Adwords and Adsense - Am I going Crazy - Can This Be True ?

7 replies
  • SEO
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Okay, I have been building adsense sites for a long time and I make decent money with it. But, I always believed and was even told by Google once that paid traffic to an adsense site is against adsense TOS.

BUT ....

I just read something from the adsense support area that literally says you can use adwords ads and send traffic to an adsense site if the landing page meets with their guidelines.

Possibly, I read this wrong ... please see ...Comply with the following rules while using online advertising to promote your site:

Site optimization: best practices to increase traffic - AdSense Help


However, google ads costs lots of money per click, so arbitrage working with adwards would likely be a losing deal, BUT, if they permit adwords, shouldn't they also allow Yahoo and MSN paid traffic ???

Anyone tried this ? Any comments ?

Thanks.
#adsense #adwords #crazy #true
  • Profile picture of the author Lucid
    There are degrees of how one uses Adsense. There's those who have a page of just ads and hoping the visitor will click on them to make a few cents. Whether you use Adwords or not to drive traffic to such a page is irrelevant, Google sees it as a poor quality page. It doesn't pass their TOS nor is it likely to get high natural rankings.

    At the other end of the spectrum are those using Adsense properly. Not too many ads, discrete and clearly not the intent of the owner to have visitors click them with plenty of useful content surrounding the ads (as opposed to a bunch of ads surrounding the content). It is acceptable to use Adwords for such a page.

    Arbitrage doesn't work if you do the math and think logically about it. Well, it helps to understand how Adwords/Adsense works. But how can you make more money with clicks than the money you spend on the same keywords. Arbitragers think they can but they always seem to assume 100% of visitors will click the ads and that they'll make more money from those clicks. Google doesn't give it all to you for one thing and prices are different between the search and content networks.

    Google can't control and doesn't care about paid traffic from other sources. They are looking after THEIR brand. They don't want their users (searchers) to click on ads in Google and get complaints of having landed on poor sites as a result. You still wouldn't get ahead anyway by doing this. And think about your own brand, assuming you want and care your visitors to come back to your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      I assume you don't read all what google publishes. Each and
      every time I see someone misquote google, I call
      them out. Google has never said that paid traffic to
      adsense sites is against TOS. Never. In fact, they
      have published case studies on how to do it.

      Why do you think google sends adsense users free coupons
      for adwords all the time? In fact, just got an email from
      google:

      "Hello from Google!
      As an AdSense publisher, you know how important it is to grow your audience. That's why I'm writing: to suggest a way to attract new readers for your content. Your current readers likely know and search for you by name (e.g. "Brett's Blog") and, as a result, your website shows up in their search results. But prospective readers tend to search by general topic, with terms like "real estate" or "knitting" or "golf blog," in which case your site may be more difficult to find. Here's the good news: You can help prospective users find you with ads on Google and win more loyal readers for your site.

      Getting started is easy. You can set your own budget and your own price for ads. To redeem your free advertising, just go to XXXXXXX Let Google AdWords bring you more traffic. before September 30, set up an account and use the special code printed on your gift card.

      Will you give ads on Google a try? I think it you'll find they're a great way to attract new readers.

      Just use the code below and set up your AdWords account before September 30, 2012."
      $100 adwords code included!

      People never quote google fully when talking about paid traffic and links.
      Google's empire is based on paid traffic and links. Why on earth would
      they be against such practices?

      When you quote google, you need to quote google all the way, not
      half of a sentence or paragraph.

      What are are referring to, is out of context. Using adwords for
      an adsense site and using adwords "arbitrage" are two different things.

      There are sites that do very well using adwords and adsense.

      If you are spinning your site on adwords solely for an adsense click,
      you are sadly mistaken about what google is referring to.

      When you actually read what google publishes, it can be quite
      enlightening. The mere fact that people show up here, even long
      term members, and still don't know or have read adsense TOS.

      Shame on anyone who does not do that and uses adsense.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author keblack
    Thanks for the info. I bought a course about a year ago and I think it was called Adsense Millionaire. Anyway, he had adsense sites where the home page/landing page was kind of hard to read and had links to an inner page where people would find more info on what the paid ad said - he was talking mostly about airline flights.

    Anyway, he claimed to be making over 1 million a year with adsense, by sending paid traffic from Yahoo seach to his sites. The home page did not have adsense on it, but all other pages at the site did have adsense ads. It was hard to believe and not even sure it was really true.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I've been with Adsense for about 6 years, I have a stack of Adwords coupons on my desk (snail mail) & 4 more Adwords coupon codes in my gmail, begging for me to sign up.

    IMO the only possible way you can come out ahead is by selling your own product. If your strictly trying to monetize Adsense with Adwords, you'll lose your a$$. The reason you'll lose your a$$ is simple, Adsense isn't a fixed priced product, the Adsense income fluctuates as fast as the PPC cost.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Google will usually close abitrage accounts - it's not worth the risk.

    I thought about advertising my AdSense sites on low bid networks like Bidvertiser/Kontera but I guess G would spot the low quality traffic going to their AdSense advertisers and shut me down.
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  • Profile picture of the author iwizard
    Interesting thread. I find a website that does exactly like this. First page (home page) without ads and many links to inner page. Inner page has the ads. He's driving traffic from adwords. I know because I clicked the ads and browse the website and in confuse because he has an adsense but driving traffic from adwords. His website never got banned from adsense.. I know this because I'm following the ads and his website for a few months now. It's a risky game though.
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  • Profile picture of the author jrod24
    Using Adwords to advertise adSense pages may not work well... have you tried advertising using Bing? It's much cheaper than adwords, and you still get to enjoy the benefit of the high paying adSense... just throwing it out there.
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