Why wait ONE month for your Google AdSense Checks? ONE DAY Cukup!

When i first received an email from Inside Adsense about the new payment method via Western Union from Google Adsense, I was rather in doubt!! So far all the adsense checks that I received have just been dumped into the closest Maybank Check Deposit Machine.

And yes... for those of you who have been doing a similiar thing, the flow of events happened like this

• 25 Sep : Google Adsense issues check
• 8 Oct : We receive the Adsense Check in Malaysia via mail
• 9 Oct : Drop the Check in Maybank Check Deposit Machine
• 6 Nov : The USD is converted into Ringgit and deposited into my account

Yeah it normally takes more than one and half months to get our money processed and converted from USD to Ringgit!! That is way tooooo long!!

So when i read that we now have a chance to speed up the entire exchange and conversion process, wah liau... i changed the payment type immediately from check to western union!!

Today, was the first time that we used the Western Union payment from Google Adsense. It was so simple. Unbelivable!!

• 25 Oct : Google Adsense Payment is paid
• The next day ... just drop to one of our local Malaysian bank that has Western Union and just fill up the Bank's Western Union form and you will get your money immediately.

I actually forgot that the payment came in on the 25th, so I only went to the Bank today. Since i was at the KLCC area, i popped over to the RHB Bank at Suria KLCC.

Before going out to the bank, i clicked on the Google Adsense Payment History and printed out the current month's payment details.

Then at RHB, i just filled up the Western Union "To Receive Money" Form and handed it to the bank teller together with my IC. And in 10 mins he called me to collect my cash in Ringgit!!! Yes that was it!! So so so simple and guess what?? You don't need to pay the "check transaction fee" that Maybank always charges!! AND AND .... RHB can collect Bonuslink points too for Western Union cash transfers!! :) hehe

SO now you must be wondering how do i switch the Google Adsense payment from Check to Western Union??

Simple :

1. Sign in to your account at www.google.com/adsense.
2. Visit the My Account tab.
3. Click the 'edit' link adjacent to the 'Payment Details' header.
4. Select the Western Union Quick Cash radio button.
5. Click 'Continue'.
6. Click 'Save Changes' to save your payment type.

So once you have set up your Google Adsense Account as above, then all you need to do when you next receive your Adsense payment is to :

1. Go to a Malaysian Bank that has Western Union (Locate one near u)
2. Bring the following info with you

• Your IC (or valid government-issued photo ID (Passport, Driver's license, National ID etc)
• Sender's information: Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California 94043, USA. Phone Number: 650-253-4000
• Amount of your payment, which you can find on your Payment History page
• Your unique MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) which you can find by clicking on the 'details' link next to the Payment Issued line on your Payment History page
• (Actually all you need is your IC and Print the "Payment Issued Line", and that will have the MTCN number and Google's address and that's done!)

My suggestion to you guys who receive Google Adsense checks ... Do switch from Check to Western Union, cos it realy speeds up the whole process!! Hope u find the above experince useful!

[tags : delephant make money adsense western union adsense payments]

Have you Verified your site with Google? Its Free

Stumbled upon this Free Google Offering, which will help us list our websites securely with Google and to ensure that Google Verify it!

Prior to this I didnt realize that Google had to verify our website. And since Google is the BEST BEST BEST Search Engine in the world ... I am gonna verify all my blogs under it! :) hehe

Step 1 : Go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitestatus

Step 2 : Log in with your Google log in

Step 3 : Add your Blog/Website URL

Step 4 : Verify Your Site. Choose either to Verify by adding a html file to your domain, or adding Meta Tags to your site. (If blurr like me, click on the help "?" to guide u)

DONE!! :)


At Step 3, Google will also display

• Whether Pages from your site are included in Google's index
• When googlebot accessed your home page
• Potential indexing problems

Quite interesting ... if u have not done this before! So what u waiting for go VERIFY!!!



AND just in case u have a curious mind like me, WHY? Why do you Verify?
What is site verification?

Site verification is a process that Google uses to ensure that only site owners can see detailed diagnostics, statistics and other information . If you can upload a verification file to the the site's root or can add a verification meta tag to your site's home page, we consider you a site owner and will show you site details.

[tags : delephant google verification]

Increase your Google Rankings - Free

Thought this may be pretty good and am sharing it with you all.

This software helps list your blog / website on to 350 web directories. Its called the Directory Submitter Software. You can download the software for FREE and it will create up to 350 web links back to your blog / website. Pretty nifty huh?

Free download - http://directorysubmitter.imwishlist.com/free-download

[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Extreme makeover for the Google AdSense homepage

Following the facelift Google gave their Ad Units (below) at the beginning of April, they've now started the same process for the AdSense homepage.

You may have noticed recently that when you sign in, it's taken on a different appearance (at least sometimes).

Over the next few days, you can expect to see this new homepage design more frequently as Google roll out this change.

If you haven't yet caught a glimpse of the new layout, here's a sneak peek:

Google hope you'll find this new homepage to be more visually appealing. However, please be assured that your AdSense performance and the layout of your internal account pages won't be affected in any way by this change.

---

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 -- Google is happy to announce that, just in time for spring, they've given their standard ad units a fresh makeover.

After extensive testing and research, they’ve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. They're 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 won't be changed.

Although it’s not possible to opt out of the new designs, Google hopes that you and your site visitors will find their new ad formats clearer and more attractive. They're always testing new ways to improve the look and feel of our advertisements, so stay tuned for more format options in the future.

Source
[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Google tops new list of world's Most Valuable Brands

Google Inc. has knocked Microsoft Corp. from its perch as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings released on Monday.

The rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown, also put Google ahead of well-established brands like General Electric Co., No. 2; Coca-Cola Co., No. 4; Wal-Mart Stores, No. 7; and IBM, No. 9.

Some key factors seen this year in building brand recognition ranged from corporate responsibility to serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India, according to the study.

The top-ranked brand from a non-U.S.-based company was China Mobile, which dropped a spot but still came in at No. 5.

The rankings were based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide, Millward Brown said.

For Google, which ranked No. 7 a year ago, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the Web search leader has become an everyday name. The company uses relatively little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth promotion.

By contrast, Microsoft's slide down to third place from first comes even as the software company has been rolling out its new Windows Vista operating system with a massive global marketing blitz.

Eileen Campbell, global chief executive of Millward Brown, said the rankings showed "a blend of good business leadership, responsible financial management and powerful marketing ... can be leveraged to create and grow corporate wealth."

Some of the other big movers on the list included Apple Inc.. which rose 13 spots to No. 16 and Starbucks Corp., which rose 13 spots to No. 35. Those losing ground in the brand rankings included Intel Corp., Home Depot Inc. and Dell Inc.

Millward Brown is a unit of WPP Group and the findings were published in cooperation with the Financial Times.

Top 10 Brands
1. Google
2. GE (General Electric)
3. Microsoft
4. Coca Cola (*)
5. China Mobile
6. Marlboro
7. Wal-Mart
8. Citi
9. IBM
10. Toyota
- Read PDF Report for the full Listing

Source Source2

[tags : delephant fun stuff]

New Way to Make Money - Google Apps Referrals

Following google's recent series of referrals announcements, we're happy to announce that you can now earn $5 per referral for Google Apps.

With Google Apps, we've taken Google's most powerful communication and collaboration tools, and packaged them together so businesses, schools and other organizations can work more effectively while spending less time and money on IT systems.

Google Apps provides customized email addresses (powered by Gmail),
Google Calendar, Google Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets and Page Creator, all for free.

Best of all, everything is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software to download, install or maintain.


So how do these referrals work?
1. Just visit the AdSense Setup tab in your AdSense account and click the link for Referrals. 2. Select the Google Apps option and then choose how you want the referral ad to look on your site.
3. Copy the code provided into the design of your web pages, and voila!


You will be credited $5 when someone clicks the referral ad from your site and signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service. That person's domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks. It's that simple.

If you're new to AdSense referrals, you might want to check out our referrals optimization tips.


[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Google Adsense Made Simple

Its all about Ad Sense! Google Adsense. Smashing Magazine compiled a wonderful list of resources and tips for new comers. Read on.

Google AdSense is probably one of the most popular revenue generators in the Web. We hear the stories about bloggers-genies, who manage to turn their blogs into cash machines overnight. However, it’s not that simple to find the actual tips, which stick to Google policies, might increase your revenues and don’t try to trick out the readers of your weblog.

We’ve spent several hours, trying to find out, what might increase your Google AdSense income and which tools you can use to observe and track your revenues. We’ve selected the key-points of successful stories and useful tips as well as Google AdSense sites and services you can use on a daily basis. Let’s take a look.

Things You Most Probably Didn't Know About Google AdSense

“AdSense Earning = Impression-count x Click-though-rate x Cost-per-click x smart-pricing-factor. Viewing your on website will not get you banned. Just make sure you don’t click on the ads.

However, repeatedly reload your page to jack up page impressions can get you banned. Click-through-rate (CTR) is ratio of clicks per impressions. It can range from 0.1% to 30%, but most commonly around 1% to 10%.”
[100 Google Adsense Tips]

“First impressions count: make sure the ad unit with the highest CTR is the first ad unit in the HTML code of your page. Keep in mind that the first ad unit in the source code is not always the first ad unit that your users will see when the page finishes loading in their browser.”
[Inside AdSense: First impressions count]

“Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. on pages where users are typically focused on reading an article, ads placed directly below the end of the editorial content tend to perform very well.”
[Where should I place Google ads on my pages?]

“Format is important for multiple ad units, display your ad units where repeat users will notice them, place a leaderboard immediately after the last post.”
[Six AdSense optimization tips for forums]

“The middle, above the fold location performs the best. Best performing ad format is the large rectangle, 336×280. So the wider ad formats are doing better than the other ones and the reason is that they actually take up fewer lines. And so with every additional line, you have a chance of losing that interested user.

So the wider formats do best so specifically, the top three formats are the 336×280 that you see on the page; the 300×250 medium rectangle; and then the 160×600 wide skyscraper.

We have a feature in the AdSense account where you are able to multi-select different color palettes that blend with your site to add some variety and freshness to the ads. And that also will help decrease ad blindness.”
[Google AdSense Optimization Webinar]

“The second most active placement in terms of click-throughs tends to be the right-hand rail or margin”. “Skyscrapers” and vertical banners do well when placed next to the content in the main body. Square and rectangle ads placed within the center column also do well, provided they are placed in context to the content. Ads placed below the fold tend to perform least well, although that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.”
[Yahoo! Publisher Network: Location, location, location…]

“I found the most success in placing the Google Adsense medium rectangle either right in the middle of the page or in a middle right column as long as it has content above and below the ad unit. Its is fine to use Adsense Ads on a forum however expect a very low CTR.”
[Google Adsense Tips for Webmasters]

“Post Adsense ads on text rich pages, avoid titles like the approved ‘Sponsored Links’ and ‘Advertisements’, place Ads above the fold, Match the colors of your ads with the colour scheme of your site, Blend ads with your page - remove the borders by having a similar color as your background.”
[How to Increase Google Adsense CTR]

“To remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense develop sufficient good content with keywords, Ensure that META tags like ‘title’ & ‘description’ and the headings tags like h1, h2 etc. have content which matches the rest of your site.”
[How to Remove Public Service Ads (PSA) in Google Adsense]

“You can now run AdSense on the same page as other contextual ad programs.” (January 2007)
[It’s official! You can now run AdSense on the same page as other contextual ad programs]

“Google AdSense Policy: We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads.”
[Inside AdSense: Ad and image placement: a policy clarification]

“Section targeting uses certain html tweaks to force the google adsense bot to focus on specific content. Section targeting is the latest and most effective addition to AdSense”.
[Display Relevant Adsense Ads Using Section Targeting]

“Over the weekend, I decided to change the number of ads units on my blog based upon where the traffic is coming from. I have a small PHP function that checks to see if the referrer is a search engine, and if it is, I display and additional 2 ad units. My Adsense revenue increasing by 284% on Saturday, Sunday and Monday!”
[Positive Adsense Experiment]

“Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. Never change the Adsense code. Do not run competitive contextual text ad (2006) or search services on the same site. Do not mask ad elements. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing.”
[ 15 Common Mistakes that Violate Google Adsense TOS ]

“Putting ads on your site won’t hurt your traffic. There are 6 sorts of bloggers’ income: Google Adsense, Donations (e.g. PayPal), Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month), Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click), affiliate programs like Amazon, Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)
[How to Make Money From Your Blog - a VERY extensive article]

“A number of factors come into play when AdSense tries to determine what the page is about: The URL of the page, the page title, the anchor text of links, the keywords that appear most frequently within the page, search engine queries that lead to the page or to another page that links to the page”.
[How to Get Relevant AdSense Ads (Especially For Bloggers)]

“Ask yourself if you are willing to compromise your blog’s layout and over-all feel by adding ads in them. Look at your traffic and see if it’s enough to draw the crowd. Make good use of the Ad Channels. Give it time.”
[Tips on Blog Adsensification]

“You can put upto 3 AdSense units on a page. For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content. For long articles, CTR improves if ads are placed somewhere in middle of the content. Go Wide - the large rectangle 336×280 is the best paying adsense format.”
[Adsense Tips, Layout Optimization Tricks for HigherCTR]

“Google AdSense folks have unveiled another useful feature for Adsense publishers - Section Targeting. The concept is simple but the advantages and possibilities are endless.”
[Display relevant Ads in Blogs: Just suggest Google]

Google AdSense Tools & Services

Getting The Most Out Of Adsense: Top 10 Adsense Tools
Contextual Ads Preview/Comparison Tool (for Google Adsense, Yahoo YPN, Chitika eMiniMalls), AdSense Calculator, AdSense SandBox, AdWords Bidding Tool/Traffic Estimator.

List of AdSense Trackers
15 AdSense trackers.

AdWords and AdSense tools directory
1200 tools and services for Google AdWords and Google AdSense.

Google Adsense Tips and Tools Collection
a compilation of common Google tips and tools to make more money from Google Adsense. Among them dozens of AdSense Tools.

AdLogger » Open-Source Click Fraud Prevention and Click Monitoring
intends to prevent click-fraud on your websites by tracking visitors clicks and limiting the number of clicks one may make. AdLogger tracks AdSense clicks in real time and compiles the data for you to review.

AdsBlackList.com - Filter them and increase your revenue !
increase your adsense revenue up to 50%, increase the reputation of your website by NOT linking to Made for Adsense sites, save the quality of contextual advertising in global.

Adsense Notifier
displays your Adsense earnings on the Firefox statusbar.

AdSense Tracking Software The Cutting-Edge Ad Tracking Solution
reveals the precise AdSense Ads that are being clicked most frequently on your site, the exact pages that your AdSense Ads are being clicked on, the actual Ad Formats that are bringing you the most clicks and more.

Free Charts Generated from your Google Adsense Reports
Charts include: total earnings, clickthru-rate, earnings per click, number of clicks, earnings per impression, number of page impressions, earnings by day of week and earnings by day of month. Most of charts include 7-day moving averages which allow you to spot trends within your results.

Using The Competitive Ad Filter To Increase AdSense Earnings
The purpose of the Competitive Ad Filter is to enable you to block specific ads, such as competitor’s ads, from appearing on your pages.

Google Ad Sense Tips & Resources

Adsense Tips for Bloggers
an extensive series of articles on how to make money from the Google Adsense Program. By Problogger Darren Rowse.

16 Adsense Optimized Wordpress Themes to Maximize your Contextual Ad Earnings
Ads Minded, Typo XP Reloaded, Seo AdSense and Problogger Clean.

10 Best Wordpress Plugins for Google Adsense
among them AdSense Deluxe, AdRotator Wordpress Plugin.

Monetizing WordPress Plugins
an overview of 8 AdSense-Plugins you can use with Wordpress blog engine. AdSense Widget Wordpress Sidebar, AdSense Paster, AdSense Injection and more.

What are alternatives to Google AdSense?
46 alternatives, among them Yahoo Publisher Network. Over 70 more services can be found on Other Advertising Networks Besides Google AdSense

AdSense Forum
is one of the most popular AdSense-related forums in the Web with thousands of questions and answers.

How To Market Your Blog in 2007
41 ways to kickstart your marketing efforts.

AdSense Niches
If you want to make money with Adsense, NicheGeek’s free AdSense niches will show you exactly what niche you need to be in if you want to make 20, 30, 50, 70 cents per click or even more.

Source


[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Another Google Lucrative Way of Making Money - AdSense Referrals

Adsense Referrals is still in its beta stage. Apart from referring users to the Ads, users must click on the ads and must perform at least a Sale or Sign Up.




In Three easy steps you can sign up for Google Adsense Refferal

	You select the ads you want to appear on your site
Leverage your knowledge of your users to choose ads that will interest them and perform well.

	Users click on ads and perform a specified action
Specified actions may be a purchase/sale, a lead, a signup or some other advertiser-defined action.

	You get paid once the user completes the action.
As soon as the user completes the action, your AdSense account will be credited. Easy as that.

You may already be using AdSense referrals to direct your users to Google products like Google Pack or Google AdWords. Now, you can expand the earning potential of your website even further by directing users to products and services from our base of AdWords advertisers.

In just a few minutes you can hand-pick and display ads that will appeal directly to your users' tastes and interests. After choosing relevant ads or keywords, you will be able to customize referrals units that complement the look and feel of your site. Then you can start directing visitors to the products or services you've selected.

With referrals, you'll be paid when your visitors click through to an advertiser's site and complete an action defined by your advertisers, such as a sale or sign up. Because these actions are often more involved than a simple click or impression, advertisers pay more for these referrals, which can translate into higher earnings for your site. Further, you'll see the expected earnings and advertiser performance ahead of time, so you can make the best decisions about what to refer. You can also choose to target the keywords that will ensure you get the highest-paying referrals for your ad space.

This feature is currently available on a limited basis as part of our beta test. Read below to find out more.

Google Adsense Refferal - FAQ

Wanna try Google's Adsense Refferal - Click here

Source

[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Our First Google Ad Sense Check!

Woo Hoo!! After attempting to start our very first Blog in June 2006, we are very happy to see that we've added a couple more Blogs to our list.

We have SNS, MHN, NU, DT, dareNtiff and of course this blog!!

If we were to break down the Blog by category. ... we guess this would be the best way to explain the six blogs that own.

:: dareNtiff : Our Family Blog ::
:: shoppingNsales : Sales - Warehouse Sales - Sales and Sales ::
:: MHN : Malaysia Hotel News ::
:: NU : Unusual - Weird - Bizarre ::
:: DT : Church Stuff - Work Stuff ::
:: delephant : Random Stuff - Fun Stuff ::


Well after playing around with Blogs and the concept of Blogs, we were introduced to Google Adsense. We tested out Google Adsense in end September, and only started using it starting October 2006. It was pretty weird then, cos Blogger was going thru a revamp from Blogger to New Blogger Beta. But we stuck with it .. and just carried on.

Now after Four Months ... we are pretty glad to see that we have received our very first check from Google. :) YAY!!!

New Problem

Err .... since its only a small sum of USD100 .. .anyone has any suggestions how do we bank it? Or any experience ones out there who can gives some tips on which local bank in Malaysia has the lowest service charges or how do we go about it ? .. .. .. .etc

[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Snap or Google?

Hmmmmm ...... another Search Engine - SNAP!! Pretty interesting that it pulls out a picture, but it sorta lags a bit ... hmm perhaps if our bandwidth improves with speed and capacity, SNAP may be a pretty cool tool to use for Searches!

Google may be the most popular search engine to date but there are plenty of alternative search engines looking to grab a piece of the action – and we're not just referring to Yahoo! Search or MSN Search.

Here's a look at some of the more interesting ones out there.

If you ever wanted to have a more visually stimulating web browsing experience, Snap gives you exactly that.

What is interesting about Snap as an alternative to Google is the way Snap takes a different approach to searching the Web.

Instead of giving you back a set of plain old text search results, it gives you an actual preview of the webpage you are about to visit.

Search results are displayed on the left side of the page, while the other side provides a visual preview of the website (which you can choose to view in small, medium or large).

This visual display of images along with text is a refreshing change to looking at wordy description of websites on other search engines. The beauty of it is that you get to judge whether the search result is relevant just by previewing it.

Another cool feature of Snap is that it actively anticipates your search. From the moment you start typing in the search box, Snap will begin to actively anticipate you want to search for, offering popular terms, synonyms along with suggestions.

Scrolling through pictures: You can easily scroll through pictures while previewing them with Snap’s new image search function.

Snap also allows users to interact with a previewed website without having to leave the search engine and search results behind. For example, you can preview a travel website, enter your personal details, pick a destination and choose a flight time all while still having access to your results list.

However, the drawback to this is you have to be using Internet Explorer in order to benefit from this feature. Also, users are required to perform an additional step by downloading an Active-X preview control to make direct interactivity active by default in Snap.

Another thing we liked about Snap is its newly added Image search function. While most of us are all familiar with other image search engines like Google Image Search, Snap takes a rather unique approach.

Snap's image search looks very much like an image-browsing program. Images found are presented in the form of thumbnails on the left with a larger version of the picture is shown on the right.

The cool thing about this feature is the seamless transition of images as users browse through images. Still, the best thing about it is that it intelligently checks the previewed images and automatically discards images with broken links.

In short, Snap is a nice and simple search engine with a good layout that delivers search results clearly.

Snap's visually stimulating site preview feature offers something fresh that clearly stands out among the masses of text based search engines on the web.

Source
[tags : delephant fun stuff]

Have you heard of Google Apps?

Interesting to see how Google is trying to come online and to offer an IT Suite of Softwares for free, and now starting to charge money for using their products. A threat to Microsoft? Mebbe ... Read on



Google Apps main site : http://www.google.com/a/

So what does Google Apps entail?

Its of course Google's products like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Google Page Creator and more. Here's a break down.

Communicate and connect			Collaborate and publish			Manage your services
	Gmail Email with 10 GB of storage per custom email account, mail search tools and integrated chat.			Start Page Access your inbox, calendar, docs and company info, plus search the web from one place.			Control Panel Manage your domain and user accounts online.
	Google Talk Free text and voice calling around the world.			Docs & Spreadsheets Create, share and collaborate on documents in real-time.			Extensibility APIs Integrate with your existing IT systems or 3rd party solutions.
	Google Calendar Coordinate meetings and company events with sharable calendars.			Page Creator Easily create and publish web pages.			Help and support 24/7 assistance, including phone support.

Who is Google Apps targeting :

• Families & groups
• Small businesses
• Enterprises
• Schools

If you look at their Customer's list, you will see that Google themselves are one of the biggest users, trying to set an example that the Products work, that its Reliable and Resourceful for all.

Why don't you go check out Google Apps for yourself!


[tags : delephant fun stuff]