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24

Google Adsense is Down! Blogging is Not for the Desperate

Blackhawk down! Google Adsense Ads disappeared from my niche content websites.  Oh my God what will I do now with my life?

That pathetic question must have crossed the minds of many on Wednesday morning January 5th, 2011.  I typically check my Adsense stats about twice a month.  When I checked my stats on Wednesday, I saw a big drop. I am talking 35% ballpark!

For a minute I thought I was booted-off the Google Adsense program.  Google is notorious for kicking publishers out of the Adsense program.  So I quickly checked a few different avenues to narrow in on the issue.

Google Adsense Hacker Scams

Not sure if you have heard but a common Adsense hack these days is where savvy scamsters manage to change the Google Adsense ID on your website to their own, thereby benefiting from the Adsense revenue sharing generated by your website.

I fired up a couple of my websites and checked the back-end code to see if this was the case.  No dice, my code was accurate so I knew I wasn’t a victim of an Adsense hack. Wheeew.

I Checked Other Blogs

There are some blogs I frequent that predominantly earn their revenues from Google Adsense.  Because I felt like being stubborn and not so easily trusting, I must have checked 10 of these.  Then as if that was not enough, I Googled the top 10 Adsense earning websites and checked those as well.

No Google Adsense Ads found! I thought the world was coming to an end.  Can you imagine what many must have been going through?  But after this exercise, at least I knew I wasn’t the only one in the sinking ship.

The devil took over me at that time.  You must have heard the saying that the only thing that sucks more than seeing a friend fail is to see them do better than you?  How sad, but true. It is human nature after all.  As much as I think and wish well of others, it was sadly good to feel human when that thought crossed my emotions.

Go Google

With all that happened, I had (and still have) full faith in the Internet God Google.  Stuff happens to even the best out there.  But no worries, all should be well very soon in Google-land.  That’s what I was convinced-off so I moved on with my life.

The entire process, from the time I discovered the 35% drop to the initial shock, settlement, research, acceptance, self consolation and then moving on took a total of 5 minutes.  I am not sure this is the norm?

Gracey Saved Me

So after all that had transpired, Gracey responded to a query I had posted initially.  She reminded me to check my browser to make sure I don’t have an adblocker turned on, and make sure it still has scripting enabled.

Sure enough this was the case. I learned that if someone else uses your computer, they may change the browser settings by accident.  But what about the 35% drop in earnings for the day? I soon realized that this is not the first time that has happened to me.

Of the many unexplainable things that Google does such as wipe out your Page Rank and drop you from its indexing only to pop you back up a week later at a much higher position, similar anomalies happen to the Adsense program as well.

Lesson Learned

Let me focus on the more important underlying matter behind what just happened.  The situation is perfect for an opportunity to discuss making money online from blogging or websites made for Google Adsense, or anything else really.

The recent situation reminds us of the uncertainty involved in most of what we do. There are simply no guarantees in life.  Sure, there are less risky or better options out there, but anything can happen at any time. I mean WHAT IF?

The same can be said for a job, a business you own, or anything else for that matter.  That is the reason diversification is preached everywhere by all. Unfortunately it is not practiced as much as it is preached.

Whether you invest in the stock market, in real estate, small businesses, websites and blogs, diversification is the name of the game. Why do you think even the most successful celebrities and professionals like building income producing assets?

You can never be too diversified in my opinion. Even if you choose to focus only on one discipline such as real estate, there are opportunities to diversify within that discipline. For example, you may purchase properties in different cities, states and even countries.  Or you may have some single family homes, condominiums, duplexes and multis.

Blogging is Not for the Desperate

The point on diversification brings me to my initial thought when I began writing this post, and that is that blogging is not for the desperate.

Blogging is not for someone looking to strike gold overnight.  It is not for someone who solely relies on this platform as their bread and butter.  It is not for someone who is not passionate about the process or the product (what the blog is all about).

Sure it can be, but very few people are in a position to give up everything else and solely focus on blogging. It also requires that the person has enough financial abundance to sustain a time period during which their blog is not generating income for them. For many, this can be months, and even years.  There are exceptions to every rule so this fact cannot be discounted either.

However, most successful blogs and bloggers I have come across started their projects as a side-gig, while focusing on other activities as well to generate income.  If you want your blog to generate a significant amount of revenue, you have to treat it like a real business.  And any real business takes time to establish and grow, so why should one treat blogging any differently?

Passion is key, so bring all that you’ve got to the table.  Focus on diversifying your sources of income to maintain balance, comfort and peace of mind.  This will allow you to stay calm and focus on being the best you can be.  Focus on excellence, and success will follow you.

The Clock on the Lower Right Hand Side

Hhuuh, just eyed the clock on the lower right hand side and realized this is one of the quickest posts I have typed up.  A full 20 minutes! That’s because everything is so fresh in my mind and I have a lot to say about this topic.

My mind was all over the place as I was typing this up.  For the first time, I will not go back to re read and edit this post. I want it to read naturally just as my thoughts were flowing in my head. I have already seen some misspelled words underlined in red but I will leave it at that.

Readers: Your thoughts on the subject matter? As always, criticism is openly welcome as well . . .

Here is my post on how you can establish multiple Google Adsense accounts to diversify your risk exposure.

Sunil
Telling Truth

24 Comments
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24 Responses to “Google Adsense is Down! Blogging is Not for the Desperate”

  1. ebusinessmom says:
    January 7, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    if you want to earn you have to work hard…but in blogging you have to love it and work for it

    Reply
  2. LifeAndMyFinances says:
    January 8, 2011 at 5:41 am

    I have owned my website for almost 5 months now, and I know that I’m still in the building stage. My Alexa rank is around 270,000 and still dropping. Soon, I will begin diversifying my income like you suggest and allow affiliate advertisements on my site. Google Adsense will no longer be my only income! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Barb Friedberg says:
    January 8, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    Beautifully written, as usual. How did you do it in 20 minutes? Now you have me a bit anxious. How do you check the code and if you have ads blocked? I mainly focus on writing and creating my soon to be launched products. Checking stats and adsense is way down on the list. I always enjoy your content and am working my way through your ebook!

    Reply
  4. Sunil says:
    January 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    Barb,

    This was one of the easiest posts for me to write because of what/how I feel about the subject matter. In addition, the incident caused some level of emotional rush in my head, and thoughts were flowing rather fluidly.

    You can check code two different ways. First, you can download the raw HTML file from your server and open it up in your HTML editor. This is Greek for many people.

    The second and easier way is to view the source of your page through the Internet browser you commonly use. Go to the webpage you want to look at. On Explorer, click Options or Tools on the top left menu, then scroll to “View Source”. If using Chrome, click Control + “U” together and a code screen will pop up. Scroll down to the Google Adsense code and verify that the ID is indeed yours. Google assigns everyone a unique ID. A sample code looks like this:

    Here is some additional guidance from Microsoft on viewing source code: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/176222

    Scammers hack into your code, and change your ID to theirs thereby benefiting from the ad revenues you generate.

    I was told about the possibility of my laptop deciding to load an ad blocking program, some browsers pushed down updates that included such glitchy behavior. I further validated this by checking my website from my smart phone, and then by calling some folks and having them check it out. The ads were appearing fine.

    Does that make sense? Clear as MUD?

    Reply
  5. retirebyforty says:
    January 11, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    Great story Sunil. I’m also very impressed with the 20 minutes time spent.

    Reply
  6. Michael says:
    January 25, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    Very good point about the diversification – the problem that most people face I think is achieving the right balance between diversification and spreading themselves too thin. I would argue that being in a position where you were earning a living through only one avenue but then had it taken away is still, at least theoretically, better than diversifying and not making any significant money ever. And there would most likely be chances to change to a different money earning model in this situation anyway.

    Reply
  7. Sunil says:
    January 25, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Michael,

    You make a good point about better a bird in hand that multiple in the bush. That said, the best time to diversify and mitigate risk is when you have that one golden egg in your hand.

    Great niche website you have got there. Wished I knew about it when I was shopping around not long ago 🙂

    Reply
  8. Mark says:
    February 23, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    Ok.. I am going crazy here.. I have seoquake installed in my firefox and chrome browser.. and if I go to any website with adsense, the plugin will show me the publisher id of that adsense ad.. so every so often I would check up on my site and see this particular id shows me that he has 49 other adsense sites .. therefore alerting me that this is not my adsense id.. my site has been hacked??? I would refresh the page and then my publisher id adsense would come back.. again, this would happen very often.. it seems to me that someone – somehow is able to switch my adsense id to theirs.. does anyone know what I can do to find out where the script is being implemented on site???

    I am also thinking of alerting Google and give them his adsense id and see if they can help… I’m also starting to be suspicous of my website hosting company.. someone (tech guy) could possible have went into my site etc..

    Any help would be appreciated… thanks!
    Mark

    Reply
    • Sunil says:
      February 23, 2011 at 5:13 pm

      Mark,

      I know someone who has had this experience. Contact your host immediately and alert them of what is happening. Report the ID to Google as well. If you have provided FTP login access to your server/host to anyone, change it immediately.

      How has this impacted your Adsense earnings? Or did you randomly notice this w/o noticing a drop in Adsense earnings?

      Reply
  9. Mark says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:05 am

    OMG.. I look into the Adsense Integrator.. and look what I found in the code…

    */

    define(‘USER_FREQUENCY’, 96);
    define(‘OFF_FREQUENCY’, -1000);
    define(‘SYS_FREQUENCY’, 4);
    define(‘ADS_INT_PUBLISHER’, ‘pub-9007511248914173’);

    ..his adsense pub id..

    bastard… what can we do about this guy???

    Reply
  10. Sunil says:
    February 24, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    I would definitely report him to Google. Check the Adsense forums and blog to report Abuse.

    Also, are you seeing this in some, or all of your webpages? If the latter, then I assume your earnings from Adsense went from X to 0?

    Reply
  11. Mark says:
    March 1, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    I’m seeing it in all of my friends websites that use this WP Plugin “Adsense Integrator”… so I’d assume that my friend have lost earnings…

    I’ve reported him to Google.. so lets see what happens!

    If anyone is using this plugin “Adsense Integrator” ..stop and delete it and Report Him To Google ASAP!!!

    If you want to take a look at the code, here is the link to the plugin page… http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-integrator/

    Check the code in this file… adsense-integrator.php and close to the middle of the page.. you will find his Adsense PUB-ID.. pub-9007511248914173 ..this code switches his Adsense PUB-ID with yours in frequencies so it won’t be so obvious etc..

    You can also see that this Adsense PUB-ID is also found in many other sites and ALSO in his plugin site… http://www.mywordpressplugin.com/

    define(‘USER_FREQUENCY’, 96);
    define(‘OFF_FREQUENCY’, -1000);
    define(‘SYS_FREQUENCY’, 4);
    define(‘ADS_INT_PUBLISHER’, ‘pub-9007511248914173‘);

    If you are using this plugin, please report this scumbag to Google ASAP!!!

    Reply
  12. Mark says:
    March 1, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    I’ve also told my associates to get delete this plugin from their blogs.. and report him to google, so plz ppl… report this scumbag!

    Reply
  13. Tom says:
    March 14, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    I have noticed the same thing on my sites a few days each month… things go down 30-70% down and then return up and even reach new highs. Some people said that January is a black month with things picking up later on but for me it is the exact opposite. I don’t think I will make the same income from adsense that I have in January and February.

    Even though my impressions are up.

    Reply
  14. Sunil says:
    March 14, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    Welcome to the blog Tom

    Very interesting fact pattern here. I look at your site and see no reason why seasonality should affect it. What is you thought?

    But then again your blog seems brand new. Do you mind sharing the website you have noticed this pattern on? I’d love to have a look.

    Reply
  15. Nigel Chua says:
    April 6, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    I didn’t know of such thing as Adsense hijacking (that’s new to me), and I didn’t know that’s even possible. What a dirty way to make money, by being a leech. How do they get in? A software/malware function then? Because it’s not that easy to install/change the google adsense ID right?

    Reply
  16. Yanto says:
    September 15, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    Blogging is like planting durians. It takes quite a long time to harvest. Keep on blogging. One day, we’ll get the bountiful harvest. Wish everyone of us success.

    Reply

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