Beside Google AdSense, now you can make money with your blogs using Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger by promoting relevant products in your posts.

Get started

First of all, you need an AdSense account. If you don’t, sign up here.

1. Write a new post on Blogger
2. If your blog matches available ad categories, the ‘Advertise Products’ gadget
   will appear in the Post Settings panel
3. Select an affiliate ad from the ‘Advertise Products’ gadget
4. Publish your post

You can type in a product, retailer or brand name into the “Advertise products” widget to get a list of products. then you can insert the affiliate ad as a link, image, or full ad.

How do you earn money?

When your blog visitor clicks on the ads and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site, then you will earn commission. The payment will be paid through your AdSense account.

My two cents

Affiliate ads is “payment by action”. You don’t get commission if your visitor clicks but no purchase. However, the commission is usually much higher than “payment by click”. It’s good to have more ways to monetize your blog.

I wish the Google Affiliate Ads widget will be available to non-Blogger bloggers too (read: WordPress plugin!).

via Blogger Buzz

Make Money with Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Dear all Google Adsense publishers, have you updated your ad unit codes to take the advantages of new AdSense features?

With the new ad unit code, you can get ads performance report for ad units, ad sizes, and more. Plus, you don’t need to update the code when you want to change the styles of your AdSense ad units.

The following InsideAdSense’s video shows you the new ad unit code features and how to create them:

(via InsideAdSense – YouTube)

AdSense: Update New Ad Unit Code and Gain Performance Insights [VIDEO] is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

AdSense publishers who wish to help Japan can now donate their AdSense earnings accrued through March 31, 2011 directly to the Japanese Red Cross.

Simply complete the form on AdSense Help with your payee name, email address, AdSense publisher ID and the donation amount in USD.

Please note that donation will be processed via the Tides Foundation, and 1.5% of your donation amount will be used by their administration fees.

Donate now to help Japan

Now You Can Donate AdSense Revenue for Japanese Earthquake Relief is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Yesterday I saw a new AdSense ads style on my own blog. The large rectangle text ads is showing center aligned text, instead of normal left aligned text.

This is the first time I saw the new AdSense ads style and I do not see it on other websites yet. Is it new? Have you see the center aligned AdSense ads on other sites before?

Do you think the center aligned ads text will increase the Click-Thru-Rate (CTR)?

Google AdSense Ads With Center Aligned Text is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Malaysian Pro-blogger, Liew Cheon Fong (a.k.a LiewCF, yours truly) got Google AdSense disabled ad serving on his tech blog. How did he get it re-enabled in 14 hours? Also, the AdSense alternatives he used and the lessons he learned.

Read on for the details.

Last week afternoon (Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:35 PM), I suddenly received an email from Google AdSense with subject title “Google AdSense ad serving has been disabled to your site”

Hello,

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as http://www.liewcf.com/crack-mac-app-store-6859/. Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of your website.

As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites with content related to hacking or cracking. For example, sites showing ads may not provide instructions or equipment to illegally access or tamper with software, servers, or websites.

As a result, we have disabled ad serving to the site.

Your AdSense account remains active. However, we strongly suggest that you take the time to review our program policies (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-2pp-en) to ensure that all of your remaining pages are in compliance.

Please note that we may disable your account if further violations are found in the future.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Issue ID# 0000000

My first reaction was “Another scam email!” but after reading it thoroughly… Hey, it is genuine! Google disabled AdSense ads on my site!

OMG! This is the WORST nightmare for AdSense publishers!

Why Google AdSense disable ads serving on LiewCF.com?

It is caused by my blog post “HOW TO: Crack Mac App Store and Download Free Angry Birds for Mac [ILLEGAL]” (article has been deleted, more details below)

Though I had already put warning messages in title and in the article body… but the blog post ranked No.1 for the search keywords “Mac App Store Crack”, ranked better than the popular Mac blog – 9to5Mac.com.

Image: LiewCF.com ranked No.1 for “mac app store crack”

(Thanks to my SEO optimization and Twitter ReTweets)

My site received many traffic for the keywords but, at the same time, it is a significant target if anyone wants to hunt down websites that spread the Mac App Store crack news.

Getting AdSense re-enable on site

The email was sent from no-reply email account. I must find a way to contact Google AdSense team.

A google search for the email subject “Google AdSense ad serving has been disabled to your site” and leaded me to Google AdSense forum. There are also many other publishers received the same email before but most of them did not have second chance…

Bad news.

On Google AdSense Help:

In many cases, our decision is final, and this will be mentioned in your notification email. However, in some cases, if you are able to make appropriate changes to bring your site into compliance, we may re-enable ad serving to your site. Please keep in mind that this is not possible for all cases.

There is a Google AdSense Policy Violation Appeal form where you can request for re-enabled ad serving to your site.

Immediately, I deleted the affected blog post and submit my details using the Policy Violation Appeal form. I wrote:

“I have deleted the affected web page immediately after received your email notification. Thank you.”

After that, all I could do is WAIT and PRAY.

Google AdSense alternatives?

Then, I checked my site and the AdSense ads are still serving normally. So, I thought only the related web page is affected. “Lucky!”

I was wrong!

In the midnight, I noticed ALL the AdSense ads on my site were gone and left only white spaces!

OMG! Google AdSense disabled the ad serving for the whole website, instead of the affected page only!

While I am still waiting reply from Google AdSense team for my appeal, I immediately replaced all Google AdSense ads spaces with other alternative advertising networks, such as Chitika, CPM-based ads, local ads, etc.

The alternative networks revenue would not match the Google AdSense income, but it is better than wasting the ads spaces.

Google AdSense ad serving re-enabled!

Just as soon as I done switching AdSense ads spaces to alternative ads, I received an email from Google AdSense again (Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 3:33 AM).

This time, is a good news.

Hello,

Thank you for making the requested changes to your site in order to comply with our policies. We have now re-enabled ad serving to your site.

Please note that because ad serving to your site was temporarily disabled, there may be a delay of up to 48 hours or more before ads begin appearing on your site again. We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Phew~ What a relieve! Ad-serving is back to normal after 24 hours.

Lessons learned

I felt like a bungee jump – jump off from a high bridge then bounced and at last landed safely. Certainly, I did not feel good but it was a good experience.

I shall not write anything about cracking and hacking (even with loud and clear warning message). I could not afford to risk my house, car, living. etc for popular but questionable articles.

Glad that Google AdSense team resolved my case in 14 hours. Many publishers complain that Google AdSense ignore them or slow response, which is false in my case.

Also, the incident make me to re-think the dependents on Google AdSense as a blogger. I shall reducing the portion of AdSense revenue in my total income. I said the same at years before and I am still working on it.

While I could survive without Google AdSense, but I never want to do that. Darn! I love AdSense!

Related book: Google AdSense For Dummies

[image courtesy of Jon Ovington]

How Did Malaysian Pro-Blogger Get Google AdSense Ad Serving Disabled (and Re-enabled) on His Blog? is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Malaysian AdSense publishers are frustrated with Google AdSense’s late Western Union payment for December 2010.

I received email from Google AdSense saying my payment has been issued, but, in the AdSense account, the Western Union payment is still “in progress” since Dec 22.

I understand that Google might had a long Christmas & New Year holiday and payments maybe got delayed.

Based on the previous payment history, payments were issued before or on 27th each month.

But, it is already Jan 3rd, 2011 now! Google, I want my money now!

Update: the late payment issued has been discussed on Google AdSense Help Forum. Apparently, Malaysians publishers are affected.

Update 2: A LowYat.net forum user “sherly” told that Western Union Malaysia closed until Jan 2nd, 2010.

Update 3 (Jan 4, 2011): Just saw a new text on AdSense payment page:

Your December 2010 earnings will be calculated on the first week of January. Please check back on January 7, 2011 for updated payment information.

Well, we have to wait few more days then…

Update 4 (Jan 5, 2011): Google employee “Bertha” responded on forum:

Hi all –

Thank you for writing in to the forum about your payments, and I apologize that we haven’t responded sooner. It appears that publishers in Belgium and Malaysia are experiencing this issue with the “Payment in Progress” message. Please be aware that we are investigating this right now and I’ll update this thread as soon as I have more information!

Best,

AdSensePro Bertha

And, we got the payments!

Malaysian AdSense Publishers are STILL Waiting for Payments (December 2010) [Update: Received!] is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

1. Implement your ad units above the fold and near your content.
2. Use top-performing ad sizes: medium rectangle (300×250), large rectangle (336×280), leaderboard (728×90), and wide skyscraper (160×600).
3. Enable your ad units to show text and image ads.

Here are the additional videos on high-performing ad units:

Don’t forget to check out the ">AdSense Checklist, too!

3 Tips to Optimize Your Google AdSense Units for Placement Targeting is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Google AdSense made a checklist to help new publishers setup AdSense account and start earning money. Visit the AdSense Checklist on AdSense U.S. Help Center.

The checklist has a total of 20 items, divided into 5 parts. Each item has a short description/tips and a link for more information. When you check an item, there’s a progress bar update accordingly.

This is helpful for beginners to Google AdSense. Existing AdSense publishers are also recommended to check if you have done all the items in the AdSense checklist.

If you ask… Yes, I got 100% at 1st check.

Here is a Checklist to Help You Make Money: AdSense Checklist is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

Here are the Google AdSense content ad unit changes:

• Leaderboard (728×90): the title, description, and URL are now arranged in rows instead of columns (except in the case when only one ad is showing)
• Medium and large rectangles (300×250, 336×280): the URL is now in the same line as the title

As far as I can remember, these are the first major changes to the designs of Google AdSense content ad units since it was launched.

The Google AdSense ad formats page hasn’t been updated to new designs when I checked.

Compared to previous AdSense ads designs

I took some time to make the following side-to-side comparison of new Google AdSense content ad unit against the previous design. (Click on the thumbnails to get fullsize pictures)

Leaderboard

Large Rectangle

Medium Rectangle

How do you like the new designs? Or, you prefer the previous designs?

Personally, I got a “feeling” (the 6th sense of a full-time blogger) that the new AdSense ads units would increase Clickthrough rate (CTR) because the new designs easier blend into your content, URL moved to side (after title) helps to increase the eyeflow rate from top to bottom.

So far, I haven’t seen the new AdSense ads design on my blog yet. According to AdSense team, the changes will roll out over the next few weeks. I would love to see if the new designs actually increase or decrease my AdSense revenue. I’ll let you know.

Oh. Please share with us if you already have the new Google AdSense ads designs on your sites and tell us how’s the performance.

You should read this book: Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Hooray! New Google AdSense Ads Designs to Increase Your Revenue! is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.

"The AdSense Code: The Definitive Guide to Making Money with AdSense" (Joel Comm)

A good channel description should tell:

1. the content of the channel.
2. the specific section of your site (e.g. a forum section, blog section, etc.), if any.
3. is the ads placed Above-The-Fold (ATF), users can see without need to scroll down the page?
4. the visitors information (gender, interests, income level, etc)

Here is an example of good channel description:

This is a 300×250 ATF ad unit on the football section of a sports blog. My audience is 75% male, age 18-35, earning between $50,000-$80,000 per year.

Point 1-3 is easy and you should already know. For the visitors information, you probably need to conduct a site survey to collect the data because no website statistic can get you the private data.

Click here to learn how to make a custom channel into an ad placement.

How to Write a Better Channel Description for Targetable Ad Placements [Google AdSense] is an article from: LiewCF Tech Blog. For more updates, please follow @liewcf on Twitter, join Facebook page and subscribe free newsletter.