Daily Web Dev

Adsense has recently announced (through email) that they are removing their Adsense Referals program. We will update this post with more recent new.

More info on their adsense blog: http://adsense.blogspot.com/

Here is the email we received.

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense
Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate
your patience during this transition and here are some alternative
options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of
DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now
operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting
users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense
Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For
further details, please visit:
www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense
for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the
referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google
products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals
code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.
We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is
retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a
moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last
week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your
ad space.
* Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create
and save all reports related to the referrals program on your
desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign
information

Why is this happening?
We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing
and supporting features which drive the best monetization results
for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing
features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most
effective in the long term.  For this reason, we will be retiring
the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional
questions, please visit our Help Center:
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882

Sincerely.

The Google AdSense Team

——————————

—————————————————————

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service
announcement to update you about the retirement of an AdSense
feature.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Search Engine Optimization can be a long hard process of generating links, creating a nice page, and get listed in search engines. These tips should help you understand the concepts and the ideas on SEO better.

1. Exchange. Exchange links, articles, etc. with other related websites. I recommend exchanging articles because it is the most effective way to allow a search engine spider to “realize” your website. Article exchanges are similar to link exchanges, except two websites will create their own articles, but link to each other within the article. As the search engine spider reads the article, it will be sure to note your page. The links are good quality because they are surrounded by content.

2.  Article Submitting. Submitting your article to any notable publisher or ezine will give your links a boost. The article may stay active for a few years which will surely help your SEO.

3.  Site Mapping. A map of your site is like a road map to a search engine crawler. It lays out the entire website and lets it scan each one with significant importance. Your site map should link to every page on your website and should be linked to by every page on your website.

4. Link Titles. Add a title to your link that is relevant to your targeted keyword. It gives search engine spiders a better idea of your website before even arriving to it. This may also help your incoming traffic gain a better feel for where a specific link may be taking them.

5. Use Different Anchor Text. Anchor text helps your website build its keywords, but building the exact same keyword phrase is not a good idea. It gives the search engine spiders a sense that your links are automated and repetative. It is helpful to scramble and ad other keywords to your anchor text.  You can even use your domain name as an anchor text. (Ex. Daily web development, Webmaster Development, Search Engine Websites, etc.)

6. Layered Links. If your website is armed with links going to all different pages, it gives search engine spiders a feeling that your website is filled with rich content. Versus, if all your inbound links point towards your homepage, it seems like your website is very shallow and empty.

7. Multiple Directories. Use as many directories as you can to gain traffic. Many users think they must target Google.com for all their traffic. This is not true. Many users from other countries use so many different directories. Getting a substantial listing in them will drive your traffic globally. (Try UK and Canadian Directories)

8. Use of text. The way your web pages are built influence your SEO hugely. Find your targeted keywords and add them to your website pages. Bold and italics should also be used on them to emphasize that they are of importance and relavence. Be sure to only do this once or twice every page.

9. Website Order. Many webmasters have their pages ordered in a very SEO unfriendly way. Try your best to revise your pages so that your links and keywords show up before anythng else. Then followed by images etc. Your partners and affiliates should be shown last because you want the search engine spiders to view your targeted keywords first. (They do put more weight on items they see first in your source code)

10. Domain Name Usage. Using more then one domain name may come to an advantage. You can create a nice link exchange with your own site as well as target two different topics. This allows each page to focus on one topic more which will help you do better in your SEO. When searching in search engines, a web page will only be shown once or twice. Having more then one domain name can ensure that you claim a better spot on rankings.

These tips are ways you can enhance your website SEO in a costless and effective way.

Google Adsense has quite recently added new types of Google Ad Types. These ad types bring forth a variety of choices for publishers. Since Google Adsense’s first lauch many years ago, many changes have occured in the Adsense Program. Google has improved their Adsense interface to a full extent.

We can now appreciate:

AdSense for Content Display ads that are targeted to your site’s unique content.
AdSense for Search Improved! Offer your users site search or web search while earning revenue from ads relevant to their search terms.	Custom Search
Referrals Earn more by referring users to useful products and services.	You select the ads you want to appear on your site
Video units Add YouTube partners’ video content to your site, and earn extra revenue.
AdSense for Mobile Content Unlock the revenue potential of your mobile site with targeted Google ads.	Ads by Google [?] Linked Title - Ad text here - www.ad-url.com - Call: Phone Number

With all these choices, publishers have room to juice up their web pages.

Adsense for content has always been a killer in profits. Adsense for content is the base of advertising including text ads and banner ads. Revenue is counted by clicks and impressions. Google Adsense has improved Adsense for content by releasing its new JavaScript which allows publishers to update their ads without replacing the previous code.

Adsense for Search has been “Improved”. The concept of it lacks a lot of characteristics that motivate publishers to use it. Of course it has its pros, but the search tool is a way to draw users away from the website. The search tool is inconveient to users because it does not search the website. It searches Google’s database, which is not what most site search boxes do. It also only generates publishers revenue when the “sponsored” links are clicked. Adsense for Search surely needs more improvement.

Referrals is a major set up for Google Adsense. In the past, Adsense refrained from using third-party influences. Adsense only had a Firefox and Adsense referal program. Naturally, with little choice, publishers did not use these very often. To many publishers and advertiser’s delight, Google allowed third-party referrals to be shown. For example, each product that is bought through a referral from your website, you earn a set amount of commission. Google also states they plan to “expand” on their referrals program.

Video Units has been influenced by the now wide-spread YouTube. Video Units allows publishers to display video advertisements. This ads more variety and a way to sharpen a website’s page. Instead of dull images and text, publishers can now earn revenue from videos.

Adsense for Mobile Content has brought Google to the next step. Mobile ads. Google advertisers and publishers in the Mobile industry can take advantage of the Adsense Program.

Google has really spiced up their Adsense program. With the steadily rising web industry, Google continues to keep itself above all competition.

Welcome to the World of CSS Web Design

Although CSS was first introduced in the mid 1990s, it did not become a mainstream tool among web designers and masters until more recent years. This is unfortunate, because there are millions of poorly designed web sites cluttering the internet that could be easily improved with the help of CSS.

So what exactly is CSS? CSS is an acronym that stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The term Cascading Style Sheets implies two things. First off, the style sheets are cascading. This means that multiple style sheets can be used for a single web page. Additionally, the term “cascading” also refers to the way a style is determined in the event that more than one rule matches a single element. The second thing that is implied by the name Cascading Style Sheets is that the purpose of CSS is to style web pages. Whereas the purpose of HTML (or XHTML) is to define the structure of a web page, the purpose of CSS is to define the presentation.

The reason that so many web pages have broken layouts in different browsers is because they try to use HTML to control the structure and presentation of the page. The most common abuse of HTML is attempting to use tables as a presentation method. Although you may be able to achieve the look you want in a single browser, your web page will look broken and distorted in many other browsers. The only time that tables should be used is to hold a set of data (such as the results from a scientific experiment). If you do have a legitimate use for tables on your web page, you can even use CSS to style your table and make it more attractive.

By taking the time to learn CSS, you will be able to create a web page that looks much more consistent across a variety of browsers.

What does this have to do with promoting my website?
You can use the popularity of these sites to help grow your own website. On a website of mine, I received extremely high rankings on many of these social bookmarking sites and the site received over twenty thousand uniques the weekend that I opened the site. You can also get success like this to your site with social bookmarking sites. However, you must make sure your website is the best it can be first. The only way Social Bookmarking sites can work for your website is if you have unique content or something interesting about your site. Basically, you need something that you can create buzz about. Using social bookmarking sites are a great way to bring visitors to your site. Although the quality of traffic from these sites is not great, I have seen many people discover, and become avid users of my sites from Social Bookmarking sites.

Blogs and Social Bookmarking:
Blogs and news sites are by far the most applicable for Social Bookmarking sites. They have the most content and are updated often compared to other sites. Also, some of these sites are based on feeds. Personally, the best way to setup a blog for social bookmarking sites is to install a mod, that has icons or text to send each post to these sites. For wordpress, my favorite such mod is: This one . You should be able to find mods for other blog software as well.

What about Every Other Site:
You can also use social bookmarking sites for other types of websites, however, some might not apply. Social bookmarking sites, such as Digg as well as a few other Social Bookmarking sites, are based on articles or feeds, so you probably wont be able to submit to those sites.

About the different Social Bookmarking Sites:
There are many social bookmarking sites out there, but I am going to give you some basic info and instructions to get the most out of the most popular Social Bookmarking websites.

Digg:
This is personally my favorite Social Bookmarking site. It gets tons of traffic and is Alexa rank 73. This site is geared more towards technology related articles, but there are also sections to post about many other topics. This is the main social bookmarking site to go after, as the traffic is the greatest. If you have one link on your blog or website, put it up to your digg page. People can “digg” your site, which will move it up in the rankings and give it more exposure. When submitting to Digg, make sure you write an interesting title and description, as this will be a big factor in who ‘Diggs’ your site. Also, be sure to submit all your posts and articles to Digg.

StumbleUpon:
This is another good social bookmarking website. In this site, users put in topics they are interested in and a little bit about themselves. Then, with the StumbleUpon toolbar, you can “stumble” sites. The toolbar sends you to a random site based on your intrests. Stumblers can give sites they like a thumbs up or a thumbs down as well as being able to comment on websites. The more thumbs up you have increase your chance of people stumbling on to your site. In this program, it is important to have a quality site, as it will determine the amount of thumbs ups you get as well as if people just stumble again or look at your site. If you get a good amount of thumbs up, you can get some really good traffic through this site.

Technorati:
This is one of those social bookmarking