Now you can Contact and receive free consultation from AdSense!

The AdSense team, as you know, is quite eager to work with publishers, because Google values them for the sake of its interest. AdSense has always been helping out publishers by providing access to many tools and resources for problem solutions, such as FAQs, the Fix a problem troubleshooting section, and the AdSense Academy. Now, AdSense is bringing in another feature; a new personalized contact options page. There is a tab called HELP at the top-right, using which you can find solutions to your queries, or send feedback to the AdSense team by automatically sending a snapshot of the page you are on. A really great flexibility for AdSense users.

Recommended for you: Complete List of AdSense Features released in 2012

Contact options page

This new contact options page will now act as a central source for most commonly used troubleshooters. This means that you will find solutions to most of your problems under 'one roof', which will help you solve your queries within minutes. 

Another great thing about this new page is that, some troubleshooters will lead you to contact pages related to different issues. This will speed up the process, since the email messages will be sent to respective departments or teams. Google has also developed some automated tools that enable it to reply to queries sometimes within hours!

Free consultations

This contact options page is available to everyone who has an approved Google AdSense account (banned or suspended accounts do not count). Such publishers also have access to the troubleshooters, and specialized contact forms. To see these features, simply follow this link to the contact options page.



However, if you are a high earner, and have a revenue of $25 or above per week consistently, then you qualify for some special treatment :). This special treatment includes free consultations with members of the AdSense team via email! These members will help you manage your AdSense account, and/or discuss strategies to grow your business. Accounts that qualify for consultations, you will see an alert notifying you on the contact options page.



As was the case with Premium AdSense Publishers accounts, Google closely monitors your progress over a long period of time, and only then deems you fit for qualification. So even if you have a revenue of more than $25 per week, you might not immediately be able to see this option.



Are you excited about this new feature? AdSense is working hard to help out publishers, which will ultimately help Google in turn. Whatever the reasons though, publishers don't have any complains to make regarding this, because it'll help themselves. So, are you excited? Let us know what you think. Cheers :)

How to Manage Your Blog During Exams?

Exams! Exams! Exams!

Now a days, everyone is facing huge exams. In almost all Asian countries, March is the month for final examinations. So, in these exams, your schedule becomes very hectic. You have to manage your visitors, site, papers and have to make your parents proud too! In all these, the thing on which you least concentrate is your website. However, you can take benefit of exams and make your traffic jump! In this post, I would show you some cool tips to take the advantages of exams!

Exams can really be a headache. But if you would manage properly, then you can easily manage exams and site well together. Simply carry on and read these premium tips. But before that, know how does irregular blogging during exams affect your blog! Read more �

Tips to Protect your Adsense Account against Bad Clicks and Invalid Activity

Have you ever wondered how Google actually generates an income? It has a very large network of ads, with which it earns and also shares some revenue with publishers (people who put up AdSense ads on their websites). It's a very elaborate system, with Advertisers trusting Google, and investing their money with it in order to grow their own exposure. Google then shares some of that revenue with the publishers. Now it naturally follows, that Google has to make provisions to maintain the trust of its advertisers, and for that, it has to ensure that publishers don't cheat, or use fraudulant methods of clicking on ads to glean more money out of advertisers. Such bad clicks might result in the ban of your AdSense account. So what can you do to prevent such a thing from happening, even if you're not creating any mischief on your side?

Unfortunately, this happens to the best of us. You can't always control invalid click activity on your blog. Indeed, there are some bad fish out there who feel jealous or threatened from other blogs, so they perform invalid click activity in spite. In this way, even good publishers might come under the spotlight, let alone bad publishers who get banned outright.

If you were in Google's position, you would see how bad clicks are against the best interests of Advertisers, and ultimately those of Google. Advertisers wouldn't like it if they had to pay extra for clicks that didn't really help them. So Google has some tools that keep bad traffic and bad sites out of their network. Unfortunately, these tools can't tell when you're a good publisher who is just subjected to unknown bad-click activity. So to solve this problem, here are some changes Google is making that you might find helpful.

Trusted publishers

Google will now be considering tenure more actively in response to detected invalid activity. If you are a good publisher, and don't have a notorious history, Google will just suspend your account, instead of terminating it. So you should always try to keep it on the safe side of Google. Also, Google is working on a new system wherein it will work more closely with publishers to ensure that they don't even face the inconvenience of getting their accounts disabled, provided that they are trusted publishers.

Activity reports

Google also will send you emails and notifications in case invalid activity is detected. It will let you know about the type of activity, so that you can get to root of the problem. It will also provide you further instructions on getting rid of the invalid activity. So keep checking your email at a regular basis.

Support

Google is now providing publishers with tools to help them submit appeals. The new forms let them tell Google about their plight in more detail, and provide more information. This would hopefully improve the process of submitting appeals and reconsideration requests to Google.

Google has also launched an expanded AdSense Academy, which will detail beginners and pros alike on the do's and don'ts of AdSense. In addition, Google is starting a video series that will explain AdSense policies, and discuss best practises.

We're really looking forward to seeing these changes being implemented, and we'll keep you updated on the latest happenings in this regard. Stay tuned, and keep reading :)

Top 5 Necessary Expenses for Pro Bloggers

If you are reading this site, you are most certainly a blogger. Since it takes about five minutes to place AdSense, or an AdSense alternative, on your blog, chances are most of you make money blogging. By the loosest definition, that makes you a pro blogger. Of course, not every blogger is, in reality, a pro. It takes a lot more than a menial income stream to declare oneself a professional.

What makes a pro bloggers?

• A pro blogger makes a schedule and sticks to it.
• A pro blogger will emphasize page design over ad space.
• A pro blogger interacts with his or her readers.
• A pro blogger is active in his or her online community.
• A pro blogger understands all facets of blogging, from WordPress to SEO to Google's myriad rules, and more.

It is not easy to become a truly professional blogger. Even then, it is not a title a blogger merely attains. It is one he or she lives every day.

Here's another trait: pro bloggers don't skimp on expenses. The pro blogger makes money and understands that the key to growth is re-investment. This isn't arbitrary reinvestment, but well-planned expenditures that make a difference.
Read more �

Copied Text ending with #sthash in Blogger - Fix

Just recently many readers complained that copying text from BlogSpot and wordpress blogs is resulting with some text ending with a "- See more at:" string followed by the URL of the page or A unique #hashtag is appended to your URL. The same problem was present with our blogs too. Many readers complained that the tutorials are no more working. This problem is occurring due to the latest integration of CopynShare addon of ShareThis plugin in Blogger blogs. If you are using any widget powered by sharethis or using our Floating Share bar then you must be experiencing the same problem. Follow this simple tutorial to disable or uninstall the CopyNshare widget from your wordpress or blogger blog.

What is CopyNshare?

Just like Tynt Publisher tool that tracks social activity on your site, ShareThis team introduced CopyNShare widget using which you can track all the sharing that occurs when a user copies and pastes your website�s URL or content. Blogspot domains copied were ending with #sthash and some random extension like dpbs or dpuf.

• Read: Add Attribution or credit links to content copied from your blog

Uninstall CopyNShare in Blogger

In order to keep using ShareThis sharing counters but deactivate the tracking feature then you must follow these easy steps:

1. Go To Blogger > Template
2. Backup your template
3. Tick the box "Expand widgets templates"
4. Search for the following similar code:

<script type='text/javascript'>stLight.options({publisher: "xxxxxxxxxxx-xx-xxxx"});</script>

or simply find this:

stLight.options

Now replace this entire script with the following code:

<script type='text/javascript'>stLight.options({onhover:false , doNotHash: true, doNotCopy: true, hashAddressBar: false});</script>

 

   5.  Save your template and you are all done!

Now your readers will not see a - see more text added to content copied from your blog.

 

Disable CopyNShare in Wordpress

In wordpress the steps are much easier.

1. Go To Plugins > ShareThis
2. Simply uncheck the option that says "Enable CopyNShare Beta"

For more details on enabling or disabling extra features linked with ShareThis plugin please read: Installing Sharethis on Wordpress

How this works?

In the above script for ShareThis light options I simply inserted some variables which are:

1. doNotHash: true
2. doNotCopy: true
3. hashAddressBar: false

• doNotHash: This variable is set to true so that no attribution link is added to content copied from your blog. If in case in future you would like the tracking feature to work again then simply set it to false.
• doNotCopy: Disables the pasting of "See more: yourURL.com#SThashtag" after a user copies-and-pastes text
• hashAddressBar: This will deactivate the tracking of URL copying.

As simple as that. Let me know if you needed more help. Apologies for the inconvenience caused to all our readers who were finding it difficult to apply our scripts due to this uninvited feature. I am extremely busy these days but I had to publish a fix to this bug in order to make things more comfortable. Peace and blessings buddies :)

Note: I have updated the Floating bar widget and all plugins that needed an update.

10 Important Questions Answered By Google On Paid Links

If you have been around here for some days, you might have noticed that there's a lot of talk going on about paid links on different platforms; social media, forums, etc. Even Google Webmaster Central blog repeatedly covered it, which makes us believe that Google might be working on a new algorithm or an update which will enhance the accuracy of search results more by shunning paid links even further down the drain. Anyhow, in our previous posts, we talked a lot about paid-links - indeed, we made a whole series out of it. So in this post, we won't be going into much detail. Instead, we'll just look at some important questions answered by Google about paid links, and then we'll try rounding up all our posts on paid links.

Paid links series;

Part1: Use Google's Link Disavow Tool to Remove Bad Links

Part2: Google Strict Penalty on Sites That Sell Link To Pass PageRank

Part3: How Google Tells the Difference Between Paid and Normal Links

Part4: 10 Important Questions Answered By Google On Paid Links

Important questions answered by Google

1. Why do paid-links violate Google's guidelines?

Google owns more than 2/3rd of the search game. This points to the fact that most users trust Google's results, since they are more relevant. Paid-links provide websites with an unfair advantage, and help them get higher search positions. This effects the accuracy of search results, something which Google cannot afford, what with such a large user-base.

2. So do paid-links effect other search engines as well?

Of course they do! Just like Google, other search engines also want to maintain their user-base by keeping their accuracy in check. Like Google, they too roll out updates to ensure that such practises are kept at bay.

3. Do paid links impact PageRank of a website?

Without a doubt. A high PR means that Google trusts a website. But paid-links aren't looked upon with favor. They reduce a website's trust ratings, since it is getting unfair advantages. So such practises will undoubtedly impact your trust, and ultimately your PR.

4. How come Google decides what webmasters should do with their sites?

Actually, this isn't a matter of who controls whom. Google isn't controlling what webmasters can and can't do with their websites. Google reserves the right to restrict any site that tries to pass PageRank and manipulate search results. Such sites are against Google's interest, and can be penalized. Webmasters can do whatever they like. But if they want to stay in good favor with Google, they need to abide by the quality guidelines.

5. What to do if your PageRank gets effected?

If you were selling links, and your PR got effected, don't panic. Remove all your paid links, or disavow them. Then, file a reconsideration report so that Google will review your site again. If it still doesn't work, then work on building your PR again. The following posts might help.

• 3 Reasons why your PR is not increasing


• 10 Tips to increase Google AuthorRank to increase Traffic

6. Is Google trying to snuff out other forms of advertising?

Not really. Google isn't against advertising. In fact, it supports various third-party advertising networks. As Matt Cutts pointed out, Google doesn't have a problem with paid-links used for getting targeted traffic. Google just wants you to tell it when a link is an ad (see the answer below).

7. How are paid-links different from paid ads?

Well, for one, ads are usually accompanied with a rel="nofollow" tag, whereas paid-links are dofollow. Also, paid-links attempt to manipulate search results, whereas ads don't. Ads only attempt at raising awareness, increasing traffic, reaching out to more people, and so on.

8. How does Google know when a link is paid or not?

We discussed this at some length in our previous post (Part 3 of this series), so I will just brush over this topic. Google tells them apart through keywords and relevancy. Paid-links usually aren't relevant to the content they're linked to or from.

9. Reporting paid-links

If you think a website is selling or buying paid links, you can report it to Google. Check out this Google Webmaster Central blog's entry on reporting links to Google. Google will review your report, and take due action. This feedback also helps Google improve its algorithm.

10. Where to go for more information?

If you need to know more, you can always join the Webmaster Help Group, and ask questions there. Additionally, you can check out some more information as discussed by Matt Cutts on his site. If you still have confusions, you can directly ask us for help in the comments below. We'd be glad to help. Cheers :)

How Google Tells the Difference Between Paid and Normal Links

So we have been talking in some length regarding paid links, and why they are bad for you. The whole purpose of this exercise is to highlight the fact that things are changing in the online game. While they are not paradigm changes as yet, there does seem to be a change coming in the way people think about the internet, which in-turn effects how search engines think, or rather, act. Getting a boost in SERPs through paid links that pass PageRank is a thing of the past - I assume you all know that much. But how can you avoid using paid or chap links? And how does Google actually tell the different between paid links and actual links?

Before you read any further, you might be interested to know that this post is part of a series. So if you missed out on any post, here's a listing of this series.

Part1: Use Google's Link Disavow Tool to Remove Bad Links

Part2: Google Strict Penalty on Sites That Sell Link To Pass PageRank

Part3: How Google Tells the Difference Between Paid and Normal Links

As indicated by Google, if you have a high PageRank, say 4 or above, you might be getting emails from various companies asking you to give them a link-back in exchange for money, or paid links, if you will. Tempting as it might be, such links can do you more harm than good. Google is strictly against this practise as we mentioned in our previous post, and you must not fall for such offers.

Why ads are okay, but paid links aren't?

Some of you asked us this question, and I think it's a very genuine question. And with a very simple answer too. You see, the whole concept of paid-links revolves around the idea that some website wants to get an unfair advantage by 'buying' backlinks, and hence increasing its authority. This will in-turn improve its ranking in search results. This is not how Google wants websites to rank, however. Google wants high quality, and the most relevant results returning to its users. And paid links will inevitably impact the accuracy of those search results. So anything that manipulates search results is against Google's quality guidelines and TOS.

Ads, on the other hand, do not manipulate search results. They are used for increasing awareness, improving traffic, and reaching out to more potential customers. They don't have anything to do with search results, which is why they are deemed completely safe by Google, and permissible (except for some type of ads Google doesn't approve of).

How Google tells paid links apart from normal links?

At the back-end, it's mostly a game of keywords. But then again, we don't know what exactly goes on at Google's end, so we can just speculate. But one thing we can be certain of, and that is relevancy. Google will check the relevancy of the site you have linked to the content you have put the link in. Now in most cases, paid-links won't be highly relevant to your blog's content. Google will decide the content on both sides to verify the authenticity of the link. A lot of the times, these paid-link buyers end up automating the process by using robots, which is manifested by the fact that many links might have the same, or similar anchor text, among many other facts. That's a pointer to Google right there.



But what about links you make to other blogs that are not paid? Well, Google has a way of checking that as well. Google will analyze what sort of links are present on the linked website, and what sort of links it is getting. It will also evaluate links on your site to get a feel of the bigger picture. So most likely, your link, if not paid, will pass the scrutiny. We will, however, recommend that you avoid linking to sites not related to your own.



A few people also asked me about guest posting. Well, when you guest post on another blog, or accept others' posts on your own, you usually are accepting content that matches up with your site's keywords. In such situations, putting up links is fine. This is probably why you should mostly guest post about stuff related to your website, and not something random.



If you must link to other websites or content that your own content doesn't really relate to, you can always use the rel="nofollow" tag to identify links you don't want crawlers to follow. And this is basically how ads work. They should be marked with a nofollow tag, otherwise there might still be a bit of a penalty.



Here's something I really want all of you to understand. I don't claim to be a Google expert. I am just sharing my experience. Google, of course, uses advanced algorithms to identify paid-links, and also some other methods known only within Google. All we can do is speculate, because Google has never really told anyone how they do it. If you think some of the above information is wrong, feel free to tell us in the comments below. We'd be glad to correct our mistake. Cheers :)