Adsense is nutty and I'm inexperienced!
Sat, 02/17/2007 - 18:32 | 
I still think Adsense is nutty for placing romantic, political and religious ads on my site because (except for my posts complaining about it) I really can't see why they are picking up these topics.
I just thought that if I kept writing on the subjects I'm interested in that sooner or later Google would pick up some of my topics and start serving ads on the things I'm writing about. Wrong! One question I never asked myself is "what if there are no ads on my topics?"
Okay, I didn't think of the question by myself, I had a little help from Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. His article on Adsense Tips for Bloggers 5 - High Paying Ads was like switching on a lightbulb in my head! I tried his simple way of checking by Googling the word "blog" plus one of the key words I was using in the description of my blog at the top of the page. Result? No ads! So I substituted other words, one at a time until Google returned some results along with some ads.
I'm really excited that I learned something new today that I can immediately put into practice. So no more whining about nutty Adsense serving up the wrong ads (for the moment! haha).
Are there Any Ads? - This is a good first question. Despite the many thousands of advertisers using Adsense there are some topics where the answer to this question is no. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.