Google AdSense

[simpo two]

Right, I've been going through pages and pages of stuff and jumping through hoops and I'd just like to check what the is going on.

I have a hobby website which gets fair traffic and I came across this way of getting adverts on it. I jump through the necessary hoops with Google, copy and paste some code into my site and some adverts appear from which I can earn a bit cash. Or do they? Where do the adverts come from? Google can't put them in there; maybe I'm advertising to myself, or maybe I have to go on the road and sell advertising?

In short, experts please, WTF is it?

[slapmatt]

Your explaination pretty much sums it up. You put code on your site (supplied by Google) and Google serves up adverts, via that code, so that they appear on your site. When Jo Public clicks on one of those ads Google pays you money. Easy-peasy!

[simpo two]

slapmatt said:

Your explaination pretty much sums it up. You put code on your site (supplied by Google) and Google serves up adverts, via that code, so that they appear on your site. When Jo Public clicks on one of those ads Google pays you money. Easy-peasy!

Thanks, that's what I thought to start with But are you saying that Google can somehow upload stuff to my site without my knowing, or do they send me a new bit of html for each advert?

How does the advertiser find my site and/or decide to advertise on my site? Does Google suggest it to them in terms of keywords, relevance etc and then the advertiser says 'OK'?

I've been reading about AdWords where you pay on a per-click basis to get an advert on Google itself, but this is the backwards version...

[schueymcfee]

Adsense serves up Adwords advertisements, just like it does on an actual Google page.

But it only serves up Adwords adverts that are relevent to the content of your site.

They do this through Javascript, which pulls random relevent adverts from Google's Adwords database.

None of the advertisers will actually know they're advertising on your site until they see a click through from your site.

[JonRB]

simpo two said:

But are you saying that Google can somehow upload stuff to my site without my knowing

No. You put code on your website that goes and fetches adverts from their server.

It's no different than having a picture on your web page that resides on a different server. The picture isn't uploaded and/or modifies the page, it's just a directive to go and fetch it from the URL at which it resides.

[zaktoo]

OK I have used AdSense for the past while. Shout if you need help. Basically, it's done with javascript and relevant ads for your site are shown from Google's side. I'm quite happy with it, to be honest. It has saved my site from having to disappear - I even had a thread about that a while back, prior to trying AdSense.

[e-mail] if you need to yell.

Ciao

Zak

[simpo two]

schueymcfee said:

None of the advertisers will actually know they're advertising on your site until they see a click through from your site.

Aha, now I see.

Thanks all, I just like to understand what I'm getting into

[Ian_H]

Google have to examine your site as well to make sure it comes up to their 'standards', they have also introduced various other schemes where you can get paid for new sign ups to Adsense, you can add search tools to your site which you can gain income from also if somebody uses the search and then clicks on an add, you can also now get people to actually advertise on your site, this has just been introduced and not quite sure what's involved yet. I have been using it since July 2003 and the payback has been better than any other affiliate scheme or click to pay scheme that I have had so I'm all for it. One other point to note is that you don't get paid until your account reaches $100 and at present you get paid in Dollars which used to be a pain when they would only send cheques but now you can have it paid straight into your UK bank account.


HTH
Cheers
Ian