Amazon Ends Affiliate Program In Some US States
With the recession, some states are trying to pull in more revenue, and they are now going online to get it. One company Amazon, is handling the proposed sales tax levy by North Carolina by closing their affiliate program from the state.
Per Fox Business, Amazon has closed their affiliate program to residents of North Carolina due to the proposed change in sales tax for affiliate sales. Amazon told their marketing affiliates in the state "that the move was a direct result of North Carolina's push to levy a tax on purchases made through Amazon affiliates."
(Fox Business)
Are there any other states where affiliates may be closed out by Amazon. Consideration is also on the board for California and Hawaii (Rumor or Fact: Hawaii is said to be closed by Amazon).
Will other states follow? Time will tell.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Adsense-Font and Font Size Changes Available
Adsense Changes-Different Font and Font Sizes Now Available
Here's a quick note to a new change that Adsense is now allowing publishers to use.
If you have been wanting to have different font and font sizes for your blog or website, you're in luck. Adsense, after their own initial experimenting, has found that changes in font and font sizes does affect revenue. Thus, you are now allowed to change font and font sizes for your ads within your website or blog.
What's available?
For font sizes you'll be able to choose between: Small, Medium and Large, with font styles of Arial, Times, Verdana.
You will notice that the current default setting for your Google ads are typically set to small, but from a little experimenting they found that medium did perform better than the small. Thus, medium will soon become the new default.
If you are wanting to play around with your ads, you'll need to keep the following information handy:
When creating new ad units you can now choose:
1. the default font size
2. your new account-wide font size
3. Or a separate size
Updating existing ad units
To change existing ad units you will need to visit the "Manage Ads" page under the Adsense Setup tab.
Note: any font size change that you make to an individual ad unit will remain in place EVEN if you change your account-wide default in the future.
Here's a quick note to a new change that Adsense is now allowing publishers to use.
If you have been wanting to have different font and font sizes for your blog or website, you're in luck. Adsense, after their own initial experimenting, has found that changes in font and font sizes does affect revenue. Thus, you are now allowed to change font and font sizes for your ads within your website or blog.
What's available?
For font sizes you'll be able to choose between: Small, Medium and Large, with font styles of Arial, Times, Verdana.
You will notice that the current default setting for your Google ads are typically set to small, but from a little experimenting they found that medium did perform better than the small. Thus, medium will soon become the new default.
If you are wanting to play around with your ads, you'll need to keep the following information handy:
When creating new ad units you can now choose:
1. the default font size
2. your new account-wide font size
3. Or a separate size
Updating existing ad units
To change existing ad units you will need to visit the "Manage Ads" page under the Adsense Setup tab.
Note: any font size change that you make to an individual ad unit will remain in place EVEN if you change your account-wide default in the future.
Friday, June 12, 2009
It Can Happen To AnyOne
Is It Just Another Day Online?
One day Melissa received an email in her inbox. She glanced at the subject line
for a moment, cursed under her breath, "Now what", when she say the subject line that read:
"Please Verify Your Paypal Account".
She read the email thoroughly. Someone was getting into her account, and they would like her to verify her information. She was busy, but she thought that she should take the time to resolve the issue to get her online work done before the weekend. She clicked on the link they provided, and entered her id and password. But.....
When Melissa got into the website, she noticed that some of the items were not populated. No sweat, just refresh. It still didn't work. And when she clicked on the calender to put in the date span-it didn't work.
Frustrated she leaves. But then she remembers something that she had just read about phishing. Her stomach knotted up, as her mind wondered to the "What if possibility". Whenever she got that knot in her stomach, she knew she had to act. She got the link for Paypal from her stored links and contacted Paypal.
To her dismay she had been hit with a phishing scam.
When you have been hit by a phishing scam you should act immediately. Melissa did some things wrong, and some things right. One of the right things she did was to contact Paypal immediately. Why?
They can being to monitor the account, kill any suspicious transactions from the time you contacted them, and change your password and user-id.
Phishing affects credit cards, banking and other financial dealings. To learn more about phishing and the new avenue in which they are utilizing phishing, and most importantly, how you can protect yourself- read my article titled:
Phishing Can Affect Anyone
One day Melissa received an email in her inbox. She glanced at the subject line
for a moment, cursed under her breath, "Now what", when she say the subject line that read:
"Please Verify Your Paypal Account".
She read the email thoroughly. Someone was getting into her account, and they would like her to verify her information. She was busy, but she thought that she should take the time to resolve the issue to get her online work done before the weekend. She clicked on the link they provided, and entered her id and password. But.....
When Melissa got into the website, she noticed that some of the items were not populated. No sweat, just refresh. It still didn't work. And when she clicked on the calender to put in the date span-it didn't work.
Frustrated she leaves. But then she remembers something that she had just read about phishing. Her stomach knotted up, as her mind wondered to the "What if possibility". Whenever she got that knot in her stomach, she knew she had to act. She got the link for Paypal from her stored links and contacted Paypal.
To her dismay she had been hit with a phishing scam.
When you have been hit by a phishing scam you should act immediately. Melissa did some things wrong, and some things right. One of the right things she did was to contact Paypal immediately. Why?
They can being to monitor the account, kill any suspicious transactions from the time you contacted them, and change your password and user-id.
Phishing affects credit cards, banking and other financial dealings. To learn more about phishing and the new avenue in which they are utilizing phishing, and most importantly, how you can protect yourself- read my article titled:
Phishing Can Affect Anyone
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Google Enhancements and Additions
Google Enhancements and Additions
Google is adding new things to their inventory of services. What is it? It looks like Google is moving into social networking and is now offering "Google Friend Connect".
They state that with Friend Connect, your visitors can join your site using credentials they've created with Google, Yahoo, AOL and others and link in the people they know on services like Google Talk, Plaxo, Twitter, and more.
They will offer "gadgets" with features like commenting, ratings and reviews and the social bar to add to your site. How is this added to your site? Just like Adsense, you just need to add a snippet of code to add the feature to your site. To learn more about Google Friend Connect or to get started click here.
Another Adsense Enhancement
Google Adsense is making another enhancement-this time, its with their link units. After you click a link unit topic, an image ad has been added to the bottom of each of these pages. In there testing, it showed revenue improvements for many publishers.
The image ads are contextually targeted, so what you see as the topic of the links you see the same topic with the image ad. What happens if there is no image ads available for the given topic? If no image ad is available you will see text ads instead. Some may be cringing with the thought that if there is no image ad or text ads for the topic they will show the ugly public service ads or a nice big blank space. Adsense says this will never happen.
How does it work for advertisers-they can bid on the image ads on a Cost-Per-Click or a Cost-Per-Impression basis. As you can see, publishers will be able to generate earnings for valid click and impressions. But one item to keep an eye on, in my opinion, between cost-per-impression vs cost-per-click revenue. Will it help you make more or less?
If you're going to try link ads, you may want to generate a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page to see if it is helping your site to generate more revenue with the added image ad.
Google is adding new things to their inventory of services. What is it? It looks like Google is moving into social networking and is now offering "Google Friend Connect".
They state that with Friend Connect, your visitors can join your site using credentials they've created with Google, Yahoo, AOL and others and link in the people they know on services like Google Talk, Plaxo, Twitter, and more.
They will offer "gadgets" with features like commenting, ratings and reviews and the social bar to add to your site. How is this added to your site? Just like Adsense, you just need to add a snippet of code to add the feature to your site. To learn more about Google Friend Connect or to get started click here.
Another Adsense Enhancement
Google Adsense is making another enhancement-this time, its with their link units. After you click a link unit topic, an image ad has been added to the bottom of each of these pages. In there testing, it showed revenue improvements for many publishers.
The image ads are contextually targeted, so what you see as the topic of the links you see the same topic with the image ad. What happens if there is no image ads available for the given topic? If no image ad is available you will see text ads instead. Some may be cringing with the thought that if there is no image ad or text ads for the topic they will show the ugly public service ads or a nice big blank space. Adsense says this will never happen.
How does it work for advertisers-they can bid on the image ads on a Cost-Per-Click or a Cost-Per-Impression basis. As you can see, publishers will be able to generate earnings for valid click and impressions. But one item to keep an eye on, in my opinion, between cost-per-impression vs cost-per-click revenue. Will it help you make more or less?
If you're going to try link ads, you may want to generate a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page to see if it is helping your site to generate more revenue with the added image ad.
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