Google AdSense is a great way to generate phenomenal revenue from the traffic on your website. Publishers that run websites of all sizes are making a significant amount of money with this program. AdSense displays easy-to-read, text-based, discreet and relevant ads that don’t overshadow the content of your website. When the visitors of your website click on any of these ads, you get paid.

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense™ is an advertising program for website publishers enabling them to serve ads precisely targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages – and get paid for clicks on these ads. Publishers apply online and, once approved by Google for participation, have instant access to Google’s network of search advertisers – comprising more than 100,000 businesses, ranging from large global brands to small and local companies. Google AdSense also offers premium service for publishers with more than 20 million page views per month.

Based on CPC model AdSense allows you to serve text-based Google AdWords on your website and receive a share of the pay-per-click payment. AdSense ads are similar to the AdWords ads you see on the right-hand side at Google when you perform a search there. Google AdSense is a sophisticated system that allows its customers to effectively target only those readers who are researching for the products or services that the company specializes. Hence, if you are selling books, your ads will be seen by a reader searching for used books. Instead of spending money to hire an additional sales rep to sell ad banners to the correct target audience, Google ads have become a virtual sales tool for most businesses that use it.

Basic explanation of how it works

When you apply for the Google AdSense program, Google provides you with an HTML code which you can display on your website as a Google Ad. You can display this code on multiple pages on your website. Google will then show your visitors ads that are relevant to the content of each page. Google employs various sophisticated algorithms that do a variety of keyword analysis, keyword frequency, link analysis and so on to match Google ads to the content of each page.

Advantages of Google AdSense

Google does not believe in flashy ads. Simplicity is a key concept at Google and hence the ads been displayed are also simple, text based ads which are easy to read and without any unnecessary clutter. Text ads are also proven to have higher clickthrough rates than most flashy banner ads.

How to make sure that you get accepted into Google AdSense

You have to make sure that your site complies with all the terms and conditions mentioned in the Google AdSense policies. Following are the important points that need to be considered while dealing with Google AdSense:

• You must put the ad code in the exact format as given by Google on your website. You are not permitted to make any changes to the code.
• You cannot put multiple ads on one page, only one ad unit per page is allowed. Also, make sure that you do not display ads on any pop-ups, pop-unders, error, registration, or "thank you" pages, or in any email.
• Only registered AdSense members are allowed to display these ads. Any third party should not display such ads using any illicit software.
• Google Ads are not allowed to be displayed alongside ads that are content-targeted or text-based ads which are similar to Google Ads. However, Google does allow affiliate links and limited-text links.
• Webmasters are not allowed to display Google Ads alongside webpages showing MP3s, Videos, News Groups, and Image Results as this gives rise to copyright issues. You can, however, display ads on pages that show links to any of the above mentioned categories.
• You should also not display AdSense Ads on the search results page of your website.
• You must not specifically ask the visitors of your site to click on the ads as a part of any gimmick or requirement to enter and browse the contents of your site. The visitors to your site may click on the ads only on their own free will.
• You are strongly cautioned against using any fraudulent method of generating clicks like using softwares, robots, SEO services, automatic clicks, etc.
• Your site should be relevant, fine-tuned for any broken links and should be easy to navigate.
• Your site should not include profanity, illegal drugs/drug usage, terrorism related activities, gambling, pornography, excessive advertising or excessive popups or promote cultural/racial/inter-personal hatred, terrorism, etc.

Once your site is ready and complies with all these conditions, you can go to the Google AdSense homepage, and sign up. You will need to fill out and submit an online form. You will also need to verify the validity of your email address. After that, Google will review your application and send you the decision via email. If you are approved, you will be able to start and use your AdSense account immediately.

Your Google AdSense Account

You can register with Google AdSense with a login and password. Every time you want to access your account, you must use this login and password.

You can view number of reports related to the activities on your AdSense account. You will be able to view reports for a specific day or any date range that you select. You will also see the total number of page impressions, ad clicks, clickthrough rate (CTR), and your total earnings. These reports are generally updated every hour.

You are given a code which is generally in the form of JavaScript which you need to use on your website in the exact same format as it is given to you. Every single time this code is executed, the search engine calculates it as a page view or impression. There are instances when you see discrepancies in impression as shown in your AdSense report and the ones which you record. This is because some browsers are not equipped to run JavaScript, robots from other search engines also prevent it from running, some browsers don’t support the iframe code or sometimes there are programs which are written with a purpose to grab the content of a website which prevents JavaScript from running. Hence, you should not panic if you see such discrepancies.

Your account with Google AdSense allows you to make various changes like editing the placements of ads on your webpage, changing your payment address, customizing the ad formats, and so on. You can also cancel your account with Google AdSense by simply removing the AdSense code from your webpages and website and they will pay your balance in full.

Google AdSense on your Website

Once you are successfully accepted into the Google AdSense program, you will be given an AdSense code which needs to be copied and pasted on your website. This HTML code should be published in its original format and must not be tempered with; otherwise it will be a violation of the codes of conduct. The AdSense code should start running on your website within minutes of copying it on your site. It might take more time if your site is not in the search engine index. It will probably take a couple of hours as that is the time a search engine requires to crawl your site and update it’s index. Till the time it updates its index and starts publishing ads on your website, it will display public service ads on your site. However, you will not make any earnings based on that. You must make sure that your site is technically sound so that the ads are displayed properly on your site.