Security Scams by Phone?

What next.

Just had a super dumb call from some computer place trying to convince me my computer was connected to their server and I was downloading viruses and they were getting error messages. The guy can barely speak english, and he tries very hard to convince me they can tell it's my computer because of my computer license. Yeah well, nice try dude.

Not possible since my security systems won't download viruses; besides, I scan every day with Spybot Search & Destroy, a trusted antivirus, and hijack this, and I have a firewall. You don't spend 2 years on a security forum and not learn a thing or two about avoiding virus crap.

Dope. Don't fall for this people...just don't. And tell your friends not to fall for it either.

First, get the company name they work for. If you've never heard of them - don't trust them. No way they're connected to your computer if you don't let them. If they say they're from Microsoft security, trust them EVEN LESS.

IF you're concerned about virus, then run your scans using your own software - if you don't use spybot search & destroy, get it ... and use (it's free). Make sure your antivirus is up to date, use a firewall. Learn how to protect your computer - don't trust some guy calling from god-knows-where and DON'T, DON'T, DON'T them into your computer, and that goes double for giving them any information at all. Just hang up.

...But Everyone Else is Doing It!

Really? Everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay, right?

We see so many new publishers (and even some "older" publishers) giving this as an excuse for not following the Adsense Program Policies and Webmaster Guidelines.

Let me ask you something. When you tell your child to do something, you expect them to do it. You set up rules in your household that you expect the kids to follow. So when one of your kid's doesn't follow the rules, what do you think?  When your child says to you "everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?" what do you say?

If you are like most parents, you'll tell them that as parents it's your job to set the rules for your household, and your job to make sure they are followed. You probably don't care much what the rules are in other households, and you'll tell your kid's that you expect them to follow your rules, not someone else's.

Well then, what makes you publishers think that it's okay to follow what another website does, instead of following what Adsense tells you to do?

One of the recent posts in the Adsense forum is from an ex-publisher, who thinks that all ex-Adsense publishers should "band together and force Adsense to reform".  This isn't really anything new in the forum, we see similar posts regularly, but it is probably time to address this publicly.

Adsense has a contract with publishers - it's called the Terms of Service (which have previously been addressed here).  Publishers must agree to this contract before they can actually use Adsense. It's your responsibility as a publisher to understand that contract BEFORE you agree to it, and once you agree to it, it's your responsibility to uphold that contract, even if you don't like all the parts of it.

The person posting in the forum, replied with this statement:

If the contract was so one-sided and was designed to make the employee fail in their duties at some early stage, then of course. (of course the business should reform is what they mean).

In reply to that, I'd have to disagree. Based on principle. In fact, since the "employee" would have had to agree to that contract in order to be hired, the onus is on the employee. They can make their own decisions about whether they'll accept the contract or not, BEFORE getting into the "hired" stage.  Adsense is the same. You have the option when you get approved to agree to the contract, or not. That's your choice. If you choose to go forward, then you must choose to agree to abide by the contract, whether you like it or not.

People who don't read the contract and just agree to it, will find themselves having problems. It is our responsibility as publishers to make our own choices and decisions. I personally read all Terms of any site I sign up at, and there have been a few sites whose terms dissuaded me from going forward, because I couldn't live with the terms of their contract. That's my choice, the same as it's any publisher's choice. The options exist - you choose to abide by the contract, or you choose to not use the service.


People need to learn to become responsible for their own decisions at the time they make them, instead of complaining about what they signed "after-the-fact".

Not all of us actually like the Adsense terms, but many of us are only too aware of what they say, and what can happen based on those terms. Unlike a lot of others, I agreed to the terms knowing full well what they meant.

Businesses of all sorts work in a similar way. The business has the right to decide how they will run their business. I wouldn't much appreciate someone else telling me how to run my business, or what my contract should say. Neither, I'm sure, would many other businesses allow such a thing.

Another statement of note from the ex-publisher (and we also see this from many publishers who have been disabled) is that AdSense operates as a scam hiding behind a legit organisation for cover.

I don't think so.  I've had my Adsense account since late 2006, and haven't had any problems ever collecting my earnings - I am not a large publisher and don't earn mega amounts, but I get my check every time it's issued, without any problems. And I'm not a US citizen, nor do I live in the US. Many of our forum regulars live all over the world, and collect their earnings regularly too.

The difference between those who are able to keep their accounts long term and those who run afoul of the policies in their early stages is probably a lot simpler than some might think, and most of it is unrelated to being "click-bombed". The percentage of people who are innocent and actually do get click-bombed is extremely small (maybe as low as 3 or 4%, if that) compared to those who have solicited the click-bombing by joining click-rings.

- new publishers don't take time to understand the rules, not to the letter of the policies, nor to the "spirit" of the policies.  They are more interested in covering their sites with ads to "make money" than to "waste time" learning the ropes first. Nobody should ever rush headlong into something they don't understand. Far too many new publishers don't have any idea how to even edit a website, or place their code, let alone understand how Adsense works.

- new publishers want money, more than anything else and tend to run off slapping their sites on link exchanges, and traffic sites to get a boost in their traffic. Most of which are traffic sources that fall outside of the "okay" limit for Adsense. The traffic quality section has lots of information about how to increase your traffic levels appropriately, but I would guess that 90% of the new publishers have no clue it even exists, because of course they don't take time to read the information available. It's too much work to read all that stuff, so ... just put the ads on and hope to get rich.

- new publishers tend to follow what they see on other websites, and not what they do read (if they read it) in the policies. This is one of the biggest issues I've seen. "That site does it and gets a way with it (for a while), so I'll do the same. It must be okay."   Even if the policies say it isn't.  This is another area people must learn to take responsibility for their own choices. Adsense policies are written for a purpose; that purpose is so publishers know what you can and can't do. If you want to blindly follow another site without even knowing if they are doing the right thing, that's your problem.  

Personally, I believe I could make more money by doing things other than I am, however, from my standpoint if Adsense hasn't specifically said something is "okay and allowed" I'm not going to take any chances by doing it. If it specifically says it isn't okay, you can bet I won't do it, regardless of what any other website does.

And like many publishers (both active and disabled), they also think that there should be warnings rather than account dismissal for early "violations".

That would be nice.  BUT, Really. How many "warnings" does the law give before issuing a ticket for a traffic violation? Not too damn many, and they don't care if you are a new driver or not. They expect you to know the rules of the road. Ignorance is not a defense.

There are multiple warnings scattered throughout the Adsense Program Policies, and also in the Webmaster Guidelines. If people aren't going to take heed of THOSE warnings, then you begin to wonder if there is any point at all to issuing a warning. How many warnings to do people need?

The way I see it, if you're told not to touch the hot stove, you've been warned. If you touch it and get burned, then it's your own fault. You shouldn't need yet another warning. Pay attention to the warnings that exist throughout the Adsense Help Center files, and you shouldn't need a warning. For anything you don't really understand or aren't sure is okay, you can ask before you do it. That's called being "proactive" about your choices.

So are there problems for new publishers who sign up for Adsense? Yes, of course there are. Most of these problems could be resolved in the beginning if publishers took the time to understand how everything works before actually using the services.

What I see as inherently wrong with the Adsense recruitment methods is the lack of education BEFORE allowing a new publisher access to any Adsense ad codes.  New publishers should be required to attend an online webinar that explains all the policies in-depth, and then should have to complete a questionnaire without having any access to the answers from the help center. At that point, if they pass the "test" stage, they get access to their entire account and the codes. That way, people are educated before they jump in with both feet.  The publisher then becomes responsible for everything they do, and if they still fail, then nobody would be pointing any fingers at Adsense. Right?  Wrong. There are some people who will always try to avoid their own responsibility for failure. 

Like many of us who continue to use Adsense, I see things that should be changed. Things I'd like to see changed. But I don't run Adsense, and I don't get to make those decisions. My options are to continue to use it and suggest changes when we get a chance, and to stick to the rules as they stand now. 

I don't support all their decisions, but I support their right as a business to make the choices they make for their own business...whether I might like it or not is of little consequence. If I dislike it enough, I'll stop using it. For now, I've learned to live within their rules. I hope you'll take the time to learn how to do that too, before you need any "warning".

Adsense, Blogger and the DMCA Notice

With the recent push by Adsense to ensure the quality of publisher websites, it has become even more important that Adsense publishers are vigilant about protecting their copyrights.

I've already written about some of the ways you can protect your contents on this post back in 2009 about duplicate contents.

There is a new one also out there called "EmbedAnything". Personally, I would not use this, and not having used it, I don't really have any recommendations for it.

My personal opinion is that Embed Anything might be fine for those who wish to share their contents, but it not an option for those who do not. I also don't believe it would provide much in the way of actual protection.

Anyone can copy from your website, even if you disabled the right click function (which is totally annoying to most visitors as the right click context menu contains many functions that people use while viewing a website, not just the copy function) people can still copy your content. A couple of ways. Firstly, Firefox will show a notice that the right-click function has been disabled on that website, however, Firefox will still let you highlight and copy the text, rendering the "no right click" codes entirely useless.

And if someone really wants to copy your text, they can simply view the source code for your page, and highlight the text block they want, then copy it. Disabling the right-click functionality doesn't work in source code view, so pretty much any browser can still allow people to copy your work.

What's left then?

Besides the free registry places I listed in my old article (which still apply), you need to file DMCA notices to get your copied works removed from the sites that copied them. Keep in mind though - if you had previously given someone approval to re-post your content, you should not file a DMCA notice. You've given them permission and that means it is not a DMCA issue - they posted with your authorization.

The other thing you need to be clear about when filing a DMCA claim is that you actually own the content. If you've copied a bunch of images off someone else's website...you don't own those, and you may not file a DMCA claim for things you don't own.

Lastly, in filing a DMCA claim, you need to file it with the correct agency. If the person who copied your content has a website and paid webhosting, you will want to find out who their webhost is (do a "whois" search for that) because that's who you want to file the claim with. If they are also using Adsense, you can file a DMCA claim with Adsense. If they are using Blogger, you'll need to file a DMCA claim with Blogger.

You need to complete the forms fully and correctly, and from some of the DMCA notices I've seen on Chilling Effects...some people don't understand how to fill out the forms. Below are copies of the DMCA notices for Adsense and Blogger, with instructions on how to complete them correctly (click the image to get a larger view).

Adsense DMCA Notice - Online Form

Sample

Blogger DMCA Notice - Online Form

Sample

Please remember - do not complete a form unless you are the original owner of the contents.

New Adsense Approval Rules - Explained

At the end of August this year (2011) Adsense instituted a new Approvals Process for publishers applying for Adsense. I made a quick note of this with a link to their blog post in my last article, but for some reason it appears to be causing a lot of confusion for people who are applying for Adsense. I am not sure why, because if you actually take the time to read the approval email, it explains the steps pretty clearly.

In an effort to expand on that a little, here is a copy of one of the approval emails for the new process, along with explanations of what occurs. In all honesty, if you don't take time to read these steps when they are sent to you, you will be creating a host of problems for yourself.


Welcome to AdSense!

You now have access to your new AdSense account and the AdSense code that you need to place ads on your site. To activate your account and get started with AdSense, follow the steps below. Or, for a detailed walkthrough of everything you need to know as a new AdSense publisher, visit Newbie Central: http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1045789&sct=app-12156.

I believe the paragraph above may be one of the things causing confusion. While it is important to read the "Newbie Central" section on Adsense, with this new approval process you cannot actually do everything they list in Newbie Central. You can get the code (as described below in this email), and place it on your website. That's about it though. While you can access and see other things in your account, you won't be showing impressions or earnings right away, until your account goes through the final steps of approval.




We have completed a partial review of your application, and you may begin placing AdSense code on your site. In order to help you begin using Google AdSense as fast as possible, we will conduct a further review after you’ve placed the AdSense code on your site.  We will notify you of full approval or disapproval within four (4) business days.


This paragraph above is, I think, where people are beginning to get confused. While you do get to place ad code on your site, it isn't actually going to work until the final review is completed. That paragraph says "4 business days" but given the actual time this takes, I wouldn't count on that actually happening within four days all the time. It can take four days, or it might take a week or more, depending on just how many sites and applications they have to review. They'll be trying to get through them all in four days, but these people are (contrary to some opinions) just human and can only do so much in a day. They don't work 24-7.

Please note that initially, instead of live ads, you will see blank ads - the ad unit box will blend in with the background of your webpage.  This occurs because your account is still under review. We cannot complete our review of your application until you have placed the AdSense code on your site and are sending us ad requests.

This is another paragraph in the new process that seems to be causing confusion - I'm not sure whether it's just because people aren't bothering to read it, or if it's because someone has past the "four days" noted in the above paragraph and they just expect the ads to work.


When you first place the ad code on your site, you may actually see live ads for a few minutes but you probably won't see them for very long. Once the crawler visits your site it's going to discover that your site isn't yet approved to display ads, and those ads will disappear, but the ad code will still be in your site, and that's the way it's supposed to be until you pass through the final stage of the review process.


Without having the ad code in your site, these folks won't know which sites to review, so the ad code has to be there, but the ad itself doesn't. That's because you aren't going to get paid for any ads until after the final review process, and Adsense has it set up so they can review the site with the code, but you aren't expected to display advertising you won't get paid for, so the ads aren't visible to anyone.


If you don't get the codes on your site, it won't go through the final review process, so getting the code in place is an important part of this new process, but don't expect the actual ads to display until you receive a notice saying you received approval.

Once you have been fully approved, we will notify you by email, and you will begin seeing live ads appear on your site.  You will not need to take further action to start earning revenue.

If you placed two or three ad codes in your site during the initial stages of the approval process, and  you make it through the final stages and are approved, then those ads will automatically begin displaying again. At that point, you will begin earning revenue. If you only placed one code and want more than one ad, go to your account and get started creating other ad units (there is a maximum of three ads allowed on any one page).


Once the approval is received you may want to check your site to ensure that you are happy with the ad placements and that they aren't in spots where they overlap your content, or where your content or menu overlaps or covers part of the ads.


From this final approval point onwards, you can make adjustments and fine tune the ad placements, create channels and track your stats in your adsense account. It is important to ensure you understand the rules and policies associated with being an Adsense Publisher, so make sure you follow the instructions in the balance of the email (see below) and read all information associated with Adsense in their help center.


And don't forget - NEVER click your own ads, and NEVER ask anyone to click them, and NEVER tell people to "visit your sponsors".


Good luck with your Adsense account...and happy blogging!


The balance of the email publishers will receive during the new approval process is noted below:




Even after approval, we continuously review all accounts for compliance with our policies.  If any violations are detected, your account may be disapproved or ad serving to your pages may be stopped.  If at any time you are not seeing ads appear, we recommend that you log into your AdSense account and examine any messages that may appear.

STEP 1: Access your account.

Visit http://www.google.com/adsense?sct=app-12156 and sign in using the email address and password that you submitted with your application. If you've forgotten your password, visit http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1054302&sct=app-12156. Please also make sure that you have valid contact information in your account.

STEP 2: Create an AdSense ad unit.

Visit the "My Ads" tab, confirm the product selected is "Content" and click "New ad unit."

STEP 3: Display AdSense ads on your pages.

After you create your ad unit, we'll give you the ad code to paste into the HTML source of your website so that you can show ads (after approval). For help adding the code to your pages, visit our Code Implementation Guide at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=28893&sct=app-12156. If you don't have access to edit the HTML source of your pages, please contact your webmaster or hosting company.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

* Once ads begin to appear, please don't click on your ads, even to test them -- doing so isn't permitted by the AdSense programme policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies).

* You can add the AdSense code to a new page or site that complies with our programme policies at any time. There's no need to inform us or apply for a new account when you do - once you have been fully approved, you may place the code on as many pages that you own as you wish.  Please make sure our crawler can access any webpage you place ad code on - see http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en_GB&answer=10532 for details.

Have more questions? You can find answers in our Help Centre at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/?sct=app-12156, or the AdSense blog athttp://adsense.blogspot.com?sct=app-12156. In addition, you can post your questions to the AdSense Help Forum at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense?sct=app-12156.

Yours Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Messages from Adsense - Part 1

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT NEW ADSENSE ACCOUNT APPLICATION PROCEDURES:


Just released on the Inside Adsense blog is a note about new application procedures. If you were a recently approved publisher who suddenly find their account showing a red notice that the account is under review again, please read this article from Inside Adsense on the new procedures.


One of the things many publishers seem to dread is mail from Adsense. Partly, that's because they're afraid that the mail will be one that disables their Adsense account, and partly because they often can't understand the information contained in the message, and partly because they aren't sure the message is really from Adsense.

While it is important to be careful when responding to emails from anyone, emails from Adsense can usually be handled with relative safety. If you aren't sure the mail is "safe", note any links included in the mail, and check them out separately without giving out personal login details.

Often you can go separately to your account and login and reply from there, without having to reply from your email, and without having to login through an unsecured source. If any email from Adsense asks for your personal login information, or your address or phone number, or verification of any other kind, do not reply to it without first checking things out.

If you have posted a request for help in the Adsense forum and an employee responded that they would contact you by mail, and you are expecting that mail, it is probably safe.

In many cases, messages directly from Adsense can be found in your Adsense account too, under the "Messages" tab. Any messages there that require you to respond are safe to respond to directly from inside your Adsense account.

We seem to get quite a few questions asking "what should I do" when people find these messages in their accounts.

Well, you should do what the message says of course. Following are a few examples of the types of messages you might find, and what to do with them:



Required Action General Payments Issue - Please contact AdSense Support to resolve this hold.

What does it mean? That's something we can't answer. Sometimes it's a random spot-check to reconfirm a mailing address or to update your tax information again, but there are numerous reasons they might want you to contact them directly. We can't say what all those reasons are because...well, we don't know. The reasons may differ from publisher to publisher.

What should you do? This is one of the simplest - what you should do is what it says. Contact Adsense support using the link in the message. Once they've received your contact, they'll contact you with an explanation - that can take a day or two, or even as long as a few weeks.

Your pages are displaying blank ads (or Public Service Advertisements) because you haven't yet verified your PIN and/or phone number. See the Payment History page for more details.

What does it mean?  It means you need to verify your PIN/Phone number. Publishers have a set amount of time (4-6 months I think) from the time they cross the verification threshold to verify this information. If you haven't verified your account during that time, your ads will be blank

What should you do? If you have not received your PIN within the specified time, and/or haven't yet verified your phone number, you can post in the Adsense forum for help. Fairly often the PIN time-requirement can be reset, allowing you time to complete these tasks.

Your ads have recently appeared on websites you haven't authorized. To avoid lost revenue, make sure to authorize any sites where you display ads by visiting your account settings.

What does it mean? It means you are using the allowed sites list in your Adsense account and that some non-allowed sites have been displaying your ads. In many cases, these sites will be search engines - the various entities of Google (google.com, google.ca, google.in, google,pk, google.whatever etc.) will all show up separately, so every time someone uses their country's local Google search to find and access your site, you'll see another site show up in the non-allowed list.

Of course, it may not always be search engines that appear under the non-allowed list, but this is one of the most prevalent appearances on this section of your account. Sometimes it will be google translate, or google webcache - this occurs when someone views your pages using the google site translator, or finds a cached view of one of your pages from a search.

What should you do?  For the most part, major search engines and mostly all of the google.whatever local search engines can be added to the allowed sites list, as can the translate and webcache pages.

If you aren't certain of the site, don't add it.

These messages display in your account for up to a week after the event, or after you add them to the safe list, so don't be confused when you've added them to your safe list and you still have the message displaying. Eventually (after a week) the message will disappear.

As well, keep in mind that these messages will appear regularly in your account, but most of the time these aren't cause for concern. Simply check the Allowed sites page, check the non-allowed sites that show up and decide whether they are safe to add or not.

I can't really remember when the last time was that I didn't have this message in my account. I do not add every site that displays my pages to the safe list because all of them aren't safe, such as proxy sites. I have a few visitors who view my site using a proxy site - perhaps to hide their IP address, or maybe they just prefer to be anonymous. Because I don't know who that person is, and don't know the proxy site in question, I won't consider that a safe addition to my Allowed sites. I only get a few of these a month, so it's not like I'm missing out on a lot of income. It's always wise to check any site you add to your allowed sites list BEFORE you add it.

Next Time: Messages from Adsense (Part 2)!

Listen Up...

Okay, today just a very short post. This is really a reply to some seriously stupid people - and yes, there are seriously stupid people out there in the vast world of the internet.

This little gem (below) I received today, in my gmail box:

First thing - I've never heard of "Google Account Alert" (who it is supposedly "from")

Second thing - "mailnorewly(at)gmail(dot)com" is not my address (though it insists it was sent to mailnorewly, is not even close to my address, and is spelled incorrectly anyway.

Heads up to the phishers out there - if you can't spell even a simple word like "reply" don't waste your time.

Third thing - nobody in their right mind would ever even try to reply such a dumb, stupid email.


Please people, if you're going to try and phish something out of me, you better learn to spell, and get way more creative than this.


For the rest of you, my readers - I am pretty sure none of YOU are going to even blink as you reach for the "spam" button in your gmail account, right?

Just about the only good thing I can say about this email is that it tickled my funny bone for about one-tenth of a second. It actually got a smile out of me,.

Hey folks - it's Friday. Have a great weekend...

Adsense Ads Took Over My Website...or Why Did My Blog Disappear?

It's time this situation was addressed...long past time actually. I guess I've been a little lax lately. Each week we see at least a couple of publishers in the forum asking why their website or blogs have disappeared, and been replaced with a page full of adsense ads. Mostly, these are new publishers who assume that because they've purchased a domain name for their site or blog, they should use Adsense for Domains.

Wrong!

Why? Well, because Adsense for Domains is only for "undeveloped" domains. An undeveloped domain is one that doesn't contain a website or a blog...basically, it is nothing more than a purchased domain name. You would only use Adsense for Domains if you don't have hosting for a website, and don't have a blog to redirect your domain name to.

For any website or blog with actual contents on it, you must choose Adsense for Content, not Adsense for Domains.

Adsense for Content is for any regular (not mobile) website, or any type of blog (again, not a mobile enabled site). So it doesn't matter if you are using a free blog like Blogger.com, or a self-hosted wordpress blog (not a free wordpress blog) - you still would choose Adsense for Content, even if your Blogger or Wordpress blog has it's own domain name.

If you've already set-up Adsense for Domains and can't find your website any longer, you'll need to follow the instructions on the Adsense Help Center page to remove your site from Adsense for Domains (please read the instruction page carefully).

Once you've completed the restoration of your domain settings, your website will be available again. At that point, you can sign in to your Adsense account and then select "Adsense for Content" to set up your ads.

For anyone just starting out: please read the product instructions before you select the product you want to use. The descriptions contain information on where to use these products, as well as the individual program policies for each of the different Adsense Products.

Adsense, Blogger, Gmail and Google - Disabled Accounts

In recent months we've seen a couple of round of wholesale account removals by Google. Their automatic spam procedures have nuked hundreds (possibly thousands) of accounts; some rightfully so, and some in error.

How it works isn't something I'm going to go through in-depth, but if you really want to understand how this happens, read this article by one of Blogger's most prolific Top Contributors. He explains how the spam detection system works, and why some ordinary blogs and/or accounts get caught in the filter. He also explains how to get your account back, but - the final review is...the final review. If your account is still deemed as spam and not restored, it will be because humans have reviewed it manually and still found it meets the qualifications for spam.

When you login to your Google, Gmail or Blogger account and see this:"Your account has been disabled" you need to click on the "contact us" link provided. That should take you to a page explaining that your Google account has been disabled. Read the information on the page, and follow the instructions - follow the instructions precisely. In other words, review the Terms of Service and be absolutely certain your account(s) follow those terms before you submit any other form. There is a contact form at the end of the page - if your account meets the terms, use the contact form.

If you were caught in the spam filter accidentally, there's a pretty good chance you will have your account restored.

On the other hand, if your blog contained any of the things Blogger considers outside of their policy, or is seen as spam, you won't get your blog(s) back, and you probably won't get your Google account back either.

Some of the things considered to fall outside of the terms of use on Blogger/Google are also some of things Adsense considers to be unsuitable for displaying ads, so if you use Blogger and Adsense, then you need to pay attention to this. If your blog contains the following type of content - you may be caught in the next round of Google nukes.

• Affiliate marketing.
• Content created with scripts and programs, rather than by hand
• Auto-generated contents
• Content or links referencing GPT, PTC, PTS, 'Make money from home', 'Make money fast', or other referral-based activities
• Link Farms
• Content scraped from other sources, duplicate contents
• Copyright Infringement
• Large blogs with multiple, unfocused / unrelated subjects.
• Links to Illegal Downloads / Streaming / Torrents.

An explanation of Blogger's Content Policy is found here: Blogger Content Policy

If your blog contains these types of content, you better start cleaning them up now. Sooner or later, Blogger or Adsense, or even Google will remove your accounts if you don't.

WHY LOSING YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT CAUSES BIGGER PROBLEMS

Losing a Blogger account usually means...well, you lose your blog. Losing an Adsense account means you can't monetize with Adsense any longer, but you might still have your blog or other Google Services. Losing your Google Account is a much larger problem.

A Google Account is like a giant umbrella over all of your other services provided by Google. The Google Account login allows you to login to any Google service you've signed up for - it's much like the key to the filing cabinet. Without it, you can't get any of the filing drawers to open.

If you lose your blogger account, and only your blogger account, you may still have access to your other Google services.

If you lose your Google Account, you literally lose access to any other services you had under that umbrella. This is important - so pay attention. This is not just "when Google disables your account". The same thing occurs if YOU delete your own Google account.

We see this frequently in the Adsense forums. Someone decides they want a new Google Account (for whatever reason) - to use a different name, or to only use some of the products, or just to organize their accounts a little better.

The first thing they do is go "delete" their Google Account.

Then they wonder why they can't access any of their other Google services. They can't, because by deleting the Google Account, they've just thrown away the key to the cabinet. Without the Google account, you now have no access to anything else under that umbrella.

If you plan to move your blogs, or gmail or adsense account (or any other Google service) to a new account, you need to request help in the appropriate help forum BEFORE you delete your old Google Account.

• Adsense Help Forum
• Blogger Help Forum
• Gmail Help Forum
• All Other Help Forums

Optimizing Ad Placements

In recent months Adsense has done a complete overhaul of the Help Center files. While I haven't found all of these changes to be helpful, in some cases they might be useful for newbies.

The Newbie Central section has changed quite a bit, but it highlights some of the most important things newbies should know, and understand before getting the ads onto their sites.  The introductory page gives you a short list of the places where you should start - just click the picture or link on their introduction page (linked)  and start learning.

Adsense has been adding some other basic help pages for those just beginning with Adsense. Two of these useful sections are the Ad Placement Optimizers: the One-Click Optimizer, and the Optimization Lab (which is not just for newbies).

One-Click Ad Optimizer

The one click optimizer offers suggestions for ad placement for a variety of site types: news sites, classified sites, game sites, forums and blogs. Possibly because these are the types of sites we most frequently see questions about, though most of us helping in the forums don't seem to use these different types of sites.

Before creating these optimizers, Adsense spends a fair bit of time learning what works well for certain types of sites - so there is some research behind these ad placement suggestions. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean they will work for your site, it means they should. Every site is different, and sometimes the best ad placements for your own site might not be the same as what they've suggested. Placements that work will depend on your site layout, and your contents, as well as your visitors. If you already have a visitor base, then you need to pay attention to what your visitors want.

If your site is fairly new, then it might be a good idea to check out the optimizers and see how your current ad placement lines up with what Adsense says is effective. You may want to try some of their suggestions on different pages of your site. If you decide to do this, then make sure you create channels for these new ad placements so you can track their effectiveness yourself.

The Optimization Lab

The Optimization Lab has more help for getting the most out of your ads. There are simple instructions on how to increase your CTR and increase the CPC on your websites, however, if you are a newbie you will also need to pay close attention to the policies.

One of the possible ways to increase the CTR is to wrap your text around an ad unit. The Adsense Optimzation Lab gives instructions in the form of a div code to do this, but keep in mind that if you implement this, you really need to have more than "5" pixels of space between the ad and your text. This is especially true if you are using a lot of images close to the ad placement, or if you are using text ads with no borders in your text area. The ad unit must NOT be mistaken for part of your text.

What it doesn't give you are the instructions for using that div code everywhere. Basic websites built with html can put their ad codes within their text areas, usually without much problem. That allows them to use just this div code supplied by Adsense to set the ad to the right or left side within their text. But most blogs will not not accept the adsense code within the text areas - at least blogger will not. And some wordpress blogs may not either.

In order to do this, you'll need to parse the adsense code for blogger (do a web search - lots of blogs have already written about this). This parsed adsense code is then placed in between the two div codes given by Adsense and inserted into the correct spot in your blog's TEMPLATE, not in the text area.

What happens then is that the ad will display in that spot on each post you have without you having to place the code each time.

Also be aware that if you have your blogs set to display more than one post on a page, you will not be able toplace  ad units in your sidebar (use link units instead), header or footer areas because each of your first 3 posts will already have an ad in it, and you are only allowed to display 3 ad units.

If you normally display more than 3 posts on a page, also do not use this method for displaying your ads. If you have 5 posts on a page, this code will try to display 5 ads - one in each post. Adsense will then only display one public service ad, and no other ads.

This method of inserting the code into the template is really only good if you have your blog set to display one or two posts per page, but it will work fine for static websites (ie: sites that are all individual pages, rather than a blog with multiple posts on a page).

There are other things in the optimization lab you might want to look at - and a few to be careful about.

In the "Boost Impressions" section one of the things they list is to use Adwords to increase site traffic. Please, please, please do NOT run over to Adwords and start buying ads to increase your traffic.

Adsense and Adwords used together can cause publishers a lot of grief. Most new publishers signing on at Adwords have NOT taken the time to understand how these work together, and what you need to do to MAKE it work. If you are considering using Adwords to drive traffic directly to a page loaded with Adsense ads, then forget doing that. The purpose of Adwords isn't to get people to go click on your ads. It's purpose is to advertise your SITE, PRODUCT (which is NOT adsense), or SERVICE.

The page that your Adwords ad leads to must meet certain quality guidelines (available at adwords), and your website must also meet certain quality guidelines...if it doesn't, you can lose both your accounts. As well, your ad itself must not be misleading. If your ad says "get a free laptop" it better lead to a page where someone gets a free laptop. So how many free laptops have you got to give away? Oh...none? Well then that ad is misleading. Change the wording so it says "sign up to get a free laptop", in which case the page it leads to has to have a spot for someone to signup for a free laptop.

There are many misleading advertisements that end up on our websites as publishers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I report these ads when I find them, and so do many of my readers. If my readers click an ad for a free calendar template, it's because that's what they're looking for and if the click doesn't take them to a page with a free calendar template they're gonna complain.

Make sure well before you sign up for Adwords that you understand all the requirements from both the Adsense side and the Adwords side, otherwise you may be risking your account.

Invalid Clicks? How, Where, Why?

An excellent place for most new publishers to begin understanding policy and issues that may cause invalid clicks is the "AdSense Policies: A Beginner's Guide" page in the AdSense Help Center, and well worth taking the time to read for some established publishers. You might be surprised at some of what you'll find on this page.

One of the first things AdSense mentions in the "Clicks and Impressions" section is that they monitor these very carefully. There's  an unspoken idea there, and if you think about it long enough you might understand what that hidden message is.

If AdSense is monitoring clicks and impressions "very carefully", it's probably a good idea for you to also monitor these yourself - "very carefully".

Monitoring the activity on your website or blog is one of the ways you can help to head off a lot of ad clicks that AdSense may consider to be invalid. You monitor site activity using Google Analytics, and any third-party site analyzer that records IP addresses, visitor activity, and times, and if you pay for webhosting, most hosts will have some sort of server logs for your site. Now is the time to familiarize yourself with some of these - simply do a web search for website statistics or counters and read through some of those available. Select one that fits your needs and learn how it works, and put the necessary codes on your site. Keep copies of logs or statistics, because these will be useful in analyzing your site and monitoring your traffic.

When you analyze your stats there are things you should watch for:

•  one visitor clicking multiple ads in one visit (1 or 2 ads, probably okay. 7-10 or more ads, probably not okay but don't panic, just report it - 30+ ads clicked by one person...start panicing and remove your website from the allowed sites list, also report the IP addresses and times to adsense)
• many visits coming from a single IP address. This can cause problems with Adsense if those visitors are also clicking ads.
• many visits coming from the same referrer and you don't know why. Check out the referrer and find out why the visitors are originating from that site. Someone posted your link to a blog or group, that's probably okay depending on the purpose of the group. Someone posting your link to a link farm or link exchange - not okay. Contact the site and get them to remove your link.
• visitors coming from your own IP address and clicking ads. Definitely not okay. Even if it isn't YOU, it is someone in your household. Or,  if you use a wi-fi connection and don't lock it down, it could be anyone close enough to logon to the internet using your IP. Make sure you password-protect your wi-fi logon, and don't share it with anyone. You may also want to check your connections even if you are using cable or dial-up. We ran into a situation where a neighbour had cut another neighbour's cable near the pole and inserted a splitter box. The neighbour was then able to use the cable connection belonging to someone else without paying for the services...and causing the other neighbour to have enormous internet bills.

If you discover anything you find suspicious or unreasonable on your stats, then you will want consider reporting this instance to AdSense. Please, please don't go reporting single unidentified click - that's not what we're talking about here. And you don't need to report every single click you aren't certain about. If you pay attention to your site activity, you'll soon be able to recognize things that are unusual or out of the normal ranges of your site activity.

You can report these using the Invalid or suspicious activity form, found on this page in the Adsense help center.

On the "AdSense policies: a beginner's guide" page you'll also note a small paragraph about traffic: "Be aware of how your site is promoted". Read it carefully, and follow the links in that paragraph because you may find that reading will save you a great deal of grief.

While AdSense doesn't tell you that you can't promote your site, there are certain types of promotional opportunities that AdSense frowns upon - things like traffic exchanges and link farms whose sole purpose is to send people to your site to register impressions or clicks. If you are planning to buy any sort of advertising to grow your site, you'll need to be very careful about what you buy, where you buy it, and what your purpose is for purchasing it.

If you are buying "traffic" ONLY to get your AdSense ads seen and perhaps clicked, then that's a very bad idea. For the most part, you will probably pay more for the advertising needed to do that than you would get in return by way of clicks. If you are purchasing advertising because your site has a product or service you want to promote (ie: that service or product should certainly not be AdSense, nor should it be any sort of illegal product) then purchasing advertising might be of some value to you outside of AdSense.

In any case, garnering traffic through purchases means the advertiser (in this case you if you are buying traffic/ads) who also uses AdSense must following the Google landing page quality guidelines given to AdWords advertisers, even though you may not be purchasing your advertising through AdWords. These guidelines include a quality component that says landing pages (ie: the page your advertisement leads to on your site) must contain:

• original and relevant content (so, don't advertise free websites if you aren't indeed giving away free websites on your site/page and don't have content copied from other sites or RSS feeds)
• AdSense lists things like making sure the purpose of your site is clear to visitors, and that your content is not copied from other sites.
• transparency - the user should be able to find out about your company or website easily (about us page) or be able to contact you easily (contact info), you should have a clear privacy policy, your site should not download anything automatically to any user or visitor, if you have a "download" button or link the user should know what they're downloading (clearly stated on the page) and the download link should begin a download, not route them to multiple other pages.
•  navigability - the navigation should be clearly displayed on your page and should be simple for visitors to find; all the links should work and go to the correct page.

The landing page guidelines are quite clear on the fact that originality is what they expect - "relevance and originality are two characteristics that define high-quality site content." I don't think they can be any clearer than that. Users should easily find what your advertisement states and they should be able to find that on your landing page, and you should not have content that is not original (created by you).

There are many other valuable hints on landing page quality for AdSense publishers who wish to use advertising to promote their websites: such things as browser behaviours, collection of personal information; using too many popups, popunders, floating box elements and the like; fast loading pages, portal or doorway pages, etc.

Here's where things may take a little twist. How does all of the above apply to publishers who are disabled for invalid activity? Almost any violation of policies, including those above, could widely be construed as invalid activity. If you are not in compliance with all policies that AdSense and Webmaster Guidelines list (and the Landing Page Quality Guidelines), then any earnings you accrue could be considered invalid. In otherwords, clicks on AdSense ads on pages that are not in compliance with policy could possibly be listed as invalid clicks.

Having an account disabled for invalid clicks doesn't necessarily mean AdSense thinks you've clicked your own ads - of course you may have, in which case you'd already know that you did. But for those publisher's who have no idea what these invalid clicks are (or where they came from), the email they receive is a rude awakening, and often comes much too late. Even if they are able to discover the cause, the chances of getting the AdSense account re-instated are almost nil.

Minor policy violations (like no privacy policy, or inadvertently placing an ad too close to content) may receive a warning notice, however, this warning should be taken very seriously.

Publishers should not only correct the issues listed by Adsense in the warning notice (throughout their entire site, not just on the page given as a reference), but should very carefully review their sites to ensure there are no other issues. Besides carefully studying the AdSense Program Policies and Webmaster Guidelines, if you have purchased traffic or signed up for free traffic, you'll want to consider the quality of that traffic as well. When it comes to traffic, all is not equal. Traffic from sources unacceptable to AdSense is worse than no traffic at all and can also lead to invalid clicks.

These are only a few of the possible causes for invalid clicks, but some that AdSense Publishers can exercise some control over.

AdSense's Unacceptable Content Rejection - What is it?

It seems like this is the question everyone's asking right now. There are more and more of these rejection questions showing up in the AdSense Help forums, and most people seem uncertain about what this rejection means. For the most part,  Adsense isn't all that clear about what to do in order to correct this, and won't spell out precisely what the issue is.

In some cases, the unacceptable content is easy to spot when you compare the person's website against the AdSense Program Policies, but it isn't always as simple as that - particularly when English is not the publisher's native language.

Some of the reasons for unacceptable site content that we've been able to come up with in the forums are as follows:

1. - content that doesn't meet adsense policy (read the policies here: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182)
2. - content that doesn't meet the webmaster guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769) Although the Webmaster Guidelines are listed as "guidelines", AdSense publishers are required to follow these guidelines, making them as important as the Adsense Program Policies. When you are applying to become a publisher, or when you are a publisher, the Webmaster Guidelines are no longer guidelines - they are a requirement, so you'll need to consider these as rules you must follow.
3. - content that isn't original (articles and content you didn't write). Since the inception of "Caffeine", AdSense has been systematically disabling blogs and websites with copied content, auto-written contents, contents of little to no value (re-purposed content from other websites), written content that doesn't make sense or reads as gibberish, and has been rejecting blogs and websites of this nature in the last few months. If you apply with a blog or website with contents such as this, be prepared to receive a rejection notice. What you need is original content that you've created yourself.
4. - no content, or very little content. AdSense requires each blog or website to contain sufficient content. If you have a blog with one or two posts, that's not going to be good enough for AdSense to approve. If your website has only one page, then you'll probably get rejected, unless it's a very big place with a LOT of original content.  If you apply with a site that has "no content", then your "content" is non-existent, which makes it unacceptable content.
5. - blank pages in your website. AdSense doesn't want to see your proposed website, or a website under development. They want your website to be complete, and easy to navigate. It shouldn't have a redirect for the domain URL (unless you've used a 301 redirect), it shouldn't have a frame on the URL that calls the website from another URL (it needs to be a direct URL), it shouldn't have links that don't work or are broken, and it shouldn't have links that lead to blank pages with no content, or with only "ipsum lorem" text. That's the latin text you often see on template pages when you purchase a template or get a free site template. That text is nothing but gibberish - it's meant as a place holder, and you need to replace that with your own text.
6. - copyright infringements (images or other contents you don't have permission to use). Adsense expects it's publishers to "go the extra mile" and create their own unique contents, including images. If you can't create your own images to use with your text (websites and blogs need text, not JUST images or videos), then they expect you to get permission from the image owner BEFORE you use the images, and you'll need to give credit to the image owner. Images specifically marked as being in the public domain don't require permission for use, but you do still need to have a site with mostly original contents, so using a site full of public domain images and nothing else is likely to get a rejection.
7. - a website that isn't six months old and doesn't have six months worth of original content. Adsense requires sites from many countries to be six months old before getting approval, and although we don't have a list of specific countries to point to, it appears that there are many more countries AdSense has added this requirement for.

While there may still be other reasons for unacceptable content, these are the most common ones we've come across. It's up to each publisher to ensure their content follows the guidelines and policies set out by AdSense and Webmaster Guidelines so if you receive this rejection, you'll need to spend some time going through your website or blog and digging through your content to find the areas you'll need to amend, remove, or add to.

If you have taken the time to study your site and the policies and still can't figure out what's wrong, then you can ask in the AdSense Help Forum to see if someone else can see the issues at hand, but it's really the publisher's responsibility to at least try to figure out the problems first. Help is always available, but learning how to decipher your site's problems will help you keep your account in good standing in the future.

AdSense Stole My Money!

Wow, I bet that got your attention!

No, AdSense didn't steal my money, but we are in fact seeing a lot of posts like this in the AdSense forums. And there is a reason for it. Since about April of this year (2010) there have been some display issues with some of the reports pages within your AdSense accounts. Those of you who get cheques every month and don't actually check your stats all that often may not have noticed these issues at all, but they are probably there, in  your accounts. In the past month or so a second display issue has cropped up, also relating to earnings, but on a different page.

The first issue (the one from April) is on your Payments History Page. When you open that page it displays the "default" view, which is usually for the past three months. The earnings displaying at the end of the previous month (right now since it's Sept. that would be earnings for Aug. 31) are probably wrong - some are off by only a little bit, while others are off by a larger amount.

What we're finding in the forum is that people are looking at the default view, and seeing earnings over the payment threshold (that's $100 US) but aren't getting their cheques or payments...and of course wondering why. In order to see your actual earnings (ie: the correct earnings) on the Payments History Page you'll need to reset the view method from the default 3 months to "all time". To do that, select "all time" from the drop-down box at the top of the Payments History Page and let it load. Now check your earnings for the end of August (or the last month earnings are recorded for). There's a good chance that it is under the $100 threshold - in some cases it might only be a few cents or a few dollars under, but being under at all means you won't get your payment until those earnings are at least $100 or more.

The second more recent issue appears on the Reports Overview Page. That's the page you land on when you enter your AdSense account. If you are noticing the earnings in the "Since Last Payment" option disappearing and re-appearing and fluctuating wildly from hour to hour or day to day, then you are probably being affected by the display issues for this report. And it is a display issue - when your earnings are validated at the end of the month and posted to your Payments History Page, they will be the actual earnings. Unfortunately, at the moment, you really can't hang your hat on the "since last payment" report on the Reports Overview Page.

These issues can be found, with their work-arounds, on the "Known Issues" page for AdSense. Publisher's should bookmark this page, or add it to their Google Reader and check it regularly - particularly if you are seeing anything unusual in your AdSense account. If other publisher's are experiencing the same issues you are, you may find the answer on the Known Issues Page in the AdSense Help Center. Even though the issue might still be inconvenient, you'll probably be relieved to find you are not the only one experiencing it...and that AdSense is aware of it and working on it.

The two display issues mentioned above are being worked on by the techs and engineers. It's probably pretty easy to think the one that began back in April should be fixed by now, but the AdSense systems are fairly complicated and getting the same thing to work the same way for everyone probably isn't as easy as we think it should be. The "Known Issues" page will also tell you when these issues are corrected, so don't forget to check it.

Important Reminder for AdSense & AdWords Users!

A while ago I wrote an article about protecting yourself and your AdSense account from phishing attemps. Well today, I want to remind AdSense publishers NOT to click on any email link unless they are absolutely certain the email has come from AdSense or Google, and never REPLY to any of these type of messages with personal information.

The other day I received an email which wound up in my spam box; the email indicated it was from "Google Team" - this was the first red flag for me. Emails to me from Google or Adsense have not ever come from "Google Team".

When looking at the "Re" line of the mail, the word "your" was misspelled "yuor google Account". This was the second red  flag. The third red flag was all the spelling errors in the body of the email, and then there was the fact that this email expected me to reply with:

My User Name
My Login Password
My Current Country

No contact I have received from Google, Gmail or AdSense has ever asked me my current country - they are in fact already aware of this information. Had I requested an address or change of country from them directly, I would expect that question, but not in an unsolicited email.

This email also indicates that I need to "update to a fully supported browser". My browser(s) are supported, and are already updated, and updating my browser would have nothing to do with my account unless I were having problems accessing it...which I don't.  I also don't use the Chrome browser, and it is not listed under my services and products in my Google account.

Finally, when checking the email headers, the sender address and the email reply address are not at all related to AdSense, or Google.

Anybody who responded to an email such as this one would soon find all of their accounts associated with their Google account compromised - this includes Gmail, AdSense, AdWords, Blogger and any other Google product and service you use under that particular Google Account.


Emails such as this are the reason people sometimes find themselves unable to access their AdSense, AdWords or Blogger accounts.

Be very careful before you give out any information such as your User Name, Login Password and other personal details. Never, ever give this in an email you are not sure about. If you receive an email and you don't know or aren't sure if it came from Google or AdSense, then use the help forums and ask someone to confirm it's validity.

You'll note...the date on that email was Saturday, August 10th. Here it  is Thursday Sept. 2nd...and my accounts are perfectly fine without having completed this "validation" and my gmail account hasn't been deleted, either.

UPDATE!! 

DO NOT FALL FOR THIS!

Well, it appears that the above noted "phishing expidition" just wasn't enough for some folks. I guess they weren't all that happy with my decision to ignore them.

This morning (Saturday, Sept. 11 - an interesting date choice for this) I received yet another of these mails. The text of the mail is below:

from    newsdatainfogoogleaccount@gmail.com
to  
date    Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 5:27 AM
subject    Final Warning
mailed-by    gmail.com
signed-by    gmail.com
  

Our technology & science team has recently launched Google web software to protect and secure all Gmail Accounts. This system also enhanced efficient networking and fully supported browser. You need to upgrade to a fully supported browser by filling out the details below for validation purpose and to confirm your details on the new webmaster Central system.

Account Name:                        

Password:

Country:

Note: Your Account will be deleted permanently if you failed to provide the details below within 72hours. Gmail will not be heard responsible for your negligence.
 

The Google web Service. 

Just to be clear - Google did NOT send this if you received one. GMail did NOT send this. Nobody associated with Google sent this - IGNORE it. Mark it as spam and DO NOT give these people ANY of your information.

AdSense Alert - New Formats Need Attention!

Have you seen the new AdSense ad formats yet? If not, you can find out about them and see them in the official "Inside AdSense" blog. You'll definitely want to pay attention here folks.

If you haven't looked at your own site lately, you might want to go and ogle your own ads. Last week I noticed the leaderboard ads on my site were in the new format, but it gave me something of a shock to realize that this new format (which I wasn't expecting) made the ads look too much like the content on my site. That's because I use a blended palette for my text ads, with no border. The background is the same colour as my site, so is the text and title, with the links being the same colour as normal site links (blue). I realized right away that I'd need to change my ad colour selections because of this new format that AdSense has released. Am I happy about it - nope, not at all. I would much rather that adsense release the ad format, but gave publishers a choice of whether or not to use it, or to stay with the old style ads. As it stands now, if publishers don't pay attention to their ads on their own sites, they may end up being disabled for having ads that look like content, which is against AdSense Program Policies - or at the very least, receive a warning about their ad style. I would hope that AdSense would issue warnings to publishers, since they are the ones who instituted this change with no prior notice to publishers.

So, my warning to ALL publishers is to check your sites and look at  your ads carefully to ensure they don't look like your content too much, and also double check the new formats to ensure they don't look like the ads from other advertisers. In the image posted on the Inside AdSense blog, the square ad formats appear to resemble ads from at least one other ad serving platform - a fair bit more than they did before.

It's up to publishers to ensure their sites, ad styles and ad placements do not contravene policy, so spend some time this week checking your own sites for this new ad format - and take action before they have to issue you a warning...or worse, simply disable your account.

Build & Customize Your Blogger Site Using Template Designer!

Since Blogger has come out with "Blogger in Draft" and their new Blogger Template Designer, I figured it was way past the time when I should update my old "how to build a blog" articles with a new one, focused on the template designer and how to use it. If you haven't yet tried the new blogger template designer and wonder how it works, this post if you.

When you login to your blogger dashboard, you'll see a list of all your blogs under your login.

To get started, I'll use a blog I began only as a sample to give new bloggers a start on setting up a blog. It uses an old template, and today we'll convert it from the old style blogger template to one of the new ones that you can "redesign" in the blogger Template Designer. Oh don't worry - it's really not difficult.

First thing to do is select the blog you want to convert and click the "Design" link for that blog from your dashboard. (If you don't see "Design" in your list, then look for "layout" and click that instead).

When your page loads you'll see your page layouts for your current template. Look at the top and you'll see the link for the template designer. When you click that link you'll get the template designer page, which shows your current blog design in the bottom frame, and the template designer in the top.

If you try to make any changes to an old template, you'll get a notice in the template designer that the changes aren't applicable for this template. Before desiging your own blog layouts in the template designer you need to select one of the new templates.

The old templates no longer have the ability to be changed using blogger - the section where you could change the colours and text style of the background, header text and so on no longer exist for these old templates. If you love your old template, then you can still continue to use it - but you can no longer edit it in blogger, except by using the "Edit HTML" function. If you aren't very good with that, you can download the template from blogger (from the edit html page select "download full template") and save it. You should be able to edit it manually if you know how, or use a software like alley code or nvu to edit the codes.

Okay, lets go back to the template designer. We're going to select one of the new templates so we can make it our own.

When you click one of the template designs in the "Templates" tab it will load the template as a preview, showing you what your blog would look like with the basic template design you clicked on. One thing I've run into only recently is when I want to preview a different design, I sometimes have to click the "live on blog" button before it will reload the blog with the new design. If you click through the templates and find they aren't showing the preview in the bottom frame, click "live on blog", then reselect the template you want to preview.

For now, we're going to stick with the template "Simple" by Josh Peterson. Both Simple and Asesome Inc. by Tina Chen are easy to edit and customize, and I personally tend to use one or the other when editing a blog design. You can select anyone you find suitable. And, of course, there is no reason to edit the design or colours if you LIKE the pre-set template that you select. You can simply leave it as it is and continue blogging with a new design.

If you want to edit the template for your blog, read on. Once you've selected a template, the next step is to edit the background. Click on the background tab in the template designer. Here you'll be presented with a set of colour co-ordinated theme colour choices. If you like any of them, you can select one of those.

 But you aren't limited to these, and can make individual choics in the Advanced tab. Also in this background tab you'll see an area titled "Background Image". Click the little arrow and you'll be presented with some choices for your background image. You can look through all the categories, click on images and see them on the background of your blog.

I generally select the option "no background" because I prefer simplicity on the backgrounds and prefer to let my blog contents be the focus of my pages, but for this sample blog, I'm going to upload one of my own free abstract background textures. To upload your own photo, click the "upload image" button. Images should be a minimum of 1800 X 1600, and can be larger. Click the browse button and find the image on your computer. Select it and wait for blogger to load your image.

If you're happy with your upload (or any image you find in the list) click "done". Once your back in the template designer, you can change the alignment of your image, or select tile or don't tile, or have the image stationery, or scroll with the page.

Because the images are often not as long as a full page, when you select the tiling method you'll see the demarcation line between the bottom of the image and the top were it begins again. The same will happen horizontally if your images aren't large enough. If you can upload a "seamless tile" image for your background, you'll avoid this.

For now, I'll leave my background image this way so we can move on with the design.

The next step is to decide on the layout you want for your main post, widgets and footer. Click the layout tab and you'll see three options to the right - "Body Layout", "Footer Layout" and "Adjust Width". We'll start with Body Layout.

  Looking at the sample layouts you'll note the one that currently on the blog (that one came with the Simple template we selected), and options for changing to a "no sidebar" layout to different layouts for multiple sidebars. On the whole, I prefer a simple layout with one main panel for posting and a right or left sidebar. For this blog, I'll select the fifth option with a center pane for posts and a single sidebar on either side.

When you select one of the layouts, you'll notice that this will show in your blog preview pane with your widgets set into the various spots. You can arrange these widgets when you are back in the blogger design page.

Now, select your footer choices. Click the footer layout tab and choose one of the footer options (single, double or triple footer where you can place gadgets like text or images or whatever else you can get with a gadget).

Next, select the "Adjust width" option. Here you can select the width of your post template area, and the width of the sidebars.Play with those adjustments until you like the layout. Now we're ready to move on to the Advanced Tab.

When you select Advanced you'll see a list of options where you can make changes to your blog design, like the page text, and backgrounds of various sections, you can create "tabs" for your "pages", adjust the text and text colours. Ready?

Okay first section is the page text, but I have a tendency to start with "Backgrounds" because once I've selected background colours for areas, then it's easier to decide what colour text works best. So let's ignore the Page Text for the moment and click on backgrounds. You have three choices - outer background (this is where we uploaded our image, so if you have an image, you'll want to leave that alone). If you didn't set a background image, you select a solid colour background here - white, blue, black - pretty much any colour your heart desires. Only select this if you don't have a background image, or if you have chosen a transparent background image, or if you selected a colour these set and want to change it.

 The main background in this template is set to white, but I've decided to set this to transparent. Not so much because I like it, but I want to show you how to get a transparent background if that's what you want. This works best for fairly plain backgrounds and very simple background images - not so good with the background I've chosen. To get it, select "Main Background" and in the little coloured box next to the current colour choice (white/fffff) select the small arrow and you have the ability to decide on exactly the colour you want with the colour editor, or you can select transparent from the bottom of the colour editor.

Now that I've decided on the background colour (or no colour), I'll go back up to the Page Text and set that. You can choose your font (this is for the main text of the blog), the size, whether it's all bold or all italics, and you can also select the colour. Find something you like and set it. Move on to the Links tab and set your link colours for the link, the visited link and the colour you when you hover over a link.

By now you should be growing familiar with these settings. Along with the ability to choose your exact colour, you can also choose from the list of suggested colours below each option. So go ahead and set your blog title text and colours.

Now we move on to the Tabs Text. The "tabs" are part of the "pages" function on blogger. These tabs appear as a menu, either under your header, or in your sidebar. Depending on the colours you choose, this menu can resemble a simple menu from a website. Select your font and font size, and select the text and text colour. Then move down to the Tabs Background. Here you can decide what colour the menu "buttons" are, and what colour they are when you hover over them.

You may have noticed as we click through the advanced options that there are dotted lines around some sections. These dotted lines outline the area you are selecting options and colours for. Click on the "Post Title" tab and you'll see that the outline only goes around the posting section - because what we are setting options for here is the post title - the font and the font size. Complete the choices for your Post title and post footer sections and then click on the Gadgets tab.

You'll notice all the gadgets these options include will be surrounded with the dotted lines. You can select the title colour for the gadgets.

Almost finished with the layouts - for images, unless you really want some sort of colour in the background and as a border, you can select transparent as the background and border colours, the same way as we chose a transparent background above. Otherwise, set the background and border colours to your taste, as well as the colour used for the image captions.

The last thing we'll do is set the accent colors - the accents are those thin narrow lines that separate your sidebar areas from your post area. You can set these to one of the colours in your blog, or you can make them transparent if you prefer a clean look.

And, unless you are comfortable with CSS changes, for the moment we'll leave the very last section alone. That's where you can your own CSS styles to make your style changes to the CSS.

At this point, you are basically done with your design. You can go back and change anything you like before you apply this design to your blog.

If you're ready, click "apply to blog" in upper right corner of the template designer. In a few seconds you'll see a short notice at the top of the page that your changes have been applied to your blog. Now click "back to blogger" at the upper right.

Anyone who has used an image in their header will probably need to replace the header image because most often the size will be a little different. You upload your new header image the same way you did with the old templates - click the edit link on the header gadget to remove the old image and upload your new one.

Now you've converted your blog to the "blogger in draft" Template Designer templates, but it sure doesn't look like the "Simple Template" we began with - it's entirely your own!

Here's the old blog converted using the Blogger Template Designer (you can visit the page to see it action here on blogger):

Any questions? Post a comment with your question and I'll do my best to answer it.