Filing an Effective DMCA Complaint

In the past, I've covered various ways of protecting your contents, and as a result, protecting your AdSense account. This is more of "that" ... because some foolish person decided it would be cool to copy the articles from my blog ... THIS blog.

Filing the notice is the only way to really handle this, but the process is slow. Not only does it take time once you file the reports, if a person has copied a lot of your posts and are hosted on Blogger, the process involves including ALL the URLs copied, both from your blog, and from the copied blog.

Digging through content on someone's blog and keeping track of all the copied URLs can take a huge chunk of time, no matter how you do it. If they don't use the exact same post tiles, then it's harder to find the URLs related to your content.  Once you have that list, you'll have to go through your own blog to find the matching list of contents.

Once you've completed that, you're ready to file the DMCA notice. No, you can't just give the main URL of the blog that copied you and say remove this blog. You have to list the individual URLs - and yes, I know this is frustrating and time consuming, but unless you complete and submit the process properly, nothing may be done at all.

This (screenshot above) is not my blog, but it sure as heck looks like my content - my cartoon characters, my textual contents, most of them are also the titles of my posts. Even worse is the fact that this person has also claimed the copyright for my blog.  And that was, as they say ... "the straw that broke the camel's back".  I spent a day searching the blog for my content, made a list, and then got the list of URLs from my site. And filed the DMCA report.

YouTube Requirements Change Again!

Last year (Apr. 2017) YouTube "upped the ante" for those wanting to monetize their channels - the requirement changed from a "free-for-all" type approvals system to one that required publishers to have 10,000 lifetime views on the channel before ads would be shown in their videos.

That created a "hue and cry" for many new publishers trying to get approved, but in January 2018, YouTube upped the ante even further. The requirements now include having to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers, and 4,000 watched hours within the last 12 month period, not just views, and not lifetime hours, but hours within the last 12 months.

Hundreds of thousands of views may not add up to the required watch hours, particularly if the views are a second or two long (or are bot views).

On January 16, 2018, we announced new eligibility requirements for the YouTube Partner Program. Once a channel reaches 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and 1,000 subscribers it will be reviewed to join the program. 

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851?hl=en

Adsense and the Ads.txt File

WOW ... just ... wow is all I can think of to say.  There is so much misinformation surrounding this that people need to learn to read the guidelines.

In the AdSense forum, lots of people appear to be posting stuff they know nothing about, or at least ... that provides only half or part of the information, and not all of it. And some information that's given is not going to be applicable to every publisher either. Each publisher needs to take the time to understand how or even if the ads.txt file is necessary for them (for some it will be, for others it won't be). You can't just read what someone else posted and assume it will work for your situation.

The Ads.txt file is NOT required by AdSense. If you don't use one, then your AdSense ads will still show just fine on your website or blog. Nothing further is required. Currently, those publishers using blogger have no way to place an ads.txt file on their root domain, because the root domain is blogger.com, and we have no access to place anything on that domain.  EDIT: Please see this updated information about Blogger's ads.txt file.

Fake News and Clickbait

Typically on Facebook there are many posts we see in our feeds that have titles I consider as "clickbait".  So what is clickbait anyway?

Clickbait is a title that's designed to get you to click through to a blog or website that's loaded with ads ... that's because the site owner gets paid for those ads.  Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything wrong with getting paid if you write or create interesting content, whether it's articles or videos, or even through mobile apps. Getting paid for what you create yourself isn't wrong. Getting paid for junk that has no value is not something that's very acceptable in the real world though. To get paid you work, whether that's online or in a factory or store.

But there can be something wrong in the way you get those visitors to your site. And using titles that are considered clickbait, is just wrong.  At least it is if you use Adsense.

But why?

How (NOT) to Get AdSense Ads to Show on Your Website or Blog

In recent months there have been quite a few people showing up in the help forum wondering why their AdSense ads show on their blog, but don't record earnings or statistics.

Initially, this was a little puzzling because if the ads show up, they usually work just fine. That's supposed to mean the site/blog is approved to show ads, but when reviewing the ad codes on these sites the problem becomes apparent, at least, it does to people who are used to reviewing sites and ad codes, but I suppose it is understandable that new publishers don't recognize why there is a problem.

Publishers have been listening to falsehoods (ie: or untruths), and watching videos with more false information.

Here's the deal publishers ... if you want to get the right information, you go to the right place. Not someone's blog, website, or channel but AdSense's own official sources. The Inside AdSense Blog, or AdSense's own official YouTube Channel, or even the AdSense Help Center. If none of those official sources confirm what you've seen/read/heard/watched, then don't do it. That's the simplest, most honest and realistic truth anyone can give you. The only source that's right, is AdSense.