The Four-eyed Journal » AdSense

Using Google AdSense Competitive ad filter to remove political ads

jhay — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:40:57 +0000

Blogging about politics has its many pitfalls, aside from being labelled many things that you’re not and having your blog traffic suffer for it, one of the worse things that could happen is a politician’s ad being displayed on your blog via AdSense.

Or is this one of the pitfalls of running AdSense on your blog? Anyways, it really stings if the political ads are for a politician you do not like one bit. Though I blog about politics, turning this blog into a political ad for any party or candidate is an idea that doesn’t sit well with me. Especially if the ad was displayed without my notice and approval.

It’s a good thing that Google AdSense has a feature called competitive ad filter which allows us publishers to have some control over the ads that get displayed on our blogs via AdSense. The troubling thing is, it’s reactive instead of being pro-active. The blogger must first spot the offending ad before and in order for it to be filtered out, if he gets to spot it because it may only be appear on certain pages or posts that are political in topic.

So even before he gets to filter out the ad, the damage has been done, for the duration that the ad was not yet filtered out, it gave the impression that this blog was endorsing the candidate or party to which the ad promotes. Annoying indeed it is. Frustrating at times. Right Ms Connie?

Perhaps I’d endorse a candidate or party for the coming elections. But I’d do it in a manner I choose, in the method I approve of and in the time I’ve decided to take that plunge. For now, I’d be happy to filter out those politician’s ads and I’d pass up the few cents of earnings if ever theirs do get clicked.

Blog updates 3.08: theme reboot, roller-coaster ride & privacy policy

jhay — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:43:34 +0000

This past two weeks has been a roller-coaster ride for me. Even as the school year comes to an end, schoolwork has always kept me from blogging like I used to. Still, I have little to no regrets as the times I was able to blog were times put to very good use and noble causes. The previous posts on this blog is incontrovertible proof of it.

Anyways, let’s get on with this blog update post so as to clear things about the latest happenings to the this blog.

Theme reboot

Finally I achieved the Problogger.net look and feel! I may not be the problogger, but ever since Problogger.net had a major theme update, I could not help but say that the new design and layout was perfect. In my search and even purchase of WP themes, I’ve always used Problogger.net as a basis, looking for something similar to its layout and approach. Because it’s simply damn works!

First I tried on that WP_Premium theme by by R. Bhavesh and WP Remix. A day or so afterwards, I tried on the Forte theme by Moses Francis and stuck with it until this past weekend. That’s when you suddenly saw a new theme, based on the Copyblogger theme by Cris Pearson. I modified it a lot to achieve that ‘Problogger.net’ layout and feel. Plenty of space for the main content while keeping the essential elements close by.

I chose the Copyblogger theme because of it’s awesome and powerful typography. The image and blockquotes styles are simply elegant and beautiful. But I wanted to customize the theme even further, sadly though, my CSS skills are not yet up to the challenge so commissioned the help of Miko of Build that Geek, a promising and talented blogger/designer from Davao to bring to life what I had envisioned for my customization of the Copyblogger theme. Later on, I’ll probably release it to the public in case I do not, once more switch over to using it on this blog. So watch out for that everyone.

What’s really strange is I’m using another different theme right now and you’re wondering ‘what gives?’ Like what I said earlier, I’ve finally achieved the ‘Problogger.net’ layout and feel, all thanks to this awesome and powerful theme, Structure by Justin Tadlock. It’s awesome because of it’s looks and layout. I just tweaked the CSS to change the colors to taste, and very powerful because the theme can be customized without that many efforts or complications. Because 80% of the theme’s front page is widgetized allowing users to move around many blocks of content or uses to achieve their customized look and functionality.

Of almost all the ‘premium’ WP themes out there, Structure is among the best and it’s free! I’ll be talking more about how and why I customized this theme in the next coming days. For now, let’s move on.

My very own privacy policy

You may have known by now and you’ve probably complied with it by now, but I’ve finally posted by very own Privacy Policy as required by the recently updated Google AdSense TOS or Terms of Service. Yes, Google is now the true overlord of the web.

PinoyBlogero has a nice post about what the heck’s a ‘privacy policy’ is and how to make one so that you’d be in compliance with the new AdSense TOS. Honestly though, I used Jensense’s sample template to create with my own AdSense TOS-friendly Privacy Policy. The automatic Privacy Policy Generator was just too complicated for me to use. Jensense’s version is a lot easier to use and customize for each of our own blogs, we just copy it and fill-in the blanks with our blog’s name/url and other info and you’re all set.

That’s it for this blog update, if you have comments, questions or suggestions about the my theme please let me know via the comments thread below. For all you fellow bloggers who use AdSense, it’s time to update or create your very own ‘Privacy Policy.’

Check out mine!

Changes I made to my AdSense Beautifier plugin

jhay — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:14:48 +0000

The Google AdSense team shook things up yesterday when they finally made public new policies regarding the use of images with their ads that were supposedly to fix ‘ad blindness’ and to improve ad optimization. Probloggers Darren Rowse and Abe Olandres quickly blogged about it saying that “you cannot place images near ads in any way that suggests a relationship between the image or the ad – even if you put a line between the image and the ad” and that there’s a “possibility that the plugin Adsense Beautifier could violate Adsense Terms of Service (TOS)” respectively.

In all honesty, I became worried, scared even because 1) I am among the many bloggers out there who uses the AdSense Beautifier plugin and 2) I am also among those who customized the images that the plugin uses. These two factros alone made me a prime candidate for being banned from using AdSense, which would be a real nightmare because I’m still waiting to hit the $100-mark and recieve my very first AdSense check.

So I nearly stayed up all night and worked to change the images the AdSense Beautifier plugin is using for my site. Guided by probloggers Abe and Darren, I first decided to change the images into something that are not closely related to technology, computers, gadgets and health which are the topics I mainly blog about.

I browsed my del.ico.us bookmarks remembering that Max Limpag once bookmarked a site about thousands of icons you could download for free. Taking some time to carefully choose the new images I’m going to use, I went for people or cartoon characters, books, even oriental images. It took me no less than ten minutes of editing the image for the plugin, uploaded it into my site and refreshed my blog pages to see the final result. It was pleasing at first, the images were even cute. Until a thought flashed in my mind (which may sound paranoid), that since I blog about other things aside from tech and health-related topics, what if Google displays ads related to that non-tech and non-health post and as pure coincidence, the new images I’m using were closely related to those ads then someone from Google sees that post, that ad with that now closely related image beside it and say; “Tsk tsk. This guy wouldn’t just listen eh, so no more AdSense for him from now on.”

So I was back to the drawing board…literally. I tried again looking for other images that are so remotely related to the possible topics I’m going to blog about, but that possible scenario I mentioned before kept bugging me. Nearly giving up and resigning myself to deactivating the AdSense Beautifier plugin, an idea – a braingasm suddenly struck me.

I said to myself, ‘Since the whole idea of the plugin was to prevent ad blindness without violating the AdSense TOS and enable the ads to blend in with my blog’s theme; why don’t I make a new image that would do just that, literally even.’ I fired up Macromedia Fireworks and created a set of small black squares similar in appearance to the styling of the links on my sidebar. The end result, you could see right below this post and all the other posts to come.

It’s safe, it’s neutral, it blends perfectly with my blog’s theme, it simply works.