I hate it when something that outta work just won’t. And I’m sorry to voice my frustations publicly, but only do so to say: I’m getting there. Bear with me.
I don’t know how many of you bloggers are using Google Adsense for your blogger.com blogs. Some will be far more focused and on-topic than Fragments. And your frustration with getting relevant ads may be less then than mine has been this first week.
But I bring this up because I am no longer at the very bottom of the learning curve. I’ve learned a couple of things that might help others. And miles to go before I sleep.
Curse of Fragments: too many subjects, too few particulars (of brand name, place name, hot-button topics). The google-bots may have a hard time figuring out what this page is about. (Heck, I’ve been writing it for almost five years and I’m not sure myself!)
Partial fix: First of all, be patient. It takes Google weeks sometimes to do a thorough scan of a site, especially one with as many pages in archives as Fragments from Floyd. Second, label pictures, and make post titles specific to topic–not the zany, alliterative types I like to use.
And lastly (at least for now) use Section Targeting. I can do this for words and phrases within posts. Haven’t quite figured out what part or parts of the blogger template to apply this to yet.
Also note: if you click on recent archive pages (like January 07) or an individual permalink, they show rather precisely targeted ads. The main page: not so hot. Yet. Keywords: blogger.com, Adsense, ads relevance
You will always get better targeted ads from your individual and category (if you use them) archives. The “subject” of the home page changes every time you write something new.
On my site, I think 80% or better of my click thrus come from the archive pages anyway.
You should look into blogads.com – I made way more from them last year than I did from Google. Although the blogads have been rather so far this year…
I wouldn’t dare put ads on my blog now. Since I moved to new blogger, it is has been one problem after another. I want to wait until they have all the bugs out of it before I consider it.
Hi Fred,
Ditch ’em! That is my answer.
I used to carry ads on my blog until I really got creeped out by Google’s lack of ethics and quality standards. eg. An article I wrote advocating privacy in the digital realm was accompanied by an ad for software to help you snoop on computer users. Examples like this go on and on. I have seen mountaintop removal articles accompanied by ads placed by Big Coal…I will talk your ear off about this if you give me half a chance. For now, I hope you can feel happy in knowing you aren’t doing anything wrong in terms of how the ads could be more relevant. As for me, I will be much happier when folks in our community stop letting Google and others pay them pennies, or fractions of pennies, for the privilege of sullying high-quality content with lame ads for things that don’t help a bit with the problems we face on this planet.
anyway hope you are doing really well and staying warm! your pal, Nantoka.