Don't cry foul! Be smarter with Google's Adsense Smart Pricing.

You can't blame Google for wanting to do right by their merchants, and try to get them the best qualified traffic possible. Google's attempt to deal with the arbitrage issue has caused some problems for their legit publishers as well.

I'm talking about Adsense Smart Pricing, which was Google's original answer to dealing with arbitrage junk-clicks. It's definitely having an effect in favor of the merchants, but guess what … it's got a wicked backlash to it that is hurting those White Hat Publishers as well. Opps!

The problem is that there are poor quality advertisers/merchants out there as well. And if your site happens to run in the same keyword set that those poor quality advertisers do, then you've got problems my friend.

What happens is the the consumer comes to your site, clicks the Google ad and lands on the crappy advertisers landing page … the consumer then bails on that crappy site immediately.

What's that mean for you? Means Google is going to punish you for sending that advertiser what they percieve as bad traffic, when you were not at fault at all. Oops! 

So, there is something you can do combat the evils of the bad advertiser syndrome.

Log into your AdSense account and then wander on over to the Adsense Setup area … look for the Competitive Ad Filter and click on to it. In the box of URLs to block, paste in a copy of this list of Bad Advertisers to be Blocked.

Do this and you'll made a big dent in the amount consumers fleeing from your Google links. Life will be good again!

You can now target your PayPerPost (PPP) campaigns based on Google PR, Alexa score and topic and domain.

It's getting a lot of thumbs up from the advertisers. Honestly, I like it, but not sure if they will be able to pull it off or not. I recently ran an ad with PayPerPost where I was very detailed about what I wanted, but still a very easy post to make for the publishers. I guess because I was so specific I didn't get even one taker.

I chalked it up being a little more focused on who I wanted posts from. Like I wouldn't accept any MySpace and I wanted PR3 or higher. I asked for the bloggers to some how be related to the niche I was campaigning for. So basically, I'd already narrowed myself … and for that, I got zip.

My guess is that the publishers will need to get educated and come around to what the advertisers want if they want to get paid for posting. Otherwise, it's best to just enjoy your blog and forget the PPP aspect. PayPerPost's move towards segmentation is a clue that the blog advertising market is heading in a new direction.

Reseller has pulled out a post at WebmasterWorld linking to a Google Groups post by a Google Employee saying;

There are a few things to consider about our overall crawl and indexing pipeline. As part of some recent updates (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bigdaddy/) we're taking a much closer look at affiliate links, linkfarms, duplicate content, and other factors as described in our webmaster quality guidelines.

As with the Florida update, when Google went after sites that were perceived as going against Google Quality Guidelines, some good & clean sites were hit in the cross fire. With this, the same has happened, and it will always happen.

So if you are suffering, you can try posting in the Google Group or emailing Google, as specified in the thread.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

I was reading a few relevant tips from Darren at ProBlogger about some Do's and Dont's for professional business blogs. I wanted to pass on his wisdoms because I think that they're right on the money, no pun intended.

These are the same strategies I use on my blogs Affiliate Blogger, Affiliate Marketers and Affiliate Blog.

The topic was about what to do if you have viewers coming to your blog, but they never buy anything through you. The advice is sage:

Product relevancy and quality - unless the products you're promoting relate to the content/topic of your blogging you're wasting your time. Not only should they be relevant - they should be quality affiliate products. Don't get sucked into promoting something just because it relates to your site. Test it for yourself and if it's rubbish - stay clear. You can hurt your own reputation by recommending second rate products.

Traffic - the more people that see the promotions you run the better. While traffic isn't the only factor, it is certainly a big one. Work at drawing people to your blog and particularly to the pages that you are featuring affiliate promotions on.

Placement - affiliate links IN content tend to out perform promotions that you run in sidebars or banner ads. One genuine review of the product (see next point) seen by a handful of readers can be much more powerful than a banner at the top of your blog seen by many readers.

Your reputation and 'Sales Pitch' - I find that affiliate products work best for me on sites where I have a loyal readership of people who respect what I say and when I give genuine recommendation that show not only the positives of a product but the weaknesses in it. The way you promote the product is as influencial as almost anything else. Don't hype, don't lie and don't spin it.

We don't need no stinking badges! Or do we?

Jim Kukral at BlogKits has come out with a new viral idea to help the blogging community gain integrity while still earning an income from blogging. They're offering a BlogHonor banner for free with the following pledge by the blogger:

Thank you for reading my blog. You're here because you've clicked on the "Blog Honor" badge on my blog.

What does Blog Honor mean? It means I have chosen to pledge to you the following:

I will endeavor to continue to bring you the highest quality content that I am capable of

I promise to attempt to disclose or clearly mark any content or advertisements or other monetization attempts that help me keep my blog operating

I pledge to never write "fake" blog content solely for the purpose of trying to generate revenue without complete and clear disclosure. With exception, my blog may exist for business purposes, therefore I use it to talk about products & services that relate to my business, thus assisting me in generating leads & sales for me indirectly
In return, I hope that you will continue to read my blog with the knowledge that I produce my blog out of a passion for the topic I write about, and not because I'm hoping to fool you into making money for myself.

Please note, I have nothing against generating revenue from my blog, in fact, your ongoing support of my sponsors and advertisers (text links, partner ads, etc…) helps me keep my blog operating so that I may endure to create better content for you.

I do appreciate your support. Continued thanks for your readership.

According to BlogKits, the reason for the honor badges is that … right now we are at a critical juncture in the blogging community, where we (bloggers) can either find ways to band together to keep our integrity intact, or continue to let blogging get a bad name.

Blog Honor Badges were conceived by Jim Kukral, publisher of ReveNews.com and founder of the BlogKits Affiliate Marketing Blogging Network. Badge Artwork conception and creation by Whitecapstudios, specialists in blog design.

The big question is how to enforce abuse of the honor badge … If you believe you've found a blog that isn't practicing what they preach, then send it to us with your comments at info at blogkits dot com. We'll investigate it when we can and if we believe the blog is not representing our core values, we'll ask them to remove it. Beyond that, what can we do? We're not the blog police.

Bloggers, if you want to display this banner on your blog, then you need to stop cloaking those affiliate links and hiding them inside your content areas. Even in this post, I have keywords lighting up that link to my other resources. Does it matter that they're affiliate links or not? What I'm seeing other bloggers do is post a visable and static message on their blog "This Blog contains Advertisements" or they're adding this tag as the first line of their post if the post contains monetization links. It seems to be the path taken by top-notch bloggers.

But, what I really want to know is … Jim, when are you going to get BlogKits live?!!

I have forum thread started on the topic of BlogHonor at 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums that you might want to join in.

There's a lot of chatter around the Net right now about the letters that Google is sending out to some of their AdSense publishers. The keywords here is "some" are getting them, while others are not.

I personally don't practice artbitrage, although I get it, clearly I can't speak from experience. What I'd rather do is point you in the direction of a few quality postings on the topic and let you get yourself educated.

Post to read are:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/05/19/adsense-arbitrage-just-the-facts/
http://www.jensense.com/archives/2007/05/google_adsense_16.html

That's it. You won't learn what arbitrage is, but if you're practicing it … get straight on what's going on.

Here's something to wet the Affiliate Blogger's mouth … more blogs!

Global performance marketing firm Forge Corporation Ltd. has acquired BlogKits Blogging Network. Launching world’s first performance marketing network built for bloggers.

(PRWEB) July 13, 2006 — The billion-dollar affiliate marketing industry has finally caught up with blogging. Forge Corporation Ltd., a global provider of performance marketing solutions, with offices in Johannesburg, Cleveland & Seattle, announced today it has acquired BlogKits (http://www.blogkits.com), a blog network built to help match bloggers with advertisers.

BlogKits was acquired from Jim Kukral, business blog expert, who was also recently appointed to Forge as the VP of Branding & Marketing. He has spent the past 10+ years working in the online marketing and blogging industry.

In a survey produced by BlogKits in 2005, 73% of bloggers agreed that using affiliate links on their website was an acceptable practice. The same survey concluded that the primary reason bloggers use Google Adsense is because "it’s easy" (93%).

"Bloggers want control and ease of use. They want to "place it and leave it", said Mr. Kukral. "Which is why Google Adsense works so well for them. The reason bloggers haven’t embraced the standard affiliate networks as a viable model is because those networks don’t specifically cater any offers to bloggers. There’s too much clutter going on. Bloggers don’t want to work that hard. BlogKits eliminates that."

"Google Adsense has been a revolutionary tool for bloggers, and should always stay part of a successful blog monetization strategy. BlogKit's approach is not to recommend to replace Adsense, but to add to it without penalty. We believe there’s a lot more money to be made on a well-matched cost-per-action (CPA) offer for bloggers as opposed to a few pennies per click from Adsense."

There are challenges of course. Google Adsense still holds a majority of most bloggers’ income generation, and the existing affiliate networks like Linkshare & Commission Junction have thousands of existing merchant/affiliate relationships.

But they don’t have the bloggers. BlogKits does.

"I really like the idea behind Blogkits because anything that can help bloggers earn money fairly, honestly, and easily is a great benefit to the entire blogging community," said Dave Taylor, blogger at www.AskDaveTaylor.com. "I’m looking forward to getting involved with the Blogkits project."

"Jim brings tremendous affiliate marketing and blogging experience to the table," said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Forge Corporation, Ltd. "By acquiring and developing BlogKits, Forge now has a unique stable of highly targeted blogs in our network that no other network has. Merchants can join BlogKits even if they have other existing network relationships. We’re not interested in taking business away from anyone; only bringing new business opportunities that they can’t get elsewhere."

Kukral will be responsible for operating the BlogKits Offerforge Network, including working to recruit and educate new bloggers, as well as assisting merchants with developing creative performance-based offerings.

BlogKits is currently accepting applications for signup from bloggers into the network at http://www.blogkits.com, and is working with merchants to prepare offers for launch, which is set for some time in late summer of 2006.

About Jim Kukral
Jim Kukral knows the online marketing industry from all sides. He is the publisher of ReveNews.com, a thought-shaping group blog focusing the billion-dollar industry of online revenue generation. He has been blogging since 2001 and has participated and or created over 30 professional blogs in his career. Jim has written professionally for Clickz.com and Builder.com, and has been featured in Revenue Today magazine and MarketingProfs.

About BlogKits
BlogKits was created by Jim Kukral in early 2005. Originally, BlogKits was made to help bloggers find new and interesting ways to make money with their blogs. Now as part of the OfferForge network, BlogKits will allow bloggers and online merchants the ability to work together in a reliable and robust network platform.

About Forge Corporation Ltd.
Founded in 2003 by Jonathan Miller, well known affiliate marketing strategist, consultant and public speaker, Forge Corporation Ltd. is a global provider of performance marketing solutions that benefit both advertisers and publishers, with offices in Johannesburg, Cleveland & Seattle.

Forge enables advertisers to distribute online advertising through thousands of targeted websites, newsletters and other online publishers. These relationships are driven by two patented technology ad networks: OfferForge South Africa and OfferForge USA. OfferForge advertisers pay only for performance, which could be measured in sales, leads, visitors, impressions, subscribers or even new unique customers.

The ForgeConsult consulting division specializes in developing and executing affiliate marketing strategies to assist advertisers in reaching consumers more effectively such as affiliate recruitment and affiliate program management.

CORRECTING and REPLACING Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites Reveals Online Merchants Prefer Commission Junction to Other Affiliate Marketing Providers
Wednesday May 24, 8:02 pm ET

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 24, 2006–Please replace the release dated May 23, 2006 with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions to the headline and first graph.

The corrected release reads:

INTERNET RETAILER'S TOP 500 GUIDE TO RETAIL WEB SITES REVEALS ONLINE MERCHANTS PREFER COMMISSION JUNCTION TO OTHER AFFILIATE MARKETING PROVIDERS

Commission Junction Powers More Programs Than the Next Two Providers Combined

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK - News), one of the world's largest integrated online marketing companies, today announced that its affiliate marketing division, Commission Junction, is used by more advertisers on Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites than the next two affiliate marketing providers combined. In addition, Commission Junction leads in powering programs for 10 of the 13 market categories being used by advertisers to expand reach and increase online revenues. Among Internet Retailer's list of top retail Web sites, Commission Junction powers brand names such as SonyStyle.com, Zappos.com and Real®.

Performance marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective channels for driving online revenues. As a result, it has been widely adopted by the online retailing industry with 324 of the top 500 retailers running affiliate programs either through networks like Commission Junction or in-house solutions. Commission Junction powers more of these affiliate programs than any other single network provider, and is the preferred provider for the majority of the advertiser categories tracked by Internet Retailer, including Apparel/Accessories, Books/CDs/DVDs, Computers/Electronics, Flowers/Gifts, Hardware/Home Improvements, Health/Beauty, Office Supplies, Specialty/Non-apparel, Sporting Goods and Toys/Hobbies.

"Internet Retailer's independent survey reaffirms Commission Junction's leadership in providing affiliate marketing programs to the top 500 advertisers. Our CJ Marketplace is specifically designed to assist our clients in increasing their online revenue and expand their reach into market segments best suited for their target audiences," said Tom Vadnais, general manager of Commission Junction and Mediaplex. "We are committed to meeting our clients' needs. As the channel grows, Commission Junction will continue to develop, deliver and drive the best affiliate marketing solutions in the industry to support our clients."

About Commission Junction

Commission Junction (www.cj.com) provides advanced performance marketing solutions that help marketers increase online leads and sales. By facilitating strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, Commission Junction leverages its proven expertise in affiliate marketing and search marketing to drive measurable results for its clients.

About ValueClick, Inc.

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq:VCLK - News) is one of the world's largest integrated online marketing companies, offering comprehensive and scalable solutions to deliver cost-effective customer acquisition for advertisers and significant revenue for publishers. Through its individual brands, ValueClick's performance-based solutions allow advertisers and publishers to reach their potential through all online marketing channels, including display advertising, affiliate marketing, lead generation, search, e-mail, and comparison shopping. ValueClick brands include Commission Junction, HiSpeed Media, Mediaplex, PriceRunner, ValueClick Media, and Webclients. For more information, please visit www.valueclick.com.

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, ValueClick's ability to successfully integrate its recently completed Fastclick and Webclients mergers, trends in online advertising spending and estimates of future online performance-based advertising. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements are detailed under "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made from time to time by ValueClick, including: its Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 31, 2006 and amendment to its Annual Report on Form 10-K/A filed on April 21, 2006; its current report on Form 8-K filed on February 27, 2006; recent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-Q/A, other current reports on Form 8-K; its amended registration statement on Form S-4, filed on September 27, 2005; and its final prospectus on Form 424B3 filed on September 28, 2005. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the risk that market demand for online advertising, and performance-based online advertising in particular, will not grow as rapidly as predicted. ValueClick undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Contact:
ValueClick, Inc.
For Media:
Ronda Grech, 1.818.575.4511
rgrech@valueclick.com
For Investor Relations:
Gary J. Fuges, 1.818.575.4677

One of my sincerest hopes in blogging here is to bring new ideas to light and one of those ideas that I'm most excited about in the affiliate space is seeing affiliates move beyond Google.

You know, a few years back Google had us all convinced that we would never get an rank in their search engine if we all didn't put Google ads on our websites. What a load fly dung that was! One had nothing to do with the other.

But what did happen was that Google successfully took over the Web, and we helped them do it. Remember when Google was the search engine that webmasters endorsed? What were we thinking?!!

So, now we're seeing new income streams for affiliates.

Life beyond Google includes NetTraction, Adgenta, CrispAds, Text Link Ads, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, Bidvertiser, Fastclick Value Click and OneMonkey, MSN Adcenter and YPN from Yahoo.

I'd really encourage you to check these advertisers out and see how they can help your affiliate future.

I was recently reading a piece by Nicolas Carlson on Internet News about MySpace and the question of whether there's revenue to be made using MySpace.

According to Carlson, Myspace isn't making any money and …

Not only is MySpace America's most popular social-networking site, having earned 79.9 percent of the market in June according to a Hitwise study released this week, but it is also America's most popular Web site, representing 4.46 percent of all Internet traffic.

Everyone seems to be wondering why MySpace's Rupert Murdoch isn't using contextual advertising in addition to the banner ads they run.

Compounding the problem is the fact that MySpace doesn't even get the lucrative blue-chip brand advertisers to buy those banner ads despite the fact that its member demographic is the young and malleable crowd after which marketers lust.

I blogged about MySpace on my