Web Site Monetization, Online Income, & Internet Marketing
I just went to log into my AdSense account and noticed a new design for the home page. I'd noticed the design a few days ago but it then reverted to the old look. Below is a screenshot.
Interestingly enough, after logging out and going back to the home page, I got the old style page again. I wonder if this page will completely replace the old one soon!
If you've visited this blog on the web (rather than just reading the feed), you may have noticed our new logo, which was revealed today.
The basic logo was initially designed by LowCostLogo.com (Rogue Media). However, the designer was unable to complete the work following a serious car accident.
The design was then amended and completed by Michelle of Design2Go.net, a graphic design studio based in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, England.
Michelle did a great job at a great price. If you're looking for a superb, value-for-money logo, contact Design2Go for a quote (and don't forget to mention MoneyTies!).
A change in the way eBay lists items entered on ebay.co.uk has wrought havoc to many U.K sellers.
Until recently, items listed on ebay.co.uk were automatically returned in product searches on ebay.com (the U.S. site). However, with little notice being given, U.K. products are now only returned on ebay.com if searchers use the advanced search option to include U.K. products.
This has caused a dramatic reduction in sales for many British ebayers who have also had to deal with ludicrous fee increases earlier this year. Some sellers have reported reductions of as much as 90% in sales since the change was introduced in Feburary this year.
eBay has formally apologized to British sellers for the lack of notice. Well, "Thanks eBay . . . for nothing."
Source: BBC.co.uk "eBay 'sorry' over policy change"
Tags: ebay
Bidvertiser recently announced a new pricing structure for its referral program, as follows:
Advertiser Referrals
When one of your referrals registers as an advertiser, you will earn $5 when the advertiser first spends $10. When the advertiser spends $50 you will receive an additional $20.
Publisher Referrals
When your referrals sign up as a publisher, you will earn $10 when the publisher first earns $10. When the publisher earns $50 you will receive an additional $40.
Comment
Thus, advertiser referrals can earn a maximum of $30 whereas publisher referrals can earn a maximum of $50. In addition, this new pricing structure applies to existing referrals for which you haven't already been paid as well as future referrals. This new pricing structure also means that affiliates will start earning money more quickly, which has been an issue with Bidvertiser's affiliate program until now.
Tags: bidvertiser
I've just been away on vacation for 2 weeks and didn't have time to outline last month's most popular posts until now:
As I've wrote on March 22nd, according to the Agloco blog, "the Viewbar release is currently scheduled for between Monday April 2 and Monday, April 16."
Well, it's now April 13th, only one working day away from the magical April 16th. So, will the Viewbar be released on or before Magic Monday? Somehow, I suspect it won't, but I'm sure there'll be a really good excuse . . . I mean, er, "reason."
In fact, surprise! surprise! The latest Agloco blog post tells us that
while the Viewbar is still on track for release this month, making the April 2nd to 16th window is getting more difficult [even though] the Shanghai team has been working seven days a week for quite a while now.It's also interesting to note that the issue that is still outstanding is that of integrating the Viewbar with the ad servers. Isn't that pretty basic to the whole functionality of the Viewbar?
According to the Agloco blog, "the Viewbar release is currently scheduled for between Monday April 2 and Monday, April 16."
So much for the March release that was promised! As I expressed in a previous post on the subject, I had my doubts that a March release would occur and I've been proven right.
Given the promises and the fuss that people have made over Agloco, when (if) it does eventually launch the Viewbar, it had better be one highly successful program or there is going to be a lot of "egg-on-face."
I continue to wait with breath that is even more bated than before!
Related Posts
Agloco's 100 Day Report
Agloco Viewbar Scheduled for a March Release
Agloco: What No-One Seems to be Mentioning About It
Tags: agloco
As you've probably already read elsewhere, Google recently announced a limited beta test of its new Pay-Per-Action ads. This new pricing model will initially only be available to U.S. advertisers and the ads are only going to be shown on AdWords' Content Network, that is, as AdSense ads.
Under the PPA pricing model, publishers will only generate income when a customer completes an action that the advertiser has predefined, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, etc. Each action is assigned a value by the advertiser and part of the price the advertiser pays goes to the AdSense publisher.
As part of this new pricing model, Google is also introducting a new type of advertisement: text link ads. This is in addition to standard text or image ads.
So, what are the pros and cons of this new form of AdSense advertising for you, the AdSense publisher?
Pros
More Control
Google's PPA advertising model has four characteristics that provide greater control and choice for the publisher:
ppaWell, better late than never, the most popular MoneyTies posts in February were:
Several prominent bloggers, such as John Chow, have been discussing the issue of whether affiliate links in blog posts should be marked with (aff) or some other designation.
As you may be aware, with a view to open disclosure, I have generally indicated afiliate links with "(aff)" following the link. However, after reading posts on this topic, I have come to the conclusion that this practice is probably not helpful and could, in fact, confuse readers who are unaware of the meaning of "(aff)". Thus, I have decided not to indicate affiliate links in future but rather to simply state here that any links found on this blog or on the moneyties.net web site may be affiliate links.
Bidvertiser launched their completely redesigned Bidvertiser.com web site today.
This new site, which has been "redesigned from the ground up," certainly looks a lot slicker and more professional than the previous site. However, when I've tried to access it today it's often been extremely slow and unresponsive—in fact, it produced a pretty serious-looking error message the last time I tried to visit the home page and also when trying to log in. Not a great start for a newly launched web site! However, given my prior review of Bidvertiser, I am, sadly, not surprised.
In addition to the new look web site, Bidvertiser has also just launched a blog, "where we'll keep you informed with the new features to come." Let's hope the Blog gets off to a better start!
Tags: bidvertiser
According to an email I received today from Agloco (aff), "[i]t is now 100 days since AGLOCO went public with its pre-launch plan to become the Internet’s first Economic Network."
Is it really only 100 days? Seems a lot longer than that.
However, the thing that really caught my eye in this email was not Agloco's 100 day birthday but rather the statement that the
Viewbar software team (now seven engineers in Shanghai) is making steady progress. - Release of the software will be announced with both an email as well as a notice on the AGLOCO website.Previously, Agloco reported that the Viewbar would be released in March. Now, I know it's still only March 8th but it concerns me that the software team are only "making steady progress." Shouldn't such an eagerly anticipated piece of software that is scheduled to be released within 23 days be at a stage beyond "steady progress?"
The Element Ads (aff) web site has a slick new look and much better looking banners. All in all the site looks quite a bit more professional than previously. However, the problem with truncated ad titles, which I wrote about before, still seems to be there.
However, Element Ads is definitely a reasonable alternative for those unwilling or unable to use AdSense ads or another 1st tier PPC program.
Technorati Tags: 
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may recall I wrote a while ago about problems I was having with AdWords guru Perry Marshall's affiliate program.
Since I wrote about it, I contacted Perry S. Marshall & Associates at the email address listed on perrymarshall.com (info@perrymarshall.com) in order to get their feedback on the issue.
Not surprisingly, I have heard nothing from them. That is a great shame because they used to operate a great affiliate program that was very popular with both affiliates and buyers.
I shall try contacting them once more and if I don't hear from them again, I will have no choice but to drop his affiliate program entirely.
Technorati Tags: perry marshall, affiliates
The screenshot below shows an AdSense ad that I spotted on this blog earlier today.
I just came across a couple of blog posts (this one and this one [update: second blog post was removed by its author]) about how Google is testing a new tabbed ad unit for AdSense.
Now, I may be wrong, I have been plenty of times before, but I don't think this has anything to do with AdSense whatsoever. Rather, these bloggers are confusing an entirely different Google tool with AdSense. That tool is Google Related Links.
Admittedly, they do look a tad like AdSense link units but they are designed to "use the power of Google to automatically bring fresh, dynamic and interesting content links to any website."
What's more, you don't earn anything by having them on your web site, no matter how often those links get clicked on!
Technorati Tags: adsense, google related links
Google has recently announced that they are going to be beta testing CPC site targeted ads. Site targeted AdWords ads are currently the single source of CPM (cost per impression) AdSense ads, whereas most AdSense ads work on a CPC (cost per click) basis.
So, what this means for AdSense publishers is that, in future even fewer ads will earn you anything for impressions alone. However, in my opinion, the chances of an advertiser handpicking your site to advertise on is pretty slim anyway and, as I've discussed previously, very few AdSense publishers ever see a CPM ad on their sites, so in practice this change will have only a minimal effect on AdSense publishers.
Technorati Tags: adwords, adsense
As I mentioned in a previous post about Kontera, I have been having problems implementing Kontera's code in my Blogger.com blogs, which use the new version of Blogger.
I wrote to Kontera about this and, along with a bit of a mixup on their part, they said to contact them again if I continued to have problems implementing their code. I did just that and I finally received a reply from them, which is bad news for New Blogger users and, in my opinion, for Kontera.
Here is the beginning of their reply:
At this time, Kontera is not providing technical support for products like . . . Blogspot . . . but a number of our publishers have written about it and there is a fair amount on the web that can offer you advice as well. (Emphasis mine.)So, even though Blogger ("Blogspot") could potentially carry an enormous user base for Kontera, they do not seem particularly interested in ensuring their advertising program works on it but just fob you off to go find a solution elsewhere on the Web.
According to the Agloco (aff) blog, the infamous Viewbar should be released in March.
The author of the post, Brian Greenwald of the Agloco development team, goes on to say
Obviously, I have two minds when it comes to this. I really want the Viewbar out there. I want Members to start using it. I want advertisers and online merchants using it. And I want to start generating revenue for Members and the company.
On the other hand, I also want more time to get ready for the Viewbar. As a part of the AGLOCO Revenue team, I want to have more time to get more agreements in place so the Viewbar makes more money even at the start.I don't know about you, but I find this whole thing rather worrisome. There are so many reputable people actively promoting Agloco members and yet there is nothing tangible to promote, except a hope that Agloco will live up to its own promotion. I also find Brian's ambivalent prevarications seem to be underpinned by a hint of concern that Agloco doesn't yet have the necessary advertisers to meet the promise of the Viewbar that has thus far been promoted.
The most popular MoneyTies posts in January were:
This Man Makes $600 Per Day From AdSense |
