Web Development Blog

I signed up for Google’s new Ad Manager about a month ago and received my invitation to join the program last week. I finally got around to playing with it tonight and have to say that I’m pretty impressed. All of the ads on this site are now set up with Ad Manager and it uses less javascript code to do it!

I have to admit that I’m fairly retarded when it comes to putting ads on my site and when I tried OpenAds (now OpenX) a few months back, I was thoroughly confused by how it was set up. I got the thing to work, but I really didn’t get how it worked if you know what I mean. Google Ad Manager really makes the complicated process of placing and selling ads on your site much easier. Obviously, you don’t have to install any software since it is hosted by them, and all that is required is the ability to follow directions and cut and paste (perfect for my bad ass ad skillz).

I really like the tutorials and walk-throughs they have integrated into the interface. When you start, it literally walks you through creating your first Ad Spot, Placement, and javascript code. Really nice work on the part of the team that created this. It’s so easy to use that I think Shoemoney is right when he said, ‘The bottom line is that they are going to destroy OpenX and everyone like it with this product.’ It’s the perfect solution for someone like me that doesn’t have the time to run my own ad server, but I still want the ability to display Adsense and sell ad space at the same time.

I haven’t gotten into figuring out how to sell ad space yet, but I’m sure there is a tutorial for that as well. I don’t even know if there is some kind of marketplace set up for that, although it seems like there is since you can opt to allow advertisers to see your placements. That is the next thing I want to look into!

So is it worth it? Yeah, I think it is. I now have one interface to manage Adsense and have the possibility of easily selling that same ad space to other publishers. Once I figure more of this out I’ll post my thoughts again, but right now I’d say that this is the perfect tool for people who need a no hassle ad manager.

To sign up for Ad Manager you have to request an invitation.

If you have signed up for Ad Manager, I’d like to know what your thoughts are…

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I came across a pretty interesting site today that shows how important links are to your site (just in case you think that they aren’t). I’m not going to reveal the site here because it is not one of my own or one of my clients, so you’ll just have to trust me that all of this is true. This person came to be concerned that none of their pages were showing up in Google.

The site in question is a PR 5 site that is not indexed in Google. Not a single page is indexed, and it never will be until they fix a 500 server error that is in the header of the site. The really strange thing is that the site displays just fine, but the server is returning a 500 error for every page load. Google will not index pages that return a 500 error.

I just think that it is interesting that even though Google can’t index the site, and therefore knows nothing about it’s content, it will still award it a nice PR because of all of the backlinks it gets (lots of edu backlinks). This is just a good example of how PR flows to a site, and really has nothing to do with the content on the site. So if you want high PR, just make sure you are focusing your effort on links.

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One theory that I have is that success can come from stupid things. Take this for instance:

Get your own Mclovin ID

The mclovin id maker* is a dumb idea. It’s definitely something my wife would think is stupid. However, it is also a fairly popular idea, and as you may know, popularity and dumbness seem to go hand in hand.

This revelation has made my life a lot easier because I used to have the notion that I’d have to outsmart my competition, when really all I have to do is out dumb them. I thought that if I became a genius programmer then all of my problems would be solved. Instead of spending all of my time learning how to program, I should have set aside some time to take some of the dumb ideas I’ve had and turn those into profits. Using your dumb ideas to make you lots of money = very smart.

Here are the things I’ve learned to help me root out the dumb ideas:

1. Marketing and Programming are very different. This has taken me a long time to learn…too long. When I started on the web, I came at it as a designer, and then moved to programming. I know these two perspectives very well, and when I started to get into marketing websites (ie getting traffic) I thought I knew all there was to know, but now I know that I’m pretty dumb when it comes to marketing.
2. If you know that you don’t know anything, you’re in a good spot to begin learning.
3. Treasure the dumb ideas. These are the ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ and ‘wouldn’t it be fun to make…’ kind of ideas. Write them down so you don’t forget.
4. Don’t let thinking get in the way. Many dumb ideas were ruined because they were thought about too much and made smart. A good analogy here is explaining a joke.
5. Execute your dumb ideas. In other words, don’t keep them in your head. A great way for new and better dumb ideas to come to mind is to actually work on the ones you’ve already got. Our brains tend to work this way with all kinds of things. So do the work and you will be rewarded.
6. Find out the things that you do that are dumb. What are your hobbies? Hobbies are dumb, start there. If you don’t think you have any hobbies (I used to think this), then pick something you do a lot and call it a hobby, like going to the bathroom. That’s dumb.
7. Daydream. Daydreaming is the ultimate dumb idea manifestator.

* Jeremy Shoemaker is the creator of the mclovin id maker and is very good at thinking up dumb ideas.

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