AdSense, Blogger Blogs, And Social Network Sharing

Many people who publish blogs also have FaceBook pages - and one of the easiest ways to get traffic, to the blog, is to share the blog to a FaceBook page.

Some people want money for publishing their blogs. AdSense is a very popular way to earn from publishing. AdSense produces the best results, with lots of readers to read the blog, click on the ads, and buy the products and services advertised.

FaceBook, and similar social network sharing services, is not the best choice for advertising a blog that uses AdSense ads.

You can share your blog through social networks like FaceBook, if you wish.

If you emphasise social network sharing when advertising your blog, you will have a large, unfocused following population. Many people who follow you won't be interested in the advertisements on the blog - and won't buy the products and services advertised.

FaceBook and Twitter can provide traffic - but is it the right traffic?

Some people will use social sharing, and urge their friends to

Read my blog - and Like my FaceBook page!

This will simply send a lot of traffic to the blog, to have people "Like" their FaceBook page. AdSense calls this invalid / low quality traffic - and rejects such blogs from their programme.

Social networking, used to share a blog, sends lots of traffic to the blog - but is the traffic useful?.



Google+, and the search engines, can provide relevant traffic.

To develop a focused reader audience, publish informative, interesting, relevant, and unique posts. That encourages search engine activity - and gets search related traffic. If you emphasise search related traffic, you spend less time using FaceBook, and asking people to "Like" your blog.

Search related traffic targets the blog subject - and the ads provided by AdSense are relevant to the blog subject. This produces readers who are interested in the blog subject, and in the ads - and who will click on the ads, read about the products and services, and buy the products and services advertised.

With relevant traffic, the ad managers who provide the ads, for their company, are paid well - and AdSense can charge more for their ads, as the premium ad hosting service.

You can encourage your readers to share your blog, as they like.

This blog provides sharing to FaceBook, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter - using two sharing toolbars. The native Blogger toolbar is linked from the "Share" caption, at the bottom of each post.

I added the Blogger toolbar to this blog, using the "Show Share Buttons" selection in the "Configure Blog Posts" wizard. Later, I added my personal AddThis toolbar, that floats in the left edge of each display.

Having added the toolbars, you have 8+ icons to choose from, to share this post and others.

I routinely share new posts in this blog, to FaceBook, Google+, and Twitter. If this post, or any other, interests you, you are welcome to share to any of 4 social networks (linked from the Blogger toolbar), or any of 200 (linked from the AddThis toolbar).

You can encourage sharing by your readers - if you include the AddThis, Blogger, and other third party sharing toolbars, in your blog.

Use the social sharing buttons, if you wish - selectively.

Both search engines and social sharing have their advantages - and disadvantages. You can get readers for your blog, using social networks - but try to get the right readers too.

To get readers who click on the ads and buy the services and products advertised, publish quality content - and get the blog indexed by the search engines with good position. Spend less time getting readers to "Like" your FaceBook page.

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It's fun to advertise a #Blogger blog using social networking, like FaceBook - but if AdSense is part of the blog, you will get better results by publishing relevant and unique posts, and focusing on search engine indexing.

AdSense - Eligibility For Ads Is Based On Content

Many blog owners want the legendary wealth, from publishing a Blogger blog, and adding AdSense ads.

Not everybody understands the AdSense review process - and the fact that "Congratulations!" is only the beginning.

There are actually 4 steps in the review process, which must complete successfully, to provide paying ads for your blog.

This is what you see, with a new blog.



Each review step follows the previous step, one by one.

1. Automated blog size analysis.
2. Manual ad placement and content analysis.
3. Automated blog content analysis.
4. Automated assignment of available ads to blog pages.

Automated blog size analysis.

With a Blogger hosted AdSense account, Blogger checks each blog, periodically. When your blog is eligible to apply for AdSense, based on age and size, you see the legendary "Congratulations!" offer.

This is what you see, with an eligible blog.



You now have a working "Earnings" dashboard page - and can select ad placement options, and apply.

You have to place ads, before you apply, and evaluation can start.



This is the beginning of your road to riches - but only the beginning.

Manual ad placement and content analysis.

After you position the ads and apply using "Earnings", you wait for approval during the "2 to 3 week" evaluation period. Until people decide that the blog is well written, with consistent and easy navigation, and properly located ads - and contains material that is informative, interesting, and unique, AdSense won't place paying ads in the blog.

Any ads visible, after you select ad placement, will be public service announcements. You won't earn any money, with PSAs displayed. Some blog owners will see blank spaces, where ads are supposed to appear.

Automated blog content analysis.

Following approval, the AdSense crawler has to analyse post content, so actual paying ads can be chosen.

If content cannot be analysed, paying ads can't be chosen.

The AdSense crawler can't navigate this blog, with numbered pages.


Blogs that use JavaScript, to link pages, are a problem when the blog is being crawled. This includes the Blogger dynamic templates, and some "Responsive" class templates - and third party templates with features like numbered pages.

Post content only accessible behind JavaScript can't be read, by the AdSense crawler. You may receive a rejection, based on "difficult navigation" or "inaccessible content".

Automated assignment of available ads to blog pages.

Following post content analysis, available paying ads are assigned, on a page by page basis. AdSense won't sell ads for prohibited or unwanted content.

If paying ads are not available, to match the content as analysed, the blog won't get paying ads - and won't make money.

The bottom line.

Until actual paying ads are placed into the blog, you can't start to make money. And paying ads won't be added, until the blog is ready.

As usual, I'll advise you to start a blog with informative, interesting, and unique content - published regularly. And keep publishing, frequently.

And, wait patiently.

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Some new #Blogger blog owners setup their blogs - and wonder, immediately, why they aren't seeing paying ads on their blogs. They fail to understand that ads only appear on blogs after several careful evaluation processes.

AdSense, And Blogger, Require Quality Content

We see questions about content requirement, in both AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners, and in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog was just deleted, as a spam host! I Don't publish spam!

and

Why can't I get my Earnings button activated? My blog is over a year old, and contains hundreds of posts!!

Neither blog owner publishes a blog which contains blatant unwanted commercial content - or hacking or porn. But neither blog is suited for hosting AdSense ads, either.

As the web becomes saturated with people publishing, without a proper plan for content source or for subject, Google is trying to encourage quality content.

Both AdSense and Blogger want people to publish blogs which are worth reading - because blogs that are worth reading get traffic - and deliver customers who view the ads published by AdSense. And AdSense wants to keep their ecosystem healthy, to encourage quality advertising.

AdSense wants the best content - to encourage the best ads, and the best ad compensation. And AdSense only places paying ads on blogs which contextually match available ads.

Blogger wants original, well written content. This encourages people to read the blog - and tell their friends about it. And more readers encourage more writing by the owner.



If you read through the AdSense Support Forums, you'll find mention details of other problems - not always stated in the AdSense Help references. Some blogs, of high quality, may not always get ads - because there are higher quality blogs, and not enough ads available.

• Ad placement and quantity.
• Adult / Mature content.
• Biography / fiction / lyrics / poetry.
• Classroom / coursework blogs.
• Cryptocurrency / financial advice.
• Diet / health / medications blogs.
• Food / recipe blogs.
• Get rich quick / MMF / MMH / MMO blogs.
• Poor grammar.
• Graphic violence blogs.
• Images / photos / pictures blogs.
• Job blogs.
• Mixed content blogs.
• News blogs.
• Prohibited content.
• Scraped / syndicated content.
• Stolen content.
• Tech blogs.
• Video (YouTube) blogs.

Ad placement and quantity.

AdSense has very high standards about how ads are featured on the blog - and how many ads may be present on the blog. The total number of ads - both AdSense and third party - should be limited.

Advertising and other paid promotional material added to your pages should not exceed your content. Furthermore, the content you provide should add value and be the focal point for users visiting your page.

And showing ads in popup windows, and other imaginative techniques, is strictly forbidden.

Your posts are what attracts your readers - not the ads. The ads are merely decorations.

Adult / Mature content.

AdSense is a family-safe service. If you're familiar with the MPAA Rating System, you should consider AdSense as firmly limiting content to "G" or "PG".

Google ads may not be placed on pages that contain pornography, adult, or mature content.

A blog with anything resembling "R" or "X" / "NC-17" is unlikely to get paying ads.


Biography / Fiction / Lyrics / Poetry blogs.

The beauty and usefulness - of fiction, lyrics, and poetry - is in the eye of the author. Neither biographies, fiction, lyrics, or poetry have any value for advertisements.

Fiction (content written by the blog author) follows the rules of the author, for content. Poetry follows the rules of the blog author, for formatting and phrasing. Lyrics (words, to accompany music) follow the rules of the music.

Neither fictional content, lyrics, or poetry can be properly analysed by the AdSense crawler - and paying ads cannot be assigned, to fiction, lyrics, or poetry. Fiction, music, and poetry - if it has any commercial value - is protected by copyright / DMCA, and can't be monetised.

None of this exclusion includes book reviews, however. Well written book reviews - content discussing poetry, fiction, and / or non fiction written by other people - are useful, when accompanied by substantial commentary by the blog author.

Classroom / coursework blogs.

Blogs which provide exam result lists, answers to previous exams, study guides, and / or promote sale of pre written term papers are loosely termed "coursework". This is mentioned, in Prohibited Content: Content that enables dishonest behavior.

• Sale or distribution of term papers, paper-writing or exam-taking services;
• Content that promotes fraudulent activity.

AdSense won't finance blogs which encourage people to waste money that is spent for education, on fraudulent activity.

Cryptocurrency / Financial Advice

Cryptocurreny is a recent trend which promotes high-risk financial products. Google, and other online content providers, is banning advertisements for high-risk products.

Financial advice, likewise, is not useful for AdSense. AdSense ads, lucrative as they may be for some blog publishers, pays far less than any qualified financial adviser makes.

Anybody whose income is noticeably improved by AdSense is not making enough money to qualify as a financial adviser. If the advice is truly useful, the blog owner would be busy using his own advice - instead of telling other people, and trying to get ads to finance his advice.

Diet / health / medications blogs.

Health and medical advice should be provided by certified and supervised professionals. Peoples lives depend upon proper medical advice, based on in person diagnosis.

AdSense won't encourage people to risk their lives, on advice that is impersonal, out of date, and / or unqualified.

Food / recipe blogs.

There are many food / recipe blogs - both hosted by Blogger, and by other services - all over the Internet. Many such blogs use content scraped from other food / recipe blogs. Ad managers require original content - not content found in other blogs and websites - to host their ads.

Get rich quick / MMF / MMH / MMO blogs.

Content which provides advice on getting rich is poorly advertised, in a blog which needs AdSense. If the advice is truly useful, the blog owner would be busy using his own advice - instead of telling other people, and trying to get ads to finance his advice.

There is no legitimate product sold, that benefits from ads hosted on a "get rich quick" website. Get Rich Quick / Make Money Fast / Make Money From Home / Make Money Online are subjects that will never qualify your blog for AdSense.

Poor grammar.

Advertising managers, who use AdSense for brokering their ads, require well written blogs, to host their ads.

If you cannot write properly, in your chosen language, why would anybody want to read your blog?

Graphic violence blogs.

Content which depicts or encourages violence is not family friendly - and is not desired by AdSense, or by their advertisers.

Images / Photos / Pictures blogs.

The AdSense crawler analyses blogs, and assigns ads, based on textual content. Images / photos / pictures blogs, without substantial amount of text accompanying the images / photos / pictures, can't be properly analysed.

However intriguing and photogenic they may be, blogs with only images / photos / pictures won't get paying ads.


Jobs blogs.

AdSense provides ads on sites with original content. Any commercial agency, company or governmental organisation, with jobs available, will have its own website.

A jobs blog is simply content scraped from various commercial agency, company and governmental organisation websites - and copied / scraped content is not permitted.

Mixed content blogs.

AdSense displays ads, based on content in each page displayed. A blog with ads on the various index pages - such as archive, label, and main page - needs a clear and consistent subject, for ads to be properly assigned.

News blogs.

Unless the blog owner manages or owns a real life news agency, with paid staff to research, write, and publish the stories, any "news" has to be copied from commercial news websites. Copied content won't be published promptly - since the copying can't be done, until after it is published in the commercial websites.

People who want to read news online won't bother with copied content, that is not timely. The blog won't get good search reputation, or search originated traffic. No advertising manager will pay to host their ads on a blog using content copied / scraped from commercial websites.

Prohibited content.

Some blog content is simply not compatible with a well maintained AdSense ecosystem.

Scraped / syndicated content.

AdSense requires original content. AdSense policy is based on financial and legal concerns.

Scraping content and passing it off as one’s own is not only wrong, but it also happens to be a serious violation of our policies. AdSense depends on maintaining a balance between user, publisher, and advertiser experience.

Blogger has long provided similar guidelines - but based on content quality.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own.

However you discuss it, original content is required, to host ads on blogs with any future.

Stolen content.

AdSense wont supply ads, for blogs or websites dedicated to redistributing cracked, hacked, or stolen content.

Blogger does not allow stolen content.

Also, please don't provide links to sites where your readers can obtain unauthorized downloads of other people's content.

Tech blogs.

There are thousands of various tech advice blogs and websites, all over the Internet - most simply repeating advice from other blogs and websites.

Again, original content is an absolute requirement - for both AdSense and Blogger.

Video (YouTube) blogs.

Some blog owners publish posts which contain only YouTube videos. This violates both AdSense Program Policy, and YouTube Terms Of Service.

YouTube videos may not be used in a monetised blog, as significant content. YouTube specifically forbids

the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of an ad-enabled blog or website containing Content delivered via the Service, unless other material not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales.

Neither photo or video blogs provide contextually related content. Without contextual content, the AdSense crawler can't assign paying ads.

The bottom line.

AdSense sells ad space to advertisers who want to publish available quality ads, on quality blogs and websites. They are very careful, to keep their ecosystem clean and well maintained - because that is how you encourage ads which offer the best payment rates.

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Both #AdSense and #Blogger, as part of #Google, have consistent standards of quality.

AdSense is the best paying advertising placement service on the Internet. To encourage the best ads, they are very selective of blogs and websites - and only accept the best, into their program.

Wording The Blog Title And URL - Same or Unique?

Some blog owners setup a new blog - and want to know if the blog title and URL may - or (alternately) should - be the same.

There is no policy for Blogger, about blog title and URL - either that the "words" in each can, or cannot, be the same. Some SEO experts suggest benefits from having relevant words, in the URL - and some blog owners confuse this advice, as suggesting having identical titles and URLs.

Be wary of advice that references websites, in discussions about blogs. There are subtle, but real, differences between dynamic blogs, and static websites. Rules that may be important for websites may not be relevant, for blogs.

The most obvious differences, between blogs and websites, are found in content - but blog design may have similar differences.

SEO strategies, for a dynamic blog, and a static website, will be different. Dynamic blogs have many exciting opportunities.



I have suggested that it may not be possible to make the blog title and URL the same, in all cases.

• Most subjects won't be unique. Many blogs will share a subject.
• The blog URL must be unique. Two blogs cannot share a URL.
• The blog URL will have restrictions, in characters allowed.

Most subjects won't be unique.

Any popular subject will have many blogs published to that subject. Every blog, about the same subject, will have a different URL.

If a blog is published, to a subject which has no competition, it will be a subject which interests nobody. A blog with no competition will likely have no readers.

The blog URL must be unique.

Two blogs cannot share a URL. One URL == one blog.

That does not mean that title and URL cannot share "words" - just that it's not possible that they will be identical, for all blogs.

There can be only so many ways to mention your favourite, top level movie star, in the title - and there will be even less ways to construct a unique URL. A less famous celebrity, on the other hand, will have less blogs to compete - and less readers also.

The blog URL will have restrictions, in characters allowed.

URLs can use only certain characters.

a sequence of characters beginning with a letter and followed by any combination of letters, digits, plus (+), period (.), or hyphen (-)

That syntax is somewhat limited, compared to characters that may be used in blog titles - and in the blog description and content. Less choice of syntax leads to less possibilities for uniqueness, while providing some clue as to the purpose of the blog.

A Blogger blog is dynamic - and you SEO using content.

Blogger blog content is dynamic. You get more performance, from a blog with regularly published, unique content, that's informative and interesting.

You get less performance, from imaginative naming strategies. Acme does not make an "SEO Kit", for Blogger blogs.

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Some #Blogger blog owners worry about the need to publish a blog with the Title and URL containing the same words. Some suggest that having identical words is necessary, others that having identical words is not permitted.

Fortunately, neither possibility is relevant to Blogger / Google Content or TOS regulation. Blogger and Google care about content quality - and prohibit scraping and spam.

Buyer Beware - Don't Buy Pre Published Blogs

Don't develop a blog, that's simply designed to host AdSense ads - and avoid pre published blogs, in general.

Blogs and websites that are blatantly designed as ad hosts are classified as "MFA" ("Made For Ads") - and are never accepted as AdSense hosts. AdSense, and Blogger, want blogs with quality content - informative, interesting, and unique.

Legitimate and useful blogs start with content that is important to the blog owner.

Blogger, some time ago, explicitly prohibited sale of blogs.

Either Blogger will delete the blog as spam - or AdSense will classify it as "MFA".

If you buy a blog, "blogspot.com" or custom domain, with content already in place, it will probably contain copyrighted material. If Blogger does not delete / lock it as spam, AdSense will probably classify it as "MFA" - and the blog will never display ads.

Blogger blogs are based on personal interest. When you buy a pre published blog / domain, you're buying somebody else's discarded personal interest.

Most people who sell blogs do so after learning that what they have won't host ads or get traffic. Pre used blogs are frequently subject to disapproval, by AdSense - or DMCA / Spam classification, by Blogger.

If you do the research, you'll find out why the previous owner sold it to you.

You'll probably end up with a disabled AdSense or Blogger account - and doing the research, you'll find out why the previous owner sold it. It's like a "lemon law" car. If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is just that.

You would never, knowingly, buy pre worn underpants. Why would you buy a pre published blog? Start with an available URL, and add your own content. That's how you get content, reputation, and traffic.

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#Blogger blogs are supposed to be based on personal experience or interest - using content that's informative, interesting, and unique. Purchasing a previously published blog, with content left in place, violates that principle.

A smart blog owner starts with an empty blog - using an available URL, and adds content.

A Computer / Tech Blog Is Not A Good AdSense Host

Some blog owners do not understand why ads do not display, on their blogs.

We see a frequent complaint, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger, YouTube, Partner sites.

I installed ads to my blog - but the ads are not showing. It has been several months already - and I have received no feedback, from AdSense.

Too frequently, the blogs in question turn out to be computer / tech blogs - many offering free downloads of various commercial products.

Many computer / tech blogs do not get AdSense ads, even if approved - for several good reasons.

• Too many blogs, applying for AdSense, are tech blogs.
• Too many tech blogs copy content from other blogs and websites.
• Too many tech blogs offer downloads, and provide possible copyright violations.
• Too many tech blogs offer code examples, and similar details that nobody knows.

Too many blogs, applying for AdSense, are tech blogs.

There's no market for more tech blogs, because there are too many tech blogs, already.

AdSense puts ads on blogs and websites that are relevant to the product being advertised. Relevant blogs and websites bring relevant traffic - and customers - to the ads displayed, and sell more product.

To get ads, a blog needs informative, interesting, and unique content. With the marketplace for tech blogs saturated, it is unlikely that any relevant blog will have content that is significantly more informative, interesting, and unique than the general population.

Even if approved to host ads, that does not guarantee that any blog will show ads at any time - or on all pages. Ads are placed when available, on the best blogs to host them.

Too many tech blogs copy content from other blogs and websites.

Content copied from other blogs and websites produces little traffic - and sells less product.

AdSense is going to put ads on blogs and websites with unique content, because blogs and websites with unique content get more traffic. And blogs and websites with more traffic sell more product.

Too many tech blogs offer downloads, and provide possible copyright violations.

AdSense won't put ads on blogs and websites which present possible DMCA violations. There is no system, right now, to identify what content, offered for download, is being offered by the content producer - so downloadable content, in general, is suspicious.

If AdSense was to place ads on a blog which offers downloads as significant portions of blog content, they would be placing Google in potential legal jeopardy, for content which is a problem with DMCA action.

Too many tech blogs offer code examples, and similar details that nobody knows.

People who need the code examples won't know the code, and won't search for the code - and your blog won't get search traffic that you need. Without search traffic, your ads won't produce money, for you or for the ad managers who would pay you to host their ads.

Your posts need details that people know, and can search for - as well as the code itself. Typically, this would be discussion about the purpose of the code, how to use the code, what is needed besides the code - and similar details, that people would know and could use in a search.

The bottom line.

In short, if you publish a computer / tech blog, you may have to come up with an imaginative twist to your content, if you hope to host AdSense content.

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Some owners of #Blogger blogs which deal with computer / technical subjects don't understand why their blogs - even having been approved for #AdSense ads - don't show ad content. They don't understand that ads are not always available, for all approved blogs.

Diagnosing AdSense Account Problems

AdSense uses various techniques to protect their content quality - and when they take action, they don't always give you a lot of clues about their actions, or warnings before taking action.

Both AdSense and Blogger use fuzzy analysis to classify unacceptable content and practices. Neither AdSense or Blogger can publish definitive policy advice, each time they classify or suspend an account.

AdSense publishes policy guidelines - and prohibited content, to define the limits.

AdSense works best when staying well within the limits.

Like Blogger, AdSense requires blog owners / publishers to stay within the limits.

We want to maintain a strong ecosystem for both advertisers and publishers. As a publisher, you are responsible for maintaining high quality inventory and traffic.

People who stray outside the limits should not expect detailed coaching, which let them determine exactly what limits can't be exceeded.

When you exceed the limits, you may not like the results.

Bad news, seen by some too late.



Dodgy techniques and traffic cause problems with both AdSense and Blogger - and both AdSense and Blogger will take action.

For best results, read and follow required practice.

When an AdSense account is suspended, AdSense provides a Disabled Account FAQ. You can use the FAQ - but you'll do better to read the policies, and stay within the limits.

You can appeal, after correcting a problem - within limits.

You'll find limited support for appealing - even after identified problems are resolved.

Thanks for contacting Google AdSense. According to our records, you already appealed to us twice in the last 30 days. Due to the volume of appeals we receive and as indicated in our help center you can't appeal more than twice per month.

If your previous appeals have been unsuccessful please remember that our actions are the result of careful investigation by our team of dedicated specialists, taking into account the interests of our advertisers, publishers, and users. Though you might be disappointed with our decision, we are unable to reinstate your account.

If you have new information which may have helped us to reinstate your account then you are welcome to submit another appeal next month.

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

An effective appeal requires two definitive details.

1. Acknowledge what you did wrong.
2. Describe what you are doing to prevent its recurrence.

The best action will be to read and observe published policies.

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Like #Blogger, #AdSense does not provide detailed advice, or advance warning, about unacceptable content or practice. AdSense publishers are simply expected to read their policy documents - and stay well within the limits.

Financial Advice Blogs Do Not Need AdSense

We see unhappy blog owners, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners, asking about the ads which they should have, on their blogs.

Please let me know why ads are not showing, on the blog - or how much time it will take more in showing ads.

Sometimes, the answer(s) are simple - but will not satisfy the owner.

Not all blogs are suitable, as AdSense ad hosts.

Financial advice blogs are not suitable, to host AdSense ads.

One example of unsuitability involves commercial and financial experts. Some blogs offer financial advice - and the owners would like to add ads to their blogs.

The reference AdSense Help: Prohibited content provides no reference, to financial blogs. The problem with financial blogs, that will not display ads, involves conflicting interest.

Ads hosted by a financial advice blog would be for services of a competitor.

If ads were to be displayed, on a financial expert blog, they would be for competing financial advice services. No ad manager, however, would pay for his clients ads to be hosted on a website belonging to a competitor.

In order for ads to be meaningful, on a financial advice blog, the financial expert would have to be making very little money. This would conflict with the business strategy of any financial expert.

Anybody who needs income from ads, to support a financial advice blog, does not make enough money - and therefore is not worth paying for advice. And nobody will pay for ads, from would be customers of someone who publishes a blog with bogus advice.

Anybody who publishes a blog with financial advice does not make enough money.

Any successful financial expert makes far more money, from providing advice, than income from any website which hosts AdSense ads. Anybody who can successfully provide financial advice is much better off spending more time providing more financial advice directly, to qualified customers.

Nobody who has enough money to interest a successful financial adviser is going to be surfing the web, looking for advertisements selling financial advice. This consideration, too, is going to prevent any web savvy ad manager from paying any clients ads to being hosted on a website owned by somebody publishing dodgy financial advice.

There is simply no market, for websites providing financial advice, in hosting AdSense content. Pure and simple.

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Some financial advice experts would like to finance their websites, using AdSense ads hosted on #Blogger blogs. They do not consider that there is no market for AdSense hosted financial advice ads - because anybody who sees an income improvement, from AdSense, is not making enough money from financial expertise - and is not worth paying for advice.

Plan The Custom Domain Upgrade, With AdSense

Too many blog owners take their Blogger blogs, successfully hosting AdSense ads using a Blogger Hosted account, and decide to get a non BlogSpot URL.

Having survived the challenge of getting the custom domain published blog working, they settle back and look for lots more traffic, because of the new non BlogSpot URL - and more income, from AdSense. Then, they discover harsh reality.

Not only do they not get lots more income, their ads are now blank, or public service (non paying).

When AdSense is involved with a Blogger blog, a custom domain upgrade becomes more than a mere formality, or technical challenge.

When AdSense is involved, a custom domain upgrade is exponentially difficult.

Besides the challenge of getting the domain setup correctly, one has the suspense of getting AdSense approval, for the new domain.

1. To upgrade to AdSense for Content, you need your mailing address verified.
2. To get your address verified, you need an AdSense PIN.
3. To get a PIN, you need $10 USD (or your local currency equivalent) in AdSense revenue.
4. To get AdSense revenue, you need money making ads, with the blog published to BlogSpot.
5. To get ads, with the blog published to BlogSpot, you need a fully approved and qualified Blogger Hosted AdSense account.

You need to start with a Blogger blog, published to "blogspot.com", and applying for Blogger Hosted AdSense. Starting with a custom domain published blog, and applying for AdSense for Content, is not a good idea.

This is not a turnkey project. Don't try this with minimum effort planned.

A verified address, with an AdSense PIN, is a specific requirement.

Note that if you haven't already verified your address via a Personal Identification Number (PIN), then you'll need to do this before you can apply to show ads on your own site. Learn more about PIN verification.

With the PIN being a requirement, you'll need to have earned at least $10 USD (or non USD equivalent) from the ads already - which you'll only get with a properly qualified Blogger Hosted account.

Getting AdSense working, on a custom domain published blog, requires AdSense For Content - and AdSense For Content is more selective, when approving blogs to host ads.

Work on your blog - and don't stop adding content.

I constantly advise blog owners

When your blog is successfully reviewed, ads will become visible. Until then, work on the blog. You will need a lot more content - and traffic - than what is required to simply make ads appear.

A blog, to become eligible to apply, needs lots of content - and you are wasting time asking

How much content do I need?

To be actually approved for Hosted AdSense, a blog needs more content than simply to be eligible. And, to be approved for AdSense For Content, a blog needs still more content.

And after all of that, a blog needs even more content, to get paying ads, to get traffic, and to make money.

Make the content informative, interesting, and unique. And well written.

So, stop asking, and start publishing - and don't stop. Remember that what you publish must be informative, and interesting to your readers - and it must be original;. AdSense requires unique content, that's well written - and useful to your readers.

And make sure that the domain is properly setup, and remains online.

And, for the unique content to be read by AdSense, if you're going to publish to a custom domain, make sure that the domain is properly setup. You do not want a refusal because the blog appears to be offline.

Setup Search Console - and watch reports, daily. A Search Console report, warning you of a problem, could provide the difference between approval and rejection, from AdSense.

And learn the policies, regulations, and rules.

And learn the rules of AdSense Accounts. Read these references, as you would a bible. Learn them, before applying.

• Eligibility to participate in AdSense
• AdSense program policies
• Prohibited content
• Use my hosted AdSense account to show ads on my own site

Finally, plan the upgrade and approval process - and allow for the ads outage.

Be aware that the approval process will examine your blog even more critically than the Hosted AdSense approval. And hopefully, with the blog at least 6 to 12 months older, there will be more content to be examined, than when you applied for Hosted AdSense.

Allow for 2 to 4 weeks of no ads, while the blog is examined again. Don't start this process, then post anxiously, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners.

How long does it take? My family is hungry and we need the income!

That will not speed up the approval by even one day.

Be aware that you are not guaranteed ads.

So plan the upgrade, and be patient.

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Too many #Blogger blog owners, enthusiastic about their new blog now showing AdSense ads, decide that the road to riches lies with an immediate upgrade to a non BlogSpot URL - which will get them more traffic, and even more ad income.

Having upgraded and gotten the domain setup correctly - and seeing more traffic - they discover that the blog is now not serving ads. Upon asking for advice in AdSense Support, they find that they must wait another 2 to 4 weeks - and even so, it is not certain that they will ever see ads, again.

Blogger, And Home / Small Business Blog Clusters

One topic of frustration, occasionally seen in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, involves home based business blogs, that may be victims of their own success.

We are not spam - we are a network of blog owners, in select cities all over the country. I am tired of hearing the apologies, this needs to be resolved.

The blog owner is being quite polite, but insistent.

Blog clusters, whether developed by home / small business owners, or malicious spammers, create problems for all Blogger blog owners. Home / small business blogs are clearly not intentional spam - but their structure makes them easy to mistake for spam blog farms.

Blogger values the creation of blogs with original content. Replicating original content across multiple blogs however, violates the Blogger Spam policy.

Blogger Content: Spam provides a good definition of the Blogger Spam policy.

Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings, posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product, and scraping existing content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains.

The most recently observed home / small business blog cluster, which generated traffic in the Spam Review section of the forum, was a USA based coupon sharing club, that had expanded into other areas - such as dining, entertainment and local events.

We are MORE than a coupon group. Our network works with Disney, Nickelodeon, local restaurants, reviews and products and events locally.

Other blog clusters have involved an Australian blog franchise of electronic / tech products and services - and a California / Florida carpet / home cleaning business.

Home / small business blogs can be mistaken for spam blogs.

Each of these three examples appear to have started as home / small businesses, possibly with one blog - and grew exponentially, as franchises. And each of the examples present problems, with automated spam classification.

• Aggregation of blogs produces unfair advantage, over other small businesses using Blogger.
• Aggregation of blogs skews spam classification, by tweaking the heuristic spam filters.
• Aggregation of blogs makes detection of actual spam blog farms more difficult.

These three concerns produce side effects, in the Blogger spam mitigation program - and lead to periodic spurious spam classification of home / small business blog clusters.

As the size of the clusters increase, so does the chance of repeated classification.

• Blogger policy prevents whitelisting the blogs in the cluster.
• The more blogs in the cluster, the greater chance that one or more blogs will be classified, at any given time.
• The more blogs in the cluster, the longer it will take to review a blog, when classified.

Understand your role, in the spam classification / review process.

If you operate a home / small business, which involves blogs clustered on a geographic and / or product - service relationship - and your business is impeded by spurious spam classification, we'll work with you, and try to get your blogs reviewed.

Please, understand that your home / small business may be pushing the limits of the Blogger spam mitigation program. Try to minimise content which replicates through multiple blogs in the cluster - and content which is scraped from various commercial websites.

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Some owners / operators of home / small businesses, which use #Blogger as a backbone for their business, produce clusters of blogs, organised on a geographic / product / service basis. Rapid growth of the businesses may lead to blogs which share content too heavily - and may lead to repeated spurious spam classification.

Owners of the blogs should learn to expect occasional spam classification, and try to minimise blog features which lead to spam classification.

Spammers - Getting Others To Do Their Work

We've known of resourceful scammerspammers, for years.

One long known scam, popular with home / small business blog owners, has been to award a badge for a "Most Excellent Blog" - and encourage the badge recipient to award the badge to friends with "Most Excellent Blogs".

The recipients of the "award" would proudly display the badge on their blogs. The "Most Excellent Blog" badge, of course, contained a link back to the scammers blog.

Recently, a spammer in a foreign country hosted an "SEO Contest" for other blog owners, where everybody participating was again, encouraged to put the "SEO Contest" badge on his blog or website. Again, the badge lead back to the spammers website.

Both examples of deviousness lead to mazes of interconnected blogs and websites, all of dubious relationship to each other.

Randomly connected blogs and websites are purposeless.

The blogs and websites involved had no real reason for interconnection - other than each being owned by a gullible contest entrant, or "award" winner. Meanwhile, the spammer sat there, watching his website swell with the readers, coming in search of informative and interesting content - and seeing more spam.

The former blog owners, participants in the "SEO Contest", later report.

Blogger deleted my blog! I need my blog, to make a little extra money!!

But there is no encouragement here, your blog is gone. Blogger Policy Review can't distinguish the spammers from the victims - that would require determination of motive. To them, it is all one big spam blog farm, in an ingenious affiliate marketing scheme.

Long ago, we had web rings. Now, blog hops and traffic exchanges.

Long ago, when the Internet was just a geeks paradise, one guy convinced half a dozen of his friends to link their websites to each other, sequentially, backwards and forwards.

Website A linked to Website B which linked to Website C ... which linked back to Website A.

The theory was that you could start from any point in the ring, surf in either direction, and view each website in the ring.

When other participants joined, they would break and insert into the middle of any convenient link pair.

Website A linked to Website AA which linked to Website B ... (and Website B linked to Website AA which linked to Website A ...)

This technique was called a website ring. My first website was linked into a ring, called by its creators, "The Ring Around The World". Now, we have "blog hops" and "traffic exchanges".

Blogger / Google has "Next Blog".

Google's version of a webring started as the well known "Next Blog". As the number of blogs and websites grew to approximate the world population, people decided that they would prefer to only view other websites that resembled their own - and Google tweaked "Next Blog", to link the current blog to other blogs of the same subject.

Blogs which derive traffic from schemes such as "Badges" and "SEO Contests" (and send their readers to the creators of the schemes) become yet one more type of righteous spam classification.

None of these schemes are useful, long term.

Folks, there is no legitimate free traffic scheme. You get traffic to your blog, from publishing informative, interesting, and unique content - and from improved search engine indexing.

Don't lose your blog, from following bogus advice.

Static Blogs, And Spam Classification

Blogger blogs are starting to become a regular website publishing platform - not just a blogging platform.

Long ago, a Blogger blog was just an online journal, with posts, and text. Then, Blogger added labels, later static pages - and then the ability to replace the home / main page, with dynamic or static content of your choice. Recently, the original limitation of 20 static pages / blog was relaxed (we are not yet certain that the limit has been eliminated completely, however).

Now, you can practically publish a static website, without even having posts, using a Blogger platform. But, is this a good idea, with Blogger "One button" Publishing?

We have people asking various questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about making a static website.

How do I remove posts from my main page?

and

How do I publish a blog, without posts?

And alternately, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we see different questions.

Why can't I get AdSense for my blog?

or

Why did Blogger delete my blog?

or maybe

Why can't I find my blog listed, in Google Search?

And all of these questions may well be just different views, of the same problem.

What you can do, and what you should do, with a Blogger blog, may be two different things.

Other Google services may affect success of your Blogger blog.

A Blogger blog may be subject to standards enforced by different Google services.

• AdSense.
• Blogger.
• Google Search / Webmasters.

What you do with your blog, that may be permitted (or tolerated) in one service, may cause problems with another service.

Too many people start a Blogger blog, and only focus on making money. When they don't have a plan for writing content, they try other, more innovative techniques - and there is where many spam blogs start.

AdSense, the Google ad host service, may be less tolerant of innovative techniques, than Blogger. They have conservative standards for blog content, and for behaviour by blog readers. If you include AdSense ads in a Blogger blog, you may find your blog subject to penalties for excessive / self clicking and low quality content, that exceed Blogger standards.

Even without AdSense being involved, a Blogger blog may be subject to search engine penalties for infrequently updated or non unique content. Low quality content, resulting in poor search results, will leave the blog lacking traffic. If the blog uses a third party ad hosting service, which is more tolerant than AdSense about clicking and content, the ads still won't make a lot of money without traffic.

Don't use your Blogger blog as a gateway to a non Google website.

A static blog, that is designed to generate traffic for a non Blogger / Google website, may be a problem, too. Gateway blogs are a popular technique for many spammers. Blogger actively forbids both gateway blogs, and automated posting. This includes feeds from other websites, when used as post content.

You can combine your Blogger blog with a non Google website - but publish the blog as a blog.

It may be possible to have blog posts visible in a section of the blog - and combine the blog, with a non Google website. Even so, the "blog" portion of the blog will still need regularly published, unique content. This is a requirement, whether you are publishing a Blogger blog - or moving your blog to other hosting.

What you can do - and what you should do - will always differ.

The bottom line is what you can do, with a Blogger blog - and what will lead to a successful blog - may be two different things. You're allowed to do anything, that does not violate TOS - but if you want good results, you need to use common sense.

Don't Write About What Makes Money - Write What You Know

Too many blog owners start their first blog - and the first step is to drop into the nearest online publishing forum - such as Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, and ask the question of the typical marketing expert.

I want to start a blog. What should I write about, to make the most money?

And there is where many spam blogs start.

People who are making money, are busy making money. They do not hang out in forums, waiting for you to ask how to make money, so they can tell you how to make money - probably, some of the money that they want to be making.

Too many people who start out their blog, and base the subject of the blog upon advice from other people, will have nothing to say.

Writing, when you have nothing to say, gives your readers nothing to read.

• The blog will become dormant, and stale - and nobody will read it. And they will make no money.
• They will end up having to copy content from other blogs - most of which are about the same subject, and are written by other people who have nothing to say. They will have readers who are not interested in learning anything - and who will subscribe to hundreds of blogs, just looking for something interesting and useful.

This is similar to choosing a blog hosting service, according to what SEO friendly accessories and templates are available - or to publishing an AdSense ready blog, based on the minimum standards.

If you have nothing to say, you may try to get traffic, with clever, empty features.

In an effort to get more readers, and make more money, the unhappy blog owner will try other, imaginative techniques to increase traffic - in a subject that other blog owners are doing the same. Eventually, the blog will be deleted by Blogger - and the owner will be clueless.

My blog was just deleted, as a spam host! I need the money, to feed my family!! Please, Mr Blogger Helper, restore my blog!

And the former blog owner will not appreciate the advice, that will surely follow.

Blogger "One button" publishing is a personal website publishing service. Very few people are completely unique. Many people share interests with other people - and very few people know everything, about any given subject. Write about what you know, and share what you know.

No matter what you choose to write about, you will get various responses.

• Nobody is interested in that!
• Everybody already knows that!
• I never knew that! Thank you for telling me!
• I already knew that - but your posts helped me understand it better! Thank you for explaining it to me!

The trick is to write about what gives you more of the latter two responses - and write in a way to give you less of the first two responses.

Write about what you know - and people who need your expertise will benefit.

Write about what you know - and focus your efforts on the people who are interested in what you know - and write more about what you know.

There you have better chances of reaching people, who want to read what you know - and who learn from what you write, and who tell other people about someone who writes what interests them. And there is your reader audience.

A Blogger Blog Needs Informative And Unique Content

Too many blog owners have been listening to spammers, who tell them lies, and encourage dodgy publishing practice.

You can make lots of money - just start a blog, scrape content from other blogs and websites, and add ads!

This is wrong, for many reasons.

Blogger gives us the basic definition of what is not allowed, in Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.

I summarise this definition, by advising you to publish blogs that are informative, interesting, and unique.

Until you have lots of friends, and regular readers, who read your blog - and return later, to read some more - you will need traffic, from the search engines.

AdSense requires original content.

AdSense explicitly forbids copied content, on blogs that will show paid ads.

Fact: We don’t allow sites with auto-generated or otherwise unoriginal content to participate in the AdSense program. This is to ensure that our users are benefiting from a unique online experience and that our advertisers are partnering with useful and relevant sites.

To get search traffic, your blog needs unique content.

You don't get traffic from the search engines, without unique content, that causes your blog to be listed, in good position, in a Search Engine Results Page - aka SERP. And, you don't get return reader traffic, without informative or interesting content.

The recently deployed (March 2017) Google search engine update, colloquially named "Fred", targets low value content blogs and web sites. Many blog owners have observed an abrupt loss of search rank - and of search originated traffic - in their ad driven blogs.

Nobody is going to search for details - because they don't know the details.

Blogs which contain only lists of details, such as "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers", will not contain indexable material.

• They won't contain key phrases or words, that people might use, when searching for blogs to read.
• Their content won't be unique.

Since people don't know the answers to the exams, they won't be typing the key phrases or words, that lead to your blog - if your blog contains "Answers from Professor X's exams". And even if you spend a week, copying the names and addresses of each truck driving school, what you copy won't be unique.

If your blog contains only details, it will appear lower in the SERPs.

If your blog only contains lists of details, copied from various blogs and websites, your blog will have a lower SERP position than the sources of your content. Your blog will be vulnerable to spam classification - and will later fail review.

Websites which contain only "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers" may be allowed outside Blogger. Since Blogger is a personal website platform, you should try to write about things which you, personally, are familiar with - and host your lists, and other scraped content, outside Blogger.