New Programs Built - Waiting For Confirmation

Journal: admin RSS

Posted by admin 87 days ago
I have now built an Infolinks revenue sharing program and a Chitika revenue sharing program. I am awaiting confirmation from Infolinks that I am allowed to share revenue, and I am awaiting Chitika's approval of my application.

The reason that I have chosen these two alternatives to AdSense is because they are large enough to sustain a large number of advertisers, they offer clean and unique integrations for our articles, and most of all, they pay via PayPal with low payout requirements.

Although I do not expect Seekyt to recover 100% of the earnings that we are losing from Google, I do expect to recover a significant percentage of that!

If I have learned one important lesson this weekend, and hopefully you have all learned the same lesson, it is that we cannot put all of our eggs in one basket. Don't put all of your articles on one site, and don't earn from only one program.

Even though AdSense may be a top paying website, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that you can earn supplementary income with another program without substituting your earnings with another.

Follow Seekyt.com through this transition and enjoy earning from new programs where your article library is already built. Continue writing and earning, too!

There is a great, AdSense-focused website on the way that will reward those of you who write only the highest-quality content. There is also a secret project which may see the light of day that is aimed at something completely different!

I plan on integrating both familiar ad sizes and unfamiliar ones - perhaps using different ad sizes and formats will lead to higher click through rates and more earnings. Since we don't have to follow AdSense's competitive network rules anymore, we are not forced to compete and place small, practically invisible ads at the bottom of the page anymore.

Finally, I want to admit that Seekyt.com has been focused on trying to be too many things at once. It worked for us for a while, but now it is time for Seekyt to expand into a network of new brands and websites that will be completely unique to what we are used to in terms of quality requirements and writing standards.

Seekyt has been an article writing website for nearly one full year, and we have come a long way in such a short period of time. I have no doubts that if you stick with Seekyt and me, you won't be disappointed in what the future has in store.

81 Comments

Written by mohin, 87 days ago.
It sounds like you got it all planned out Tyler. I think Seekyt will be a great website even without Google Adsense revenue. Also Chitika, Infolink and Amazon will go together nicely. Furthermore I am looking forward to be seeing what you have in store for us all in the future as I believe that you will turn this disadvantage into an advantage.
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
That's exactly right! There are still great things in store for all of us. We just have to stick together through this mess while I get us all back on track.
Written by lperry, 87 days ago.
This sounds really neat, Admin. Earning money from many different sources sounds good. I do worry about making the grade with the new, stricter requirements of the coming website.

I have been writing about products for so long that I need a refresher course on writing authoritative content.

I did go back and read some of the content guidelines that Google has. They say no ads for any gun or tobacco-related stuff. I had found some great keywords for cigarette cases, but now I am not sure if writing about that is a no-no or not.

Either way, I am itching to start writing again! It will be nice to see ads filling up those blank spots again :)
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
1. It is exciting, isn't it?!

2. You'll make the grade - your articles have always been great! And don't worry too much about product oriented articles, because they will always have a place :)
Written by Sgolis, 87 days ago.
Congratulations Tyler ....I am very excited to see what is in store for all of the Seekyt authors and I am anticipating the new website...I hope that I have what it takes to publish there.

.If we all work together and support each other with comments, and sharing on twitter and other websites we will do just fine. Get traffic and hopefully earn from our advertisers. I hope that going forward with Seekyt that there will be some new TOS...that will keep the crap and spam out...the spinning has got to stop because it clearly hurts all of us. Thanks...for your hard work, I for one appreciate it.
Written by Jasmine, 87 days ago.
I have no doubts that we won't be disappointed in what the future has in store for us and Seekyt, either. Hope you'll write something about how we can earn with those new programs, because I haven't got the slightest idea how these programs work. I have to do my own research and change the Seekyt Learning Sources in the "earnings" part. I expect you'll update the FAQ page soon.

I would like to add that I started earning on HP only after they started using their Hubpages Ad Program; AdSense gives me enough to buy a lollypop every month, but the other program gives me regular monthly payments which can buy me a lot more. I'm hoping the scenario will be the same here. Of course we'll stick around!
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
I wonder if it has something to do with your nationality. Many people have the opposite reaction to their program. Maybe since you live abroad, your AdSense account does not credit you for American ads, whereas HubPages' new program is only showing those ads and splitting revenue after the fact.
Written by Jasmine, 87 days ago.
I wonder about that, too. I've read in one of the SEO books I own that if you write or build a website hosted by a provider on a different geographical location, that may have a very negative impact on your SEO efforts. I have to look deeper into that. I don't think it has to do much with ads showing up, but I also think it is more difficult (although not impossible) for me to rank high then for people who do live in America.
Written by landocheese, 87 days ago.
Sounds like interesting changes coming. I'm with you as long as you'll have me. Onward and upward! Diversification is not a bad thing, but it will be different.
Written by Sgolis, 87 days ago.
eHow split the revenue...we had to work hard promoting our content and backlinking. When we commented on articles that article was pushed back to the home page and the commenter and the author had a chance to get more traffic. I earned very well on ehow, enough to pay my mortgage. But like I said I had to treat my articles like their were a business and not publish like factory line, you really need to promote your work. I enjoyed taking time to comment and share other writers work. If we do that here all of our rev share will improve. Like Jasmine I would like to know how this rev share will work, and will we earn % of rev share or will it all be the same? How do our referrals work into the rev share program?
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
With Seekyt the revenue sharing will work exactly the same - 70% for you, 25% for referrals.

I will probably keep this model for other websites because it has worked very well. However, I am open to discussion if anyone has better ideas.
Written by GoingOnline, 87 days ago.
Congrats on the quick change, I am sure Chitika will work well. It's actually not such a crappy program and I get some clicks every month on my other sites, even if it's on less than perfect placements.

If you don't want the AdSense problem to happen again you may want to look into pooling systems ala Squidoo (please, base it on pageviews. Don't make me have to compete on a popularity contest) but I have no idea how complex is that to implement. But at the very least, yours would be the only AdSense account involved, and as such nobody could break the rules without you getting a notification.
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
This is a good idea, but Seekyt won't qualify for that (known as the Google AdSense API) until we have at least 100,000 pageviews per day.

If I ever hit traffic at that level, I'll definitely do it this way - although even this isn't enough to prevent loss, as in the case of Flixya.com whose API account was immediately removed several weeks ago.

Flixya was even one of Google AdSense's case studies about AdSense, and was also one of their prime examples regarding revenue sharing.

Just goes to show you that this is a risky business if not handled properly. I think the best thing to do is heavily moderate content, build the traffic back up, and then hopefully get accepted into the AdSense API as you suggest.
Written by PatriceWalker, 87 days ago.
It's great that you are taking a positive view on this loss of Google Adsense, Tyler. It has definitely been a learning experience. I think sometimes we depend too much on Google for our bread and butter because of its stature on the Internet when there are other options out there. And I'm wondering if Google is cutting off its nose to spite its face by barring websites like Seekyt from Adsense. There are other fish in the sea, and people may start to get tired of Google and start fishing elsewhere.

You've done an incredible job with this site, Tyler, especially given that it has been a one-person operation. Seekyt has grown and will continue to grow to be a top site that provides high-quality content and excellent opportunities for writers to earn. Thanks for your hard work and dedication.
Written by admin, 87 days ago.
Thank you Patrice!
Written by careercounselor, 87 days ago.
Congrats on the new earning programs, I know everything will turn out for the best. Glad to see everyone sticking together through this because it will only make the site stronger.

Google is doing lots of adjustments with its pay per click ad model and they are favoring the big brand companies now, so the little guy has to create communities and look at alternative revenue models to survive in this competitive environment.

Nothing we can't handle. Keep up the good work Tyler. I will support your decisions and look forward to seeing your new plans.
Written by eddiemars, 87 days ago.
I'm in. I know you'll give your best to whatever you come up with Tyler. I liked the eHow model and had begun to earn well there so I know we can be profitable if we stick together. I wish there was something I could do to help. Praying.
Written by sonni57, 87 days ago.
It seems to me that it isn't a bad idea to go with other ways to monetize the site anyway due to how Google now does business. Google has made it clear that they have declared war on what they consider content mills.

I feel like it's only a matter of time before they attack all revenue sharing sites with some sort of excuse like the one they have used here. When forced to implement other ways to make money online besides Adsense it will help writers not to become so dependent on them and not worry every day about what tactics Google will use next.
Written by careercounselor, 87 days ago.
Hey Tyler, I was just on Wizzley and it looks as if they have a partnership with VigLink.

Is it possible for Seekyt to have a similar arrangement?

Also I saw someone mention Skimlinks as another one.
Written by landocheese, 87 days ago.
I just noticed that and signed up on Wizzley. I'm not sure exactly how it will convert but it's interesting.

They are sharing the impressions on VigLink so it would appear you could to the 70/30 thing or whatever you want.

The only thing about it is that it takes effort by writers to create the links, unlike Adsense context-based ads. That will turn off some and excite others.
Written by careercounselor, 87 days ago.
I like the concept, we will have to see how well those links convert into earning potential. Its new to me but I am willing to try it out.
Written by admin, 86 days ago.
Whoa, I never heard of either of those programs. How exciting! I'll look into it :)
Written by MCTallmadge, 87 days ago.
Admin,
Have you received confirmation from Google Adsense that ad serving will not be restored to Seekyt.com?
Written by admin, 86 days ago.
No. I have contacted them multiple times and they only contact me in return with a message saying that they cannot help me via email.

I am 90% confident that they sent their violation notice to a Seekyt member and not to me - it's far more likely that any page on this site is going to display the ads of someone other than myself at any given time. No matter what the violation was, and no matter who received it, I'm still responsible for the loss of AdSense on this site, but I really do wish they would at least tell me what happened.
Written by Sgolis, 87 days ago.
Hey Tyler was there a time frame given for the upload of advertisers and infolinks? I wrote a few articles this evening and edited images for them and would like to publish them as soon as there is some type of ads in place at Seekyt.

Where would I add the image? At the top by intro?

(Hey...you know I am southern right? It is the same as Hi) It is an expression we use a lot.
Written by admin, 86 days ago.
You can add your image anywhere now :) - literally, anywhere you want in the article.

I will roll out the new earnings programs as soon as I get the okay from infolinks. Chitika says they can take up to a week to approve accounts. I hope they get us online sooner, though.

In the meantime, I'll be looking into Skimlinks and Viglink to see if there is a good way to earn with those programs.
Written by Sgolis, 86 days ago.
Okay images anywhere...that is good...about images, Jasmine had mentioned that hubpages had a image sections, maybe it is like the blogs where you have a background to the images, and they look like they are framed in. It looks very nice...would that be an update that you would consider someday, not now, just in the future. A week is along time, hopefully infolinks will be up and running soon, they will visit your website,,,you will see in audience or traffic and then it is usually very quick after that...no longer than 2 days in most cases...

lperry,mentioned an advertiser, she had viewed a video on them, I checked them out and they looked interesting....whatever you choose I am sure that the earnings will be good.
(quote: Written by lperry, 2 days ago.
This page lists 10 good alternatives to Adsense :

http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/adsense_top10/ end quote)
Written by admin, 86 days ago.
I like the idea about adding frames to images. I actually know of a script to do that, so I will consider implementing it.

I have been approved by infolinks, but I don't want to put only my own ads on Seekyt and leave everyone else out in the cold. Although I have built a revenue sharing program for it, I don't know if it will work or not based on some criteria that I need to know. I assume that the Infolinks people are off for the weekend (long weekend including today) and that they will get back to me sometime tomorrow.

I will not choose any advertiser who gets less traffic than Seekyt does - based on their Alexa rank. I think a lot of these programs are scams or elaborate revenue-sharing ad scripts of their own device. I was really interested in the two that Cameron mentioned (Vig and Skim), but I don't think they're a good fit since they are splitting the amount of revenue with you on what essentially amounts to Amazon links. I can't see that possibly earning anyone more than just inserting your own Amazon links at Seekyt and earning 100% of the commission.

There is no way I will pick anything that has a secondary revenue sharing scheme involved with it or requires more than "net 30" terms for writers to get paid.

I found another great program, for example, but the research shows me that the minimum payout is $1,000 and it is net 60 terms, meaning if you earned a thousand in April, you wouldn't get paid until the end of July. That's ridiculous to me, and the only reason I understand why Amazon does that is because people might return products. You can't really return ad clicks.

Anyway, I'll consider the image thing, and I'm hoping to have the programs up ASAP. I just need confirmation from them.

Luckily, since Seekyt didn't really rely that much on direct traffic, we haven't lost very much from this change. I expect the clicks and traffic to be exactly the same as before, or better, once the new ads are in place.
Written by landocheese, 86 days ago.
I know yousaytoo is using Infolinks to share revenue. Hopefully you'll get the answers you need soon.

As for frames around images, I actually dislike the idea quite a bit. When I do use images I like to have creative control to make them look just right in my article and your editor does a fine job with that. I like to decide my own padding, etc. Frames look unnatural and separate from the article sometimes and I don't like it. An article with several pictures starts to get confusing with so many borders in it. Having said that, whatever you decide, you decide, and I'm sure it will be just fine.

I appreciate your stance on ad partners. I think you decide what you want to do and let the chips fall where they may. Personally I don't care if you take Infolinks income for a week while you figure it out. Go ahead. I know you care about the writers here and are working hard to implement a solution as quickly as you can.

I also think that it's hard to predict what writing will come once new partners are in place. In other words, optimizing for Adsense and optimizing for Infolinks or Amazon are two different things. It will end with different content and different authors who love it here. It will take a bit of time to see just what impact that has on new content.
Written by Sgolis, 86 days ago.
I don't know what kind of frames that you have in mind...here is an example of the ones I like, scroll down and look at blog post images:
example of frames around images

Also Jasmine mentioned somewhere about hubpages having a specific area for images....I am not sure what that looks like but she seemed to like it and she has good taste.

Whatever you decide I am okay with....
Written by davestone13, 86 days ago.
I'm getting the sense that the next few weeks will be full of adventure and discovery. Out of frustration is born... hm, something else, and we'll all get to take the ride together.
Written by Jasmine, 86 days ago.
The HubPages text editor is totally something else and a result of investments into the site based on millions of dollars (among other things). The text editor on Seekyt is simple and I doubt such adds on (separate paragraph, text, or photo capsules) could be included. Photo frames may be an option, but the advice regarding the subject coming officially from Google is using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example. There's an official blog page on the subject coming up as the first top result if you type "image placement adsense policy" in the Google search engine.

I don't think this is relevant at the moment, people can still publish content, and the upcoming ads will be served once the new programs are approved. I'm planning to edit Seekyt Resources as soon as we know for sure how things will go. I also checked Chitika's website, but haven't found their program policy for now. We'll see whether image placement will be relevant at all with Chitika.
Written by skeffling, 85 days ago.
Are there any accounts we need to sign up for? I have Chitika from Infobarrel, but not the info links, will that be shared or do we need our own account number?

Thanks.
Written by admin, 85 days ago.
I think you will need your own account. You can sign up now, or wait until I have more information. I am talking right now with Infolinks and their managers to see if I can allow people to sign up to their service using their Seekyt content. This may also allow people to join a little more quickly than usual.

I wish I had more information about Infolinks, but their code is so simple that I have had to get some feedback from them to make sure I'm doing this properly. I don't want to just hack in a revenue sharing program - anything that they can do to help will be better for all of us!

I will make infolinks show up by default on all articles, but I will have the option for you to turn them off on an article-by-article basis once it's released, if you don't like them. Chitika probably won't have that option - instead, it will probably just have layout options as usual
Written by careercounselor, 85 days ago.
I have an account with Chitika and I have earned from it on the Bukisa writing site so far.

I am interested in seeing how Infolinks will pay, from what I have read about them on the internet they pay better than Kontera does.

Also giving us the option to turn them off on articles will be useful, because then it will be easier for me to compare revenue between articles.
Written by landocheese, 85 days ago.
I think you will find very quickly that your articles with Infolinks "on" will earn more, though I really don't know if you will be able to determine that from any report. If passive income is your goal you will want them on. The only reason to turn them off would be if the links interfere with what you are trying to accomplish in your article IMO. For example, you want to avoid the "noise" because you really want a different link or two to stand out in the article.

You will also notice that using relevant words matters. Where keywords and phrases matter for search and Adsense, single words can really make a difference in Infolinks, since they will choose words to link automatically. Good words = good links/ads.
Written by careercounselor, 85 days ago.
Also I was wondering, when I started writing on Seekyt last year it was around the time that Amazon discontinued its affiliates for California but now that is all straightened out I have been wanting to use my Amazon affiliate links in my articles.

The only issue I see is that the Amazon modules here on Seekyt are really small and miniscule, so I would need to hyperlink words in my article that link back to related Amazon products and that could create problems with infolinks turned on.

What do you think?
Written by admin, 84 days ago.
You are right - there is a significant reduction in the click through rate in the ads - it's something that shocked me too at first. However, the conversion rate (number of people who actually buy something) is up by almost infinite percent, because I think in the four months I used Embed.ly to render the one large ad, I made $1.00 off of Amazon with hundreds of clicks per day. Now I seem to convert 3-5% of all clicks to actual sales.

My opinion is that people see the Amazon ads and only click on them if they think they might want to buy. The embed.ly ads were prettier but may have been a bit misleading to visitors.

The main problem with Embed.ly is that they wanted to charge me to use their service, which came out of nowhere when they were a free brand for such a long time. I didn't make enough money with their program to justify using the ad.

If Amazon had a similar ad available I would use it elsewhere in the article.

The main drawback about the new ads is that it might require a hundred clicks on your ads to actually see some sales, but as you build up that traffic, it significantly pays off. I think that I read something by another Seekyt member who was also reporting around 5% conversion rate.

If Amazon paid us the way AdSense does (per click) I would be upset about it too. Trust me!
Written by admin, 84 days ago.
I don't think that infolinks will interfere with Amazon links very much. Seekyt averages a 3% conversion rate on the Amazon product ad at the bottom of articles, so it seems to do the job quite well in my personal opinion. If you want to add your own links, you can easily do so in a way that doesn't interfere with Infolinks by hyperlinking it in an honest way, like "Click here to purchase ____ on Amazon." I've actually found that links formatted like this convert much better than just highlighting the product name.

Also, I have something in store that will put Seekyt's Amazon features to shame. If you are really excited about writing product reviews and earning with Amazon, I have something coming soon that will make you happy.
Written by landocheese, 84 days ago.
Good. I like to be happy.

I have seen a reduction in click-through to Amazon since we changed form the single large Amazon module to the multiple product small modules. Significant. Maybe I'm alone on that but a solution that solves that is one I am very much in favor of.
Written by careercounselor, 84 days ago.
Okay, sounds good to me, just let me know when the new revenue streams go live.

I am mostly an information writer and have been learning how to write for products, which is more difficult for me unless I have actually used the product then I could draw on my personal experiences.

Since I like to research topics, information writing is easier for me to do which I think will compliment Chitika and Infolinks really well.
Written by skeffling, 85 days ago.
Thanks, I can wait then. It sounds like it may be faster to go your route anyway if they agree. I'd probably apply and then have it take a longer time on my own. I do have a chicken domain of my own so have my own content but I can go through your affiliate link too if they have one once it is decided.
Written by landocheese, 85 days ago.
You will probably want to add it to your blog. They actually have a few options; in-page links, tag clouds, and a search related window that shows up on the bottom of your screen. When you are a member you can use any or all of them on your blog, so you could not use text links but include the tag cloud, for example, if you want to keep the text clean.
Written by Ddraig, 85 days ago.
Any sign of us getting any ads on anytime soon? I know I am impetuously impatient, it is just my nature.
Written by admin, 84 days ago.
I am working with Infolinks.com to set something up for Seekyt writers. This goes beyond just hacking in their code with different Publisher IDs, and it's taking them a little bit to get back to me.

I just received an email this morning which said the sales manager should be in touch with me shortly to finish up the process of getting Seekyt online. It could be as soon as today or tomorrow.

I'm impatient too! I know we are all losing money here - me included and somewhat significantly - so just bear with me for right now. As soon as I get the reply, I'll have ads online within minutes. In the meantime, I suggest getting in an application to Chitika or Infolinks if you don't have accounts yet.

On a positive note, our search engine traffic has increased the last couple days to levels it's never been at, so we'll have that to look forward to once we get ads back online :)
Written by Ddraig, 84 days ago.
Your reply was all I was looking for, a quick catch up with how things were going.
Believe me I have been writing a year properly and am only just wising up, I only make around £30 a month with Google from everywhere, so I am not exactly bleeding money loss.
I am with Chitika and tried to add my site to Infolinks, so am registered but have no sites with them. You have to add each site on merit, so I don't know if I would have to wait until you have an Infolinks program or if I applied to them with my profile account from here.
Good news with the traffic and the fact that you are almost there with the ads. Hope to be able to write on the new site soon.x
Written by davestone13, 84 days ago.
Maybe I was looking in the wrong place, but when I checked signing on with infolinks, they were asking for $5 a day from me. I ca't believe that's what they have in mind for Seekyt; so, once you get there, please put together some clear instructions for both Chitika and Infolinks.

Thanks.
Written by admin, 84 days ago.
If I'm not mistaken, Infolinks requires a minimum of $5 per day to Advertise with their program, but it's absolutely free for publishers to earn with their program.

But, yes, you are correct - they require $5 per day to start advertising your site on other websites in their publisher network. We are more concerned with joining their publisher network, so this doesn't apply to us.
Written by PatriceWalker, 84 days ago.
I think I'll wait until you get InfoLinks up and running before signing up. I'd also like clear instructions for a seamless connection to Seekyt.

Btw, I just took Google Adsense off my crochet blog. The ads were starting to not be relevant to the content. It may be because my posting has been rather infrequent for the past month. But even when I was posting frequently, I wasn't making much. What I'd really like is some blog sponsors but I don't think I have enough traffic yet for that.
Written by admin, 84 days ago.
If you do find a good sponsor, let me know! I have applied to buysellads a few times and I have been rejected each time. I'm not sure if it's because Seekyt is not social networking app/blog, or if they are getting different traffic data than what I get.

Either way, keep me informed if you find a good source of revenue outside of AdSense! I know it can be exhausting when you are faced with the dilemma of needing a million impressions per month to make a decent living. Just hang in there!
Written by Sgolis, 84 days ago.
PatriceWalker...in regard to the Google adsnse not being relevant. I had the same problem and found after investigating that Google was following me all over and then showing ads according to what I searched for...I need to stop the personal following...now my ads are relevant again. Not sure if this info will help you, but thought I should share.
Written by PatriceWalker, 84 days ago.
Yes, it's helpful Susan. Thanks. I turned off the follow thing (or at least I think I did) a week or so ago. I also had ads above the fold which I understand is a no-no now. I think I'm going to keep them off for a while though or consider another placement. They look kinda tacky.
Written by davestone13, 84 days ago.
Kinda what I figured, but I didn't see another option. If you can, please give us the correct link when you're ready to fly. I am eager to fill that revenue hole.

Thanks.
Written by careercounselor, 84 days ago.
Ha Ha, LOL :>

davestone13, interesting use of words!!
Written by lperry, 84 days ago.
I don't quite understand about Google Adsense ads above the fold.Are they being banned? Info Barrel, Bukisa, Xomba and Wizzley all have them at the top.
Where does Google want them to be?

I just made another free blogger blog and the ads on the side bar show above the fold. I am just wondering...
Written by landocheese, 84 days ago.
No. Just don't overdo it. If you look at your site and see all ads before you scroll down watch out. An ad or two in view should be fine. Of course, the exact rules will never be known.
Written by admin, 83 days ago.
Actually, from my point of view, this does affect your potential with the website because I did begin to notice a change even here at Seekyt.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

Websites who have a large header, and who use sidebars and perhaps have one large rectangle ad above the fold aren't offering much content at that point.

Here is an article written about the page layout update which only has two sentences or so above the fold on a smaller resolution monitor:

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2012/01/google-penalizes-above-fold-ad-heavy-sites/

This is what gets me about this update - AdSense tells us that if we want to make money with their program, our ads need to be above the fold as much as possible. That is the absolute truth, because I've learned from personal experience at Seekyt that ads below the fold don't even earn 10% of what the ads above the fold do.

So, in essence, if you want to make money, put your ads above the fold. AdSense also says to increase your earnings, you need to increase your traffic.

Google is penalizing sites with ads above the fold - very much so - and there are discussions on internet forums about this algorithm. No one has seen a return in traffic after making the required changes, hinting that it will take an entire reindex of the pages for Google to make the determination.

So, put ads above the fold, you lose traffic and money. Put ads below the fold, you don't lose traffic but you lose money from the prime ad positions. It's a lose lose situation, and Google is being quite vague about what is a violation and what isn't, because even sites like Seekyt, without a sidebar and with entire paragraphs of content above the fold, lost a somewhat significant amount of SE traffic from this update - somewhere in the vicinity of 10-15% of SE traffic.

I personally believe that Google may be trying to slow down their revenue streams a bit to test something else out, and I also think they may be diversifying their income streams in the near future.
Written by landocheese, 83 days ago.
Yeah, other revenue stream = Google tablet and dominance of the tablet market with dominance of search and ads. Just a guess of course.

I agree with your assessment. Take ads below the fold = lose money and keep traffic (or maybe increase). Show too many ads above the fold and get slapped for 5 months.

I think there is a middle ground from what I read, though as I stated exact truth will never be known. The middle ground is show an ad or two (not huge banners) above the fold and make sure content lives above the fold too. If done correctly you get 1 or 2 key ads above the fold and you stay in good graces. Mess it up and "slap".

I advise anyone with blogs to review your pages right now to see what you see when you land on the page. If you can't read content, beware.
Written by Sgolis, 83 days ago.
I had adds above the fold on my blogs...it hurt me real bad. Google did not tell me what I was doing wrong. I had the banner which was okay with Google for a long time.

I never lost my adsense, however ads were not relevant and my ranking on SEO was dropped. It took me3 months to clean up my blogs where amazon widgets were removed, Amazon products on posts gone and when my blogs were cleaned Google seemed to reinstate me very quick. However the damage was done...and it has been 4 months and my blogs are just now almost back to normal. I also had to remove all backlinks to other related content such as: View more related content by author...with 2 titles to other content...it was spam in Google's eyes.
Written by skeffling, 83 days ago.
Well their customer service is atrocious (or non existent) so either they should fix that first, or move on. I do not trust them as far as I could throw them, never have. I am not averse to having many other income streams. They can take someones hard work and livelihood in a single swipe. If it takes Amazon and Chitika to be some of those other streams, I am fine with that.

Conflicting messages on the above the fold content is fair? Cake and eat it too anyone? They just have to be seen to give the user a good experience that's all, it's all PR.

I am also finding I have more traffic than I've ever had on here as well, I had a huge spike last Thursday, thanks to my squidoo Seekyt article. By continuing to publish, the articles stay on the front page way longer too.
Written by Sgolis, 83 days ago.
Admin....are you still considering the zazzle module? Referral earnings are 15% when product is sold and that does add up quickly. I have done very well on zazzle in a short period of time. You need not have a gallery to have a lucrative referral business plus a really nice bonus system for sales that exceed certain levels.
Written by admin, 83 days ago.
I will have an announcement for this soon.
Written by jcmayer, 83 days ago.
My interpretation of the 'above the fold' algo tweak is different than what I'm reading here. From what I understand, the penalty is not so much about having ads above the fold as it is having TOO MANY ads above the fold with little content.

From what I understand, it's not that you cannot have them there without fear of penalty, but you must have substantial content above the fold. I assume this was designed from the many sites I've seen in the past where you open the page and see nothing but ads until you scroll down to find the content.

If you aren't going to have any ads above the fold at all, you can expect virtually nothing in terms of revenue. Most ad clickers don't actually read much of the content at all - they often find the info, at a glance, isn't what they expected and click a relevant ad in hopes of finding what they want.

I only scanned the responses, but if the thought is to remove all ads above the fold, I guarantee very few writers will see any return on their articles.
Written by PatriceWalker, 83 days ago.
Thanks jcmayer. That makes sense to me.

How about a skyscraper column that sits above the fold in the left column and displays several ads one after the other, with ample content to the right?
Written by landocheese, 83 days ago.
Just my opinion but this would be perfectly acceptable from everything I read. As long as content is also above the fold the current thought is you have done well.
Written by PatriceWalker, 83 days ago.
I tried using the Browser size tool that Tyler provided a link for with my blog. I realize I have a pretty big header, but the blog relies on good images to convey the content. Now I'm wondering if I should go for another WP theme that has a smaller sized header. Sigh.

Not sure what to do at this point.

Thanks landocheese for your input!
Written by landocheese, 83 days ago.
That's a tough one. I have significantly reduced or removed large images and sliders at the top of my various sites in the past 30 days to get more words of content above the fold. To be honest I'm happier with them now and my CTR went up but I did rethink options for popular posts, etc. along the side to direct more people around.

Of course, a slider linking to content may be considered content so maybe it's no problem. Hmmm.

I realize if your site is dependent on art up top you wouldn't want to take it out. For me it was acceptable.
Written by landocheese, 83 days ago.
Agreed. That's what I meant by middle ground. I doubt G wants to sell ads that only appear on the bottom of web pages, but they also don't want web pages with a clump of ads on top that scares away readers instantly.

Make sure content is visible and consumable starting above the fold and, once you do that, include ads up there as well. If ads push content below the fold you are headed for trouble.
Written by admin, 82 days ago.
Good points! It's difficult to really know what qualifies as the "Fold" universally amongst monitor resolutions, and it's difficult to guess how much content counts as "enough content" in my opinion - this is where a lot of the confusion comes from on my end.
Written by Sgolis, 82 days ago.
I read so many blogs on the removal of content above the fold that I removed everything, even the letterboard ads that Google was okay with for years...My earnings stopped. Last week I added the letter board above my pages, a medium rectangular at the bottom of whatever post is viewed and one on the sidebar...immediately I started to earn...thing is one cannot be sure what Google wants, but I am certain that they want the advertisers to get traffic and for all of us to earn something. My personal goal is to keep my blogs clean looking.
Written by landocheese, 82 days ago.
I took a good look at a few and made my headers shorter to save 100px. That rose my content up enough to get into the next zone on the browser size tool which I think was good, not only for G but for capturing the interest of a reader.

I think a lot of sites are wasting space above the fold on a title and dead space that they could put to better use.
Written by Sgolis, 82 days ago.
Admin: any word from infolinks????
Written by admin, 82 days ago.
Nope, not yet. I guess I'll send them an email on Monday if I don't hear from them sooner than that.
Written by davestone13, 81 days ago.
Are you going to put a space in to add an infolinks account #? All I see now is Chitika, which will take longer to get in place.
Written by admin, 81 days ago.
As soon as I get an okay from them to do so. I have been working with them, but a couple of people have tried asking their Infolinks account manager how to add Infolinks to Seekyt and have received notices that they don't own the domain and they cannot do that.

I am probably going to have to talk to them again on Monday and see if they are ever going to reply to my request. If I don't hear something soon, I'll just put up a generic code which will earn for the default WSID on your Infolinks account (the website you signed up with, or "0" to be precise).
Written by Sgolis, 81 days ago.
,( I'll just put up a generic code which will earn for the default WSID on your Infolinks account (the website you signed up with, or "0" to be precise).

What are you going to do???? In terms that I can understand please. :)
Written by admin, 81 days ago.
The regular Infolinks code (the part you would paste into your own HTML on your own website) looks like this, surrounded with script tags:

var infolink_pid = 12345;
var infolink_wsid = 0;


The PID is your publisher ID - just like your AdSense pub id. The WSID is your website ID. The website you use to sign up with their service has a value of 0 - it is your default website.

The WSID is the thing I am concerned about and working with Infolinks to figure out. I'm hoping that, perhaps, I might be able to set up a unique value specifically for Seekyt.com that any Seekyt writer could use. If I don't hear back from them soon enough, I will just leave the WSID 0 and anyone who wants to use Infolinks can do so and just have the impressions sent to their default Infolinks account.

I am hopeful that they will work with me. Although members here are not the owners of this domain, they do own their own content, and that is the stipulation I'm hoping Infolinks will help me work around so that we can set up a unique integration and referral process using Seekyt.com
Written by Sgolis, 81 days ago.
Okay I understand and think that it sounds good. I hope that they work with you too.
Written by Sgolis, 81 days ago.
About the new website....will we be able to move, with your approval of course, our existing content from Seekyt so that it can get adsense to new website? I realize that some of my content would not make the cut....but other content here will not earn well.
Written by admin, 81 days ago.
With approval, yes! I won't allow people to move their entire library, but a few articles here and there would be fine. However, because of AdSense's policies I won't be able to set up a redirect from Seekyt to the new site without jeopardizing that AdSense account.

This means that if you have already built a lot of traffic or backlinks to the article, it might not be a good idea to move it unless you don't mind parting with that traffic.
Written by Sgolis, 81 days ago.
Yes I understand that all backlinks and such would need to be broken...but I think Seekyt does well with product reviews...and content that is geared for lifestyle, celeb and homemaker...I would be interested to know the age and who our audience it. I bet it is a she age 20 to 30 with some college and a homemaker.....just guessing.
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