LandlordMax.com
what an new kind of topic to problogger.net – i liked it and enjoyed every word of it again.
Why you don’t make money from AdSense
I have noticed that one of the reoccurring themes that I see in various forums about blogging that I frequent from time to time revolves around lackluster performance with AdSense. I am sure that you have seen these types of posts before:
I’ve h…
I have found that the fastest way to not make any money with Adsense is to not use channels. Once I started using channels my Adsense income grew. Now I can buy donuts and coffee.
[…] of 0.14 cents or less per month from your blog. Posted by Administrator on April 11, 2006 | 0 Comments In Advertisers Possibly Related Entries Google To Open Affiliate Network?The Potential Returnon 15,000 Affiliate Pages?39 Google Adsense AlternativesBest and Worst of Making Money Online: Part 1Affiliate Marketing and eBayFinding the Golden Needle in the Affiliate HaystackPPC Ad Impressions Grow 16% in 6 MonthsAffiliate Manager ToolsMSN Contextual Ad Program: ContentAdsGoogle Adsense Affiliate Program Comments […]
Hehe I guess after a while you run out of ideas on how to write the very same stuff in an original fashion.
But you did it, once again!
Entertaining post :)
Interesting, but Yahoo is still the best paying per click out there!
Interesting method of imparting Adsense information.
As Catherine stated, this was a great post to read after a long day.
My adsense revenue is growing quite nicely thanks to channels and color blending. Perhaps instead of buying a donut I’ll soon focus on buying a franchise.
Having just been kicked out of AdSense for unknown reasons, I don’t think you even need to misbehave in the order of anything in point 7 on your list.
They’re a nightmare to deal with, cancelled me without warning, generating only form letters with nobody to talk to directly. It took some probing to find out how to appeal. I doubt that was taken seriously, either.
Cop an attitude with Google? Who would have the chance?
In various places around the Internet, I’m finding similar stories. It’s no longer a reliable revenue source, because you never know which day they are going to can you.
Did an overzealous fan click my ads too many times? Did an enemy do it? Was it my objection to Google’s anti-freedom policies toward the repressive regime in China?
An odd coincidence: the account was disabled a day after I was rejected as a Google News source (despite some very extreme political propaganda sites making the cut lately).
The answer is simple: can the punitive approach and simply stop paying out for excessive clicks. And let me click my own ads a zillion times, just make sure I’m not compensated for doing so.
In a year or so, there may be so many strong alternatives to AdSense that these discussions may very well seem quaint. For now, however, they’re still the primary game in town.
I’m counting the days.
regarding yout tip #1 – im confused – arent you supposed to put the ads near your content, but blend them in? or am i crazy
oh i get it..ha ha. im not crazy now, im just stupid. sorry bout tht
A better strategy is to commit Common Adsense Mistakes and get banned altogether.
weird article
Brian,
If I may add, Number 11 – Have only one blog.
0.14 cents per month times ten blogs that’s
a dollar and forty-!!
Great Post there!
Regards,
Alan
http://www.adsensearticlesystem.com
http://www.grandstart.com
About the right column skycrapper, I really think this is working really well indeed. Here’s what you have to do:
Place the 160×600 skycrapper in a div that you stick on the right of the screen (optional: with some javascript to make it follow the screen as the user scrolls down)
Design your website to be longer than one screen vertically and always leave 160 pixels available on the right.
That way the user WILL HAVE to scroll down. Of course many are using the mousewheel, but how many more are still using the scrollbar on the right?
So you’ll get some attention and most often than not you’ll get the occasional missed click on the scroll bar, which can generate a substantial additionnal income depending on the web-savyness of your audience.
Not ethical, but a good reason to doubt the google color chart given on top of the article.
Cheers,
James
A nice list of Adsense 10 commandments for “Thou Shall Not”… I think I was guilty of a couple of them when I started using Adsense.
[…] Read full post here […]
While there’s a lot of good information in this post, I don’t like the tone. I guess I’m becoming a little jaded after so much time in the blogosphere, but I don’t really like these saracstic, flippant, and negative posts.
Darren, I read posts as if I was talking to the person. I think the campy and conversational style of blogging is what separates blogging from anything else. In this case, I feel that if you and I were having a conversation about this, you would be talking down to me the entire time.
Just an observation. Maybe I’m too sensitive in my old age, but I think there are more positive ways to pass on information.
And yeah, I make about 14 cents a month off of AdSense :)
Sorry you read it that way Jon. It was an attempt to look at a topic I’d written about many times before from a new angle with the hope that it would perhaps add another dimension to the content here. I hoped it would be taken in context with the other 2257 or so posts here at ProBlogger – 99% of which are written in a pretty straight faced and positive voice.
Perhaps I should stick to what I normally do but I wrote this just before taking off for a holiday when I wanted to try something a little different.
Point taken though – but believe me – if you and I were talking face to face about this I wouldn’t put it these terms :-)
Really i found a great source what i do not do on my site to get good revenue. Keep it up.
Hey Darren,
It’s just me being over sensitive. You *are* the master here. And, as I said, the information is certainly good :)
nah – it’s good feedback mate.
Funny article!
I have translated it for rassian and have arranged here – 10 шагов, которые гарантируют, что вы никогда не будете делать больше чем 14 центов в месяц с AdSense
I’m new to all this so it was good to see that I haven’t followed ‘all’ of the advice. :-) I still have some work to do. How do you even get people to notice your Blog?!?
Scott,
The 2 parameters of a successful blog are traffic and quality content. The later driving the former. On a preliminary review of your blog, I couldn’t find a main theme that guides the content in it. I think you should try to figure out who your audience is going to be and what would get them to come back and read posts on your blog.
Having started my blog just a few weeks back, I know for sure that I am not an expert in blogging but some people along the way pointed me in the right direction and I feel the need to return this favour :)
Good luck with your blog.
I had a feeling about that. I have 3 main themes so ideally I should have separate blogs instead of one all-encompassing one.
Thanks!
Scott
A nice flip of perspective that will confuse a few newbies
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