Public Service Ads

6.12 Public Service Ads

The penalty for not getting your keyword placement and density right isn’t just irrelevant ads. It could also be no ads at all. If Google can’t find any relevant ads to give you, it could use your space to present public service ads, which are very nice but they don’t pay you a penny. You might prefer to earn money and give it to a charity of your choice rather than give space on your site to a cause that Google chooses.

Google lets you get rid of that space by collapsing the ad, tossing in an image or by creating a color block in the same tone as the background color. But that seems like a waste to me. That space can earn you money. If something goes wrong with your contextualization, you want a back-up that brings revenue.

The most obvious solution is to specify an alternate URL in the event that Google has no ads for you. You can do this from your AdSense account. Instead of linking to the Red Cross or whoever it may be, you’ll receive a link to a site that you’ve pre-chosen.

I’ve created my own default set of ads for various block sizes. You can see an example of this at www.worldvillage.com/336x280-1.html

A great replacement for pesky PSAs, right?

Just remember that Google doesn’t like it when publishers use ad units that mimic AdSense ads ON THE SAME PAGE as live AdSense ads. That’s why I only use this format for PSA replacement.

But there are plenty of other options.

For example, you could use this space to deliver image-based ads that come from your server. For offers that pay per action (clicks or signups), I like to use WebSponsors.com. You can signup for a free account and find new ways to monetize your unused ad space.

Probably the best way to turn that wasted space into revenue though is to place a Chitika ad there. I talk about Chitika later in this book, in the chapter about other ad systems. The company has some fantastic looking ad units, and they can be used in conjunction with AdSense.

Having a Chitika ad automatically replace a PSA ad is, I feel, the perfect solution until you manage to sort out the problem with your AdSense unit.

The principle is the same as the AdSense-like ad units I used to use: create a blank page on your site, add your Chitika code and use the URL as your alternate AdSense URL

It’s really very simple and very effective.