Are your ads acting strangely?

Over the past couple of weeks, a few people have emailed me about problems displaying ads in their Blogger blogs, most particularly with regard to AdSense ads. For many Bloggers, there are blank spaces where ads are expected to be displayed, even if there are already fewer than the three ads displayed which we are supposed to be able to show on each page.

Unfortunately I don't have any answers: I don't know why the ads won't display (particularly on the front pages of blogs), and despite my best efforts at fixing this, I cannot offer you a solution to this problem.

Due to recent events concerning Google and other methods of advertising/blog monetization, I do now have several concerns which I would like to share with you, and would like to know about your own opinions and experiences regarding advertisements in your Blogger blogs.

Problems displaying Google AdSense ads

The terms of Google's AdSense states that:

• Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.


• A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.


• Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.


• Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes and link units specified above.

(Source: AdSense Program Policies)

However, many Bloggers have noticed that two or fewer ads will actually display on their pages, most especially on the home page of their blogs. On my own home page, I only feature code to display one Google ad (in the sidebar). However, this single ad will not display on the home page, only on my post pages.

From what I've seen in the Blogger help forums and the emails sent by several readers now, it seems that many of us are experiencing this same problem.

Problems displaying codes for TLA

Other Bloggers have experienced difficulties displaying Text-Link-Ads in their blogs, especially when trying to use TLA affiliate banners. I was forwarded this email from a friend who had consulted tech-support at TLA in an attempt to discover the source of the problem:

There are currently some issues with our affiliate code and some sites, such as Blogger or Wordpress sites. We are definitely aware and we are trying to work on a fix for them. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, we will have the affiliate ad codes fixed as soon as possible.

Recently bloggers who use TLA have been penalized for their use of this service. Could this be linked to the problems in displaying such affiliate codes?

A coincidence, or something more..?

Strangely enough, there seem to be few (if any) similar problems displaying AdSense or Text-Link-Ads in Wordpress and other blogging platforms. In recent weeks, Google has "slapped" bloggers who use TLA, Pay-Per-Post and other methods of blog monetization by lowering the PageRank of such sites (for PPP blogs, many have found their PageRank reduced to nil!).

It seems that it was about this time that blank spaces began to appear in my own blog where AdSense ads should appear. From what I've been told by blogging friends, the problems in using TLA codes began around the same time too.

We all know that Blogger is owned by Google. So is Google trying to tell us something? Are we being warned against using too many methods of advertising in our blogs? Perhaps Blogger is trying to protect us from future loss of authority in the PageRank system by reducing the number of paid links which are displayed throughout our pages. As yet, I can only speculate, though I would like to know if many other Blogger bloggers are experiencing similar problems with their blog's ads.

Please feel free to leave your comments, opinions and experiences below. If you have any further information or could provide some clarity about this issue, I would love to hear from you!

PPP blogs suffer the greatest Google slap yet!

Today it seems almost all blogs which use Pay Per Post have been reduced to a PageRank of ZERO!

I could hardly believe Google would stoop so very low as to punish bloggers in this way when I first heard the news this morning. After the recent lowering of PR for blogs which use Text-Link-Ads and the like, it seems to me that Google are punishing anyone and everyone who uses an alternative (and dare I say, better paid) alternative to AdSense monetization in their blogs!

For those of you who do use Pay-Per-Post, please don't worry too much. From what I read in the forums over there, PPP are looking into alternative methods of ranking blogs for paid posts. You can check out this thread for information on this subject.

Thankfully I don't feature any paid posts on this site, so my PR has remained stable. I am so sorry for all of you whose PageRank has been reduced to zero. I don't yet know for certain if the strange Pagerank behavior is a temporary glitch or an all round slap for paid bloggers, but you can be sure that once I know more about this, I will be sure to post the info here for you all.

Show labels without the post count

Labels are very useful to help categorize your posts, and also so readers can easily find posts they would like to read. The default "labels" widget will also show the post count beside the label name, to inform your readers how many posts are categorized under this label. However, this isn't to everyone's taste, and can also be disheartening when one of your labels only has a small post count beside it! So if you would prefer to remove the post count from your label widgets, here is a quick and easy way to remove it.

How to remove the post count from your label widget

The widget tag for the label post count is contained inside the widget template for the label widget itself. To remove the post count, we simply need to remove this widget tag.

To do this, go to Template>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard and ensure you have checked the "expand widget templates" box. Then you will need to locate your labels widget in the template. The easiest way to find it is to use your browser's search function and search for this partial line:

b:widget id='Label

This will easily help you locate your labels widget, even if this was not the first label widget you had installed in your template.

The whole code for the label widget will look something like this:

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>

<b:includable id='main'>

<b:if cond='data:title'>

<h2><data:title/></h2>

</b:if>

<div class='widget-content'>

<ul>

<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>

<li>

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>

<data:label.name/>

<b:else/>

<a expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>

</b:if>

(<data:label.count/>)

</li>

</b:loop>

</ul>



<b:include name='quickedit'/>

</div>

</b:includable>

</b:widget>

I've highlighted the tag for the label post count in bold red. All you need to do is delete this line of code from your template (only the red part!) and there will no longer be a post count after each label in your list. You can preview your blog before saving to ensure the widget looks the way you had intended; if all is well, then go ahead and save your template. It really is this simple!

I hope this simple tutorial has been useful to you. I always appreciate your comments and suggestions, so please feel free to leave your comment below.

Using a "Tab View" widget to streamline content

Highlighting your recent posts, comments and label feeds is a great way of ensuring readers will stay on your blog for a longer period of time. However, featuring too much content in your sidebar or above the main posts column can often make your blog appear cluttered.

A more streamlined method for presenting such content is to use a tabbed navigation widget, like this:

This widget was designed by Hoctro, and uses JSON calls to gather recent posts, recent comments and labels feeds from your blog. Once installed, readers can click on a tab and the relevant content will appear in the section beneath.

Hoctro's Tab View widget ensures that your readers can easily access other areas of interest in your blog: when the tab labels are clicked, the section beneath is updated with relevant lists of posts or comments so your readers can easily navigate to other areas of your blog. This widget is based on the Yahoo! TabView application, and uses Javascript to call the clickable titles of recent posts, comments and label feeds which are quickly loaded into the space beneath the tabs.

To install this widget in your own blog, head on over to Hoctro's Place where you will find full instructions and all the code required for the Tab View widget to work. There are no externally hosted files for this widget, as all of the code is provided for you to paste into your template.

At first glance, the array of code may seem confusing, so to make this easier to understand, I will outline the five steps for installation here:

How to install Hoctro's Tab View Widget

1. Back up your blog template by going to Template>Edit HTML and clicking on the "Download full template" link.


2. Install the latest version of Hoctro's Javascript core library: This is a large portion of code which you need to copy and paste just before the closing </head> tag in your blog's template.


3. Install the Yahoo! Tab View requirements: This portion of code can be found on the Tab View widget page, and should be pasted immediately after the Javascript core library, but before the closing </head> tag.


4. Install the Tab View widget code: Again, this portion of code can be found on the Tab View Widget page in Hoctro's blog. Paste this whole section of code between any two <b:section> and </b:section> tags in your template (for example, in the sidebar section). It is easiest to do this while the widget templates are not expanded, to make it easier for you to locate the correct area in which to paste the code.


5. Finally, you will need to change the title of the widget, the labels and the URL of your blog:
   
   • For the labels, ensure the labels match the exact label names of your own blog's labels. These are case sensitive, so ensure you use the same uppercase or lowercase labels as appear in your own blog.
   
   
   • For your blog's url, simply enter your blog URL without the "http://" part. For example: yourblog.blogspot.com or www.yourblog.com
   Then save your template and take a look at your new Tabs View widget!

You can easily move the position of the widget simply by moving it in the Layout section of your Blogger dashboard. I feel the optimum place for this widget is above the main posts section, or as an extra element in the header. I did experiment with this in a widened sidebar, but the space was simply not wide enough for the five tabs to be presented well (although this did still work as it was intended!).

While I have found Hoctro's Tab View to be a very useful widget, I would prefer to be able to customize such a widget with different content, such as "Popular Posts", Archives and "Featured Posts". Currently I am working on a modification of the original Yahoo! TabView application, which can be installed directly into an HTML/Javascript widget. Although this widget will require more customization to suit your individual blog and preferences, it will be much easier to modify after the initial installation. I hope to be able to post a full tutorial and installation guide for this by the weekend once I've perfected the style of the tabs.

I hope this post has been useful in explaining the use and benefits of the Tab View widget. Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.

To all my readers...

I'm back online and blogging again after taking a few days off for my son. He's feeling much better now and is recovering very well.

Thank you to everyone who left such supportive comments on my previous post, and also to those who sent me emails! My son was thrilled to read these messages from bloggers all over the world, and asked me to send you this message:

For me, the sense of community is the most rewarding aspect of blogging, and it makes me very happy to know that I have such a supportive readership!

Best wishes to you all,
Amanda

I'm offline for a couple of days...

For the next couple of days, I'll be off-line as my son is going into hospital (nothing serious, just a minor operation). This means I won't be able to reply to your comments and emails as quickly as I usually do, though I will of course catch up with everyone as soon as everything is back to normal, plus plenty of new posts to make up for the time I missed.

Thanks, Amanda

Easily redirect readers to your Blogger custom domain!

It used to be awkward to set up your Blogger custom domain to ensure that both the WWW and non-WWW versions of your URL pointed to your Blogger hosted blog. Now Blogger have introduced a great new feature: automatically redirect visitors from http://yourblog.com to http://www.yourblog.com! No more fiddling with the CNAME and A records in your domain's DNS settings as Blogger will now do the hard work for you!

Thanks to Mike I have just learned about this great new feature, which cuts out the need for manual redirection once you have initially set up your custom domain with Blogger.

Now, after setting up the DNS settings in your domain control panel, and registering your new URL with Blogger (see this post for full information), all you have to do is go to Settings>Publishing in your Blogger dashboard, and tick the box which is highlighted on the image below:

This setting ensures a flawless redirection from your non-WWW to your WWW blog URL, and most importantly, you will lose no visitors who accidentally key in your blog's URL without the WWW prefix.

If you currently make use of any free hosting provided by your domain agent, be sure that this redirection will not affect any existing files which are hosted in the root folder of your hosting account, as this redirection may make them inaccessible to you. For this reason, I won't be using this new feature myself, though I am very happy that Blogger have finally resolved this issue for bloggers who have little experience in setting up domains.

Now all we need is for Blogger to actually set up the custom domain for us, without the need to do this ourselves in the DNS settings...

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