Thanks for the link to the collapsing ad units. I didn’t know about that. I don’t know that PSAs are the source of my no-pay clicks, because I haven’t actually seen one on my blog in a long time. But with several hundred pages, that doesn’t mean anything. Your explanation makes sense to me.

I see the same kind of discrepency via mybloglog stats, although it is more like 25% to 50% (higher in MBL than reported at google).

I only know enough about javascript tracking (what they both do) to know that it isn’t perfect. So they will both “fail to track” some people. MBL may also create “false positives” – I really have no way to tell. For myself, I’ve just decided to ignore the MBL data – there’s no way to reconcile it, so I just ignore it and move on.

hth,
Scott

This will show you the breakout of impression-based payments versus click-based.

If you want to see if/how that varies by channel (and you set up your channels) that works great too.

hth,
Scott

Google does run “PSA Ads” – public service announcements, when they can not find any contextually relevant ads for a particular page. I used to get the “zero revenue” clicks too. You can make this go away by changing your ad settings to do one of two things when google has nothing to show.
1) collapse the empty space to fix #1
2) have them show your own ad.

Alternate ads guide at adsense:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10537&topic=8437

Collapsing ad-space guide at adsense:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10527&topic=8437

You may still occasionally get fraction-of-a-penny clicks, and with the rounding (due to other clicks and impression-payments), they may look like “free” – but it will be almost never.

Hth
Scott

If they were to do that will all of their invalid clicks, then I would have shown 33 clicks in my account – and just have gotten paid for 6 of them.

Confusing… to say the least!

As for your second question, that has also happened to me. I’ll add it to the above to see if anyone has an explanation for that one too.

Thanks!

Google does supply ads where you’re paid per impression. An advertiser buys a CPM ad that is displayed on your site. For every impression, you get a fraction of a penny. On a good day, this can lead to a few cents without a click.

Another thing I’d like to know about, is times when Google says I do have clicks, then says I didn’t earn anything on it. It doesn’t happen frequently, but I’ve noticed it.

In regards to #5 – tags. I see that tags don’t show up in your feed, but you also have partial feeds, not full feeds. I’m wondering if that is why they don’t show up there. I’ll look into UTW anyway – as thanks to Darren’s RSS series, I am on a quest for a clean feed!

As for clarification on the last one – there are actually two questions there.

1 – there are days when I make a few pennies (literally), but AdSense says I have had no clicks.

2 – MyBlogLog consistently shows I have more clicks on my AdSense ads than Google reports. A SIGNIFICANT percentage more.

I understand click fraud and all, but I highly doubt that 80% of my ad clicks are fradulent!

On #6 – AdSense click count vs. MyBlogLog click count, I gave up on that a while back… I remember when I first plugged MyBlogLog into our blog and noticed what a large discrepancy there was. Wow.

But I know Google does a lot of black box magic voodoo click fraud detection wizardry, etc… so no idea what pays and what doesn’t.

But I’ve never seen them pay without clicks showing… do you mean you got paid for AdSense clicks even though MyBlogLog didn’t show clicks? since myBlogLog tracks clicks over the internet on a server that you don’t own, they actually miss a lot of your clicks and hits – just like any other remote analytics program.

But I assume that AdSense showed clicks on the days they paid you for clicks? otherwise I’d like in on that deal too!!! they only pay me when they show clicks.

Have an awesome day!
Dan

On #5 – Technorati Tags – not sure why they would be cluttering up your feed… how do you have the tags set up, i.e. what plugin are you using for them?

We’re using UTW – Ultimate Tag Warrior – plugin for tags, and it’s really great. but I had to specifically add the snippet of code into my post display templatest to show tags – and I didn’t add anything like that to my feed display templates.

Also you might try making the tags point to tag pages on YOUR site, not to technorati – that should help some with SEO and also lead people to other pages within your own site. Check out what I mean below any post on our site: http://www.AskDanAndJennifer.com

BUT – I will tell you if you’re not using UTW, it was a bit of a bear to get set up… but it’s been great since.

Have an awesome day!
Dan

Thankfully, I haven’t paid for this template, but am in the process of getting Sarah Lewis to CSS a redesign I have laid out. So I won’t worry about it for now – that’s helpful!! Thanks!

Chmod – I have a plugin that states I have to “chmod this file to 777″. Uh – in English, please?!

My hosting company won’t allow me to edit my htaccess file – nor will it let a plugin make an edit. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how to get two of my old feed addresses onto my Feedburner feed.

And finally, in regards to Technorati Tags, I’m using Bunny’s tag plugin, but would be happy to use any of them that will keep them just on my post pages and out of my feed.

You rock!

1. ‘chmod’ is the term used when talking about changing file permissions to your website files. If you have FTP access to your files then using an FTP program is the easiest way to change the permissions. There are lots of free FTP programs out there, just look around. To change the permissions, or ‘chmod’ your file(s), just browse to it in your FTP program and right-click. Most FTP programs will have a menu that pops up when you right-click and it should include a command called ‘chmod’ or ‘permissions’ or something.
2. Try this plugin for WordPress to handle your feed redirection:
http://orderedlist.com/wordpress-plugins/feedburner-plugin/

*Wendy: I tried that one – it broke my whole blog!*
3. For the bullets problem it look like you might need to edit your CSS file. This webpage might help explain better than I can:
http://drupal.org/node/118632
4. I would worry about XHTML validation if you paid for your design, or are not technically savvy. If a new browser comes out and your page does not display properly, are you capable of fixing it yourself, or will it cost you money? Nobody but you and your web designer will probably ever check your site for valid XHTML. See this site for more details:
http://validator.w3.org/docs/why.html

5 and 6 I will leave to someone else, as they aren’t things I’m familiar with. Good luck!

Short for ‘change mode’ in Unix-speak. Changes permissions on files and folders. Can be done usually through your hosting control panel, or through an FTP program

# Can I forward or redirect a feed without editing my .htaccess file?
~

By editing the Apache configuration file, which most of us don’t have access to. The feedburner plugin changes the .htaccess file for you.

# My bullet dots and numbers don’t show up in Firefox – how can I get them to appear as they do in IE?
~

I hadn’t noticed — I use FireFox. But some of your XHTML errors might be causing this. There are a couple of issues with list tags…

# Have ANY of you ever checked whether my xhtml is valid or not? How bad is it that it says my blog is not valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional?
~

It can be bad if the non-valid code is messing up the display of your blog. If some tags aren’t closed properly (like div, ul, ol, and li tags) then the browser makes its best guess on how to display it. A lot of your XHTML errors are coming from your ads.

# Is there a way to add Technorati tags to my posts without them cluttering up my feed?
~

Depends on what tagging plugin you’re using.

# Why are there some days that I make money with AdSense – even if I have NO clicks?

NO CLUE!