Sundance

Hi

Over the past week I have been experimenting with Oxado adverts instead of Google Adsense. Today, I terminated my experiment. My click through rate as plummeted, my revenue is right down, in short, no one is clicking my Oxado ads. I don't know why...google ads that looked very similar, offered similar products, and took up exactly the same space on the page. It is a mystery to me.

This post follows on directly from my Oxado post yesterday. Probably best to read that one first.

Overnight the news didn't change. My new Oxado ads seemed to have a lower click through rate (CTR), and a lower cost per click average. I went with Oxado because I was expecting a higher cost per click, and a higher click through rate. On their website is says:

I recently decided to explore alternative to Google Adsense. The Google Adsense programme has served me well over the past few years, but progress seems slow and Google is not my favourite corporate master. Everything Google does seems over complicated, the terms and conditions annoy me, and there referral system seems designed to not have to pay out very much at all! On top of all that the referral system seems to treat new referrers with a degree of suspicion, not paying out at the full rate until a probationary period is over.

Hi,

Some time ago I posted about making Windows Live Writer work with Drupal. Since then Microsoft have launched a new version of Windows Live Writer (WLW) and so the instructions on how to make it work with Drupal have changed - now it's much easier! (Obviously, if you are still using an older version of WLW then the previous post will still be valid for you).

If you are blogging with the intention of making a few extra dollars or pounds on the side (or becoming a millionaire) the following tip will be worth bearing in mind.

If you are using Google Adsense to monetorize your blog then you might well have noticed that, unless your entire blog focusses on a single, narrowly defined, issue, that Google doesn't immediately post relevant ads.

Important updat - 7th October 2007

If you are using a recently downloaded version of windows live writer the information in this post is no longer valid. Please read this post for an easy walkthrough to setup newer versions of Windows Live Writer for Drupal blogging.

Hi, the great ping debacle goes on. It seems that drupal will only ping if a cron run reports new content on the frontpage. Which could account for the lack of pinging I experienced when I put new content on the blog pages only (i don't particularly want all my blogs to be posted to the front page, although I suppose from an SEO perspective it is not a bad thing - dynamically changing content etc).

Earlier I was trying to see if I could make the ping module work and I have to report that my experiments have been inconclusive.

I searched through weblogs.com massive database of recent pings but found no sign, and google blog searsh dfinitely didn't pick me up. In the end I manually pinged several servers using www.pingates.com, which I found to be excellent.

Immediately many servers spidered my site. Now, five or more hours later the post has turned up in google blog search. So, the next plan is to check if this post manages to get there just with drupals ping module alone.

I have been pretty successful in installing Drupal. The last hurdle is to understand this Ping module.

Obviously it is designed to ping various sites to notify of changes and updates. It seems to be configured to ping a site called www.pingomatic.com which in turn pings the other major ping servers, such as weblogs.com etc.

Hi

My latest changes to the way I manage my sites has been very simple but effective. It is amazing how small tweaks to CSS and adsense can completely alter your click-through rate (CTR).

People tend to ask for the formula for successful ads. Of course there is none - the number of factors involved in each individual site (colour scheme, font, topic, ad position etc) are far too great. What is important is just to spend some time looking at your site. Open pages of your site and see where your eyes naturally land.