MSN adCenter's Content Ads Showing Horrible Click Through Rates?

Brent Csutoras published results of his Microsoft ContentAds test by accident. I wasn't able to see all the results because he pulled them after being notified that he is not allowed to share any stats because he is in a private beta. I can tell you that I tested the ads on my personal blog and actually removed them about a week ago, due to the poor results in revenue making.

That being said, what I did see Brent post in his MSN Adcenter’s Publisher Beta vs. Google Adsense, which is now 301 redirecting to the home page. He said that the CTR (click through rate) was a fraction of what he noticed with his Google AdSense ads. I believe it was less than half, but possibly even worse.

Clearly, a publisher program that gets paid out by click and not impression, with a low CTR is not a publisher program that publishers want to participate in. MSN Content Ads is still very new and in very limited beta. I suspect it will do much better in 2009, but it appears they still have a long way to go to earn the trust of publishers and take market share from Google AdSense.

Note, if anyone has a cached copy of the post, please share it with us. :)

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Update: I received a screen capture of the original post and posted over here. You can see that the CTR with Google AdSense was .11%, but with Microsoft Content Ads it was .01% - huge difference and it showed in the earnings.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: New Years 2009

In this week's recap, I wish our readers and viewers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009. Google updated the toolbar PageRank scores, but it seems like the search results both here and internationally were updated also. Live Search is using MSNBOT-Media to crawl JavaScript files. Google got hit with wildcard domain issues. Google Alerts is trigger happy. Google shows a did you mean answer for a child day care service, leading to a porn site. Google's strict image search option shows more porn than the moderate search. Danny Sullivan slaps Microsoft on their search initiatives. Microsoft's Content Ads program is doing poorly. Google AdSense is offending overweight people. Happy 2009 everyone!

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed (note: If YouTube shows a video not found message, just refresh the page and play it again, it is a YouTube bug):

Google Experimenting With Content Ad Formats

According to this release today, sent to Adsense publishers, Google is experimenting with different formats for ads. I think this is good news...

...for advertisers and publishers - anything that calls attention to the ads is helping both.

See the release below, and below that, the detail they reference:

Readers with sharp eyes will notice that on some rare occasions, your ads may appear or act slightly differently than what youre accustomed to. Rest assured that this is normal behavior that results from our efforts to improve the experience for all members of the advertising ecosystem. (You may have noticed a similar post about our search results on the official Google blog.)

One way in which we achieve this is by making continued tweaks and innovations to the user behavior and appearance of our ads. In the past, these experiments have included changes to the font styling, coloring, spacing, and other aesthetic components. More specifically, changes such as redesigned ad units and arrows to show additional ads have stemmed from these tests. The purpose of these tests is to identify changes to our product that can bring long-term benefits to our publishers, your sites visitors, and advertisers.

Before rolling out a change to our ads, we test performance for a limited number of ad impressions, which may not apply to all publishers. Although we dont notify publishers of these specific changes in order to prevent bias, we closely monitor the performance of these tests. We also welcome feedback from publishers, users, and advertisers, so feel free to drop us an email.
A fresh, new look for AdSense ads

You may have noticed that some of your ad units have started to look a little different lately " were happy to announce that, just in time for spring, weve given our standard ad units a fresh makeover. After extensive testing and research, weve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. Were in the process of rolling out this change to all ad units, and you should see that your ad units are automatically updated over the next few days. But, before you rush to make sure all of your ad units still match your site, please be assured that the fonts and colors of your ads wont be changed.

Davaosale: Trading the Dabawenyo way

EVER experienced going from one house to another, or from one office to another, just to offer whatever item you want to sell? Wouldn't it be good if you will be able to sell your wares with just a click?

Davaosale.com brains Hermes Diomela, Mark Wendel dela Cruz, and Valentine Apostol encountered the same trouble back in their college days at the Ateneo de Davao University that prompted them to think of a solution.

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The three are best of friends in college and were all working as student assistants. Being chat addicts, they are not new to the power of the Internet in bringing messages across continents. They first tapped MiRC chat as a venue for them to go into buy-and-sell.

"Pero ang problema namin is madali mawala yung posts namin sa MiRC. Kaya we thought of another way to post our products. We came across the software PHPBB. Ito yung ginamit naming sa pag-create ng gaming website na davaosale.com," Diomela said.

Each of the three invested P700 for them to be able to buy an Internet domain worth P600 and fee for a one-year hosting worth P1,400. Davaosale.com was officially launched on March 15, 2004.

Diomela said they started inviting their chatmates and friends to visit their website, www.davaosale.com, and slowly they gained followers.

One year after their launch, davaosale.com averages at least 5,000 hits per day or 150,000 per month.

Diomela said that from the hits, they are paid by Google for their use of the American company's Adsense software. They receive about P15,000 per month from Google for using Adsense in their website.

Davaosale also earns from the premium membership fees of P500 per year. He said premium members of their website are given the priority to post their products on the website.

Majority of their income are, however, generated from banner ads. They charge monthly fee for the banner ads. Though refusing to divulge how much they averagely earn from the website, Diomela said it is just enough for them to live a decent life.

A visit at the website showed that there are a number of categories for viewers to select to depending on the items they are wanting to buy or sell. The categories range from automobile, agriculture, apartments, beauty and fragrances, books, magazines, cameras, computers and its accessories, clothing, gift items, food and wine, game consoles, health and fitness, jewelries, medical equipments, pets, toys and even human services.

Diomela said the items banned from their website are sex services, drugs, and fake items. He admitted though that some customers were still able to post fake items for sale in their website.

Website moderators are however at hand to address and delete posting of banned items.

Here's the complete list of their prohibited items:
1. Any item that is harmful to minors, obscene or otherwise objectionable.
2. Sales or promotion of certain weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles.
3. Explosive device.
4. Cigarettes.
5. Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
6. Prescription drugs.
7. Unauthorized copies of software, music, video games, photos or other media.
8. Stolen items.
9. Endangered animals.
10. Any items used for hacking.
11. Bodies, body parts, bodily fluids.
12. Fake ID's.
13. Gambling or casino-related content.
14. Any form of prostitution, pornography, adult, or mature content.
15. Items that will aid in theft or violence.
16. Any other content that promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others
17. Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol.
18. Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products.
19. Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
20. Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods.
21. Sale of smuggled goods.

In some instances, there are customers who complain of being victimized by "scammers" who posted their wares at Davaosale.

Diomela said they usually monitor customers who are being complained about and if there is enough ground to the complaints, they are banned from the website.

Diomela, however, clarified that they are in no way involved in the transactions between Davaosale customers, thus they are not liable for anything. A disclaimer posted at their website states such.

Davaosale mostly cater to the 18-27 age brackets and middle-income earners and students.

So what's next for Davaosale? Diomela said they are planning to create another website that would cater to jobseekers and companies looking for workers. He however did not give details since they are still planning it out.

Davaosale is also printing a monthly magazine that they give to their "offline" customers. In the magazine are found the different items that being posted at the website. The magazine is by the way for free.

Diomela said many of their customers give good feedbacks and are thankful that Davaosale helped them find a safer and faster venue to sell their products. All for free, well mostly. Talk about Dabawenyo style of selling. (BOT)

AdSense For Feeds Is Now Available To All Google Publishers

Google Operating System reported they are now seeing the Google AdSense for Feeds option in their AdSense account set up screen. I noted at the Search Engine Roundtable that many folks are buzzing about the new feature at several discussion forums. It appears to me that this beta offering is now open to all, if not most Google AdSense publishers.

In short, Google AdSense for Feeds allows publishers to add AdSense ads within their RSS feed distribution. In fact, Google has been making it easier for those with FeedBurner accounts to easily integrate AdSense for Feeds in their published RSS feeds. The other day, I broke the news at the Search Engine Roundtable that FeedBurner is not accepting new publishers into the FeedBurner Ad Network. A few days after that, Google pushes out the AdSense for Feeds to virtually all AdSense publishers.

Google Rolls Out Adsense for Feeds

Some blog sites are reporting that Google has added the Adsense for feeds option in their Adsense accounts’ Setup menu. Checking out my Adsense account validated these reports. Right after the Adsense for Content and Adsense for Search options in the Adsense Setup menu is a new option labeled “Adsense for Feeds”. Google says it allows users to place relevant ads in feeds Google manages for them.

With the lack of official announcement yet from the Inside Adsense blog, I log-in to my Adsense account and saw the new option to create Adsense for blog feeds. Why you choose this option the Adsense account manager brings you to Adsense for feeds set-up screen. (Note: You are allowed only to set up one Adsense for Feeds ad unit) Once you’ve used up your single option, clicking on the link to Adsense for Feeds will just bring you to a blank page.

After this, you’ll be prompted to specify your blog’s url or feed url. Once you’ve done this you can start customizing your Adsense for Feed unit. However, if Google could not find a valid feed in you site, it will ask you to verify your Adsense for Feeds ad units and what its verified you can start serving your Adsense units to your blog/site’s RSS feeds.

If the system could not find a valid RSS feeds on your site, you will be asked to generate one right within your site to enable you to serve Google adsense units .

This is a welcome development for those Adsense publishers who are still earning a lot of money from their blog/sites Adsense units. While those who don’t want to go throuh the process of verifying their blog/sites will be asked to create their blog/sites’ Adsense units for Feed.

As for me, I might give this new Adsense feature a try.

If this is AdSense for RSS, Color Me Skeptical