Choosing A Good Domain Name


Choosing a domain name for your site is one of the most important steps towards creating the perfect internet presence. If you run an on-line business, picking a name that will be marketable and achieve success in search engine placement is paramount. Many factors must be considered when choosing a good domain name. This article summarizes all the different things to consider before making that final registration step!


Short and Sweet

Domain names can be really long or really short (1 - 67 characters). In general, it is far better to choose a domain name that is short in length. The shorter your domain name, the easier it will be for people remember. Remembering a domain name is very important from a marketability perspective. As visitors reach your site and enjoy using it, they will likely tell people about it. And those people may tell others, etc. As with any business, word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool to drive traffic to your site (and it's free too!). If your site is long and difficult to pronounce, people will not remember the name of the site and unless they bookmark the link, they may never return.


Consider Alternatives

Unless a visitor reaches your site through a bookmark or a link from another site, they have typed in your domain name. Most people on the internet are terrible typists and misspell words constantly. If your domain name is easy to misspell, you should think about alternate domain names to purchase. For example, if your site will be called "MikesTools.com", you should also consider buying "MikeTools.com" and "MikeTool.com". You should also secure the different top level domain names besides the one you will use for marketing purposes ("MikesTools.net", "MikesTools.org", etc.) You should also check to see if there are existing sites based on the misspelled version of the domain name you are considering. "MikesTools.com" may be available, but "MikesTool.com" may be home to a graphic pornography site. You would hate for a visitor to walk away thinking you were hosting something they did not expect.

Also consider domain names that may not include the name of your company, but rather what your company provides. For example, if the name of your company is Mike's Tools, you may want to consider domain names that target what you sell. For example: "buyhammers.com" or "hammer-and-nail.com". Even though these example alternative domain names do not include the name of your company, it provides an avenue for visitors from your target markets. Remember that you can own multiple domain names, all of which can point to a single domain. For example, you could register "buyhammers.com", "hammer-and-nail.com", and "mikestools.com" and have "buyhammers.com" and "hammer-and-nail.com" point to "mikestools.com".


Hyphens: Your Friend and Enemy

Domain name availability has become more and more scant over the years. Many single word domain names have been scooped up which it makes it more and more difficult to find a domain name that you like and is available. When selecting a domain name, you have the option of including hyphens as part of the name. Hyphens help because it allows you to clearly separate multiple words in a domain name, making it less likely that a person will accidentally misspell the name. For example, people are more likely to misspell "domainnamecenter.com" than they are "domain-name-center.com". Having words crunched together makes it hard on the eyes, increasing the likelihood of a misspelling. On the other hand, hyphens make your domain name longer. The longer the domain name, the easier it is for people to forget it altogether. Also, if someone recommends a site to someone else, they may forget to mention that each word in the domain name is separated by a hyphen. If do you choose to leverage hyphens, limit the number of words between the hyphens to three. Another advantage to using hyphens is that search engines are able to pick up each unique word in the domain name as key words, thus helping to make your site more visible in search engine results.


Dot What?

There are many top level domain names available today including .com, .net, .org, and .biz. In most cases, the more unusual the top level domain, the more available domain names are available. However, the .com top level domain is far and away the most commonly used domain on the internet, driven by the fact that it was the first domain extension put to use commercially and has received incredible media attention. If you cannot lay your hands on a .com domain name, look for a .net domain name, which is the second most commercially popular domain name extension.


Long Arm of the Law

Be very careful not to register domain names that include trademarked names. Although internet domain name law disputes are tricky and have few cases in existence, the risk of a legal battle is not a risk worth taking. Even if you believe your domain name is untouchable by a business that has trademarked a name, do not take the chance: the cost of litigation is extremely high and unless you have deep pockets you will not likely have the resources to defend yourself in a court of law. Even stay away from domain names in which part of the name is trademarked: the risks are the same.


Search Engines and Directories

All search engines and directories are different. Each has a unique process for being part of the results or directory listing and each has a different way of sorting and listing domain names. Search engines and directories are the most important on-line marketing channel, so consider how your domain name choice affects site placement before you register the domain. Most directories simply list links to home pages in alphabetical order. If possible, choose a domain name with a letter of the alphabet near the beginning ("a" or "b"). For example, "aardvark-pest-control.com" will come way above "joes-pest-control.com". However, check the directories before you choose a domain name. You may find that the directories you would like be in are already cluttered with domain names beginning with the letter "a". Search engines scan websites and sort results based on key words. Key words are words that a person visiting a search engine actually search on. Having key words as part of your domain name can help you get better results.

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy," it says. "Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications."

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict

The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow '!' appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as 'IRQ holder for PCI steering'. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is www.driverguide.com. If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram

Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings

Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computer's display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to 'yes' to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives

After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card's manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses

Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( www.symantec.com).

7 Printers

The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer's performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer's default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software

A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don't do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message "Starting Windows" press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn't work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating

Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available from www.computernerd.com or www.coolit.com

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems

With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.

Though the answer is in a book I wrote this July, the question is still asked of me repeatedly. Why does it work for some sites and not others? And how come some blogs get indexed in a day and then are dropped, and others stay in Google indefinitely?

Well, let’s take one question at a time. The answer to whether you can blog your way into Google search results is yes, sometimes in six weeks, often in 24 hours.

Yes, you read right, in less than 24 hours. Under certain conditions, the search engines actually want you to succeed at this.

I’m aware that these statements may cause some controversy, but that won’t make them any less factual. Since September, Google has been set up to show you proof of this, which we’ll go over in part two. My new blog has been spidered and indexed daily since it was created.

Not only is this possible with your blog, the way that blogs are set up make them one of the most conducive web site mediums to attract more traffic from multiple sources quickly. The trick to getting this to work for you, is in understanding which conditions have to be met first.

And we’ll come back to that shortly. First let’s talk about what’s typically wrong with the process most people take to get their sites listed.

Most people submit their sites to Google and wait six to eight weeks to see if they were included. Other people know that the fastest way to be spidered is to leave your link at a site that is already getting spidered.

But even among those people, when they don’t see their site in Google exactly the way they’d like, they give up, and say it didn’t work.

So what went wrong?

The place that the majority of people go wrong is in trying to trick the Googlebot into thinking their site matches its standards for inclusion for their desired high traffic keyword, instead of aligning themselves with the purpose that the search engine fills.

You may think that if you study all the search engine tricks, you’ll have the traffic from the search engines and it will then follow that yours will be the site people come to for the keyword they want, which in turn, will get 1% of those people to buy what’s at your site.

If you think that, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong - sometimes that works. I’m just saying that there are other easier, faster, less expensive ways. Some of them only have subtle differences from the way you know.

The truth is, even if we could somehow reverse engineer the secret Google algorithm, it periodically changes. So mastering that system would be temporary, even if you could do it.

Did you know that you don’t even need the traffic for your most desired keyword to be successful? You just need some targeted traffic that converts well. Some of the most financially successful sites generate amazing profits in the tens or hundreds of thousands with a few hundred or thousand visitors every month.

The method I most suggest to get the kind of search engine results that can power those kinds of sales, is aligning your site with the purpose the search engine seeks to fill. It is faster, more effective and involves far less effort.

You should still make sure your blog meets all the basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, the very nature of a blog makes it easier to meet more of these requirements with less continual struggle.

Let’s look at the facts, and see how blogs align themselves more closely with one of Google’s purposes as a search engine.
Here's what you need to keep in mind:

1- if you get your site’s link in the path of the search engine spider or robot of your choice, in this case Googlebot, if may follow it.

2- the way to get it to follow the link is to make sure it can “see” your link

3- if your content fills a need that the search engine’s database of links has, it will include your link, and,

4- if your link fills a deficit better than any other site, in accordance with Google’s secret formula or algorithm, it will rank your page well.

So now, the only missing component necessary to our success is now finding out how to be the best site Google finds for a category that has a deficit.

One of the strengths of Google, as perceived by people who like it, is the vast amount of fresh content it contains that is relevant to almost any topic, or keyword, typed into it, no matter how narrow or broad.

It follows then, that one purpose of this database of links is to provide fresh, relevant content on topics its users desire. The freshest, most relevant, most topical information found on the web today are in blogs, as well as their corresponding RSS or Atom feeds.

A blog’s very function is to contain constantly updated focused content, on one topic or field.

When blogs first started, the topic was often a person’s life. Business blogs, instead, are updated records of a certain kind of information relevant to an industry, a company or a topic, aligned with the interests of their visitors.

So you need to know the following things in order to get your blog included on Google’s search engine results pages.

• Where to leave your link so that it will get spidered
• How to make sure Googlebot sees your link
• How to set up your blog so its content fills a deficit
• The best way to make sure your blog does this better than other sites.

There’s a specific formula of success for this, one of many that will work not just one time, but repeatedly.

We’ve run out of space for the moment, but part two picks up with the specifics of how your blog needs to be set up and how to determine exactly where Googlebot can find your link.

Lately I’ve found myself obsessed with my Sitemeter stats for a blog I started not too long ago. I started noticing other popular blogs using the same free stat counter, many of them letting the public view the details of where their traffic is coming from. The traffic some of these blogs get is pretty amazing to say the least.

If you do this google search it should bring up a list of all or at least most of the sites in google that are using a sitemeter on their web site/blog. By adding other keywords such as “blog” or whatever you can narrow your results. I spent a couple hours searching around and compiled a list of 25 blogs with links to their realtime sitemeter stats. I think you’ll find it very interesting to take a peek at their traffic details.

25 Blogs and Their Insane Traffic:

Andrew Sullivan - Political Blog
62,363 Visits/Day

Andy HoboTraveler.com - Travel Blog
8,948 Visits/Day

Autoblog - Automotive Blog
111,280 Visits/Day

Blogging Baby - Baby Blog
49,411 Visits/Day

Bruce Schneier - Security and Tech Blog
13,863 Visits/Day

Cinematical - Movie Blog
22,006 Visits/Day

Daily Kos - Political Blog
531,175 Visits/Day

Deadspin - Sports News Blog
84,882 Visits/Day

Defamer - L.A. Gossip
199,854 Visits/Day

Gadling - Travel Blog
8,748 Visits/Day

Gawker - Manhatten Media News and Gossip
229,224 Visits/Day

Gizmodo - The Gadget Blog
383,978 Visits/Day

Gridskipper - Urban Travel Guide
12,576 Visits/Day
Click For Blog Traffic Stats

hack a day - Hacking Blog
56,514 Visits/Day

Instapundit - Opinions on Current Events, etc.
121,159 Visits/Day

Jalopnik - Car Blog
55,315 Visits/Day

Joystiq - Video Game Blog
483,389 Visits/Day

Lifehacker - The Productivity and Software Guide
99,388 Visits/Day

Screenhead - Online Review of Funny Shit
10,521 Visits/Day

Sploid - News With a Tabloid Mentality
16,240 Visits/Day

The Unofficial Apple Weblog - Apple News Blog
53,770 Visits/Day

Valleywag - Tech Gossip
10,059 Visits/Day

Washington Monthly - Political Blog
49,552 Visits/Day

Wonkette - Politics for People With Dirty Minds
74,759 Visits/Day

WOW Insider - World of Warcraft Blog
16,988 Visits/Day

Who knows if they are really Million Dollar Blogs - but I think it’s safe to say they are probably doing fairly well.

Google Adsense is an amazing contextual advertising program that lets you earn revenue from your site by a variety of revenue generating programs. Pay per click ads, Adsense for search, referrals for Firefox with Google toolbar, Picassa, Google Pack and the adsense program itself. This is a compilation of common Google tips and tools to make more money from Google Adsense.

Google Adsense Guidelines

• Program policies, Terms and conditions - follow these rules.
• Adsense FAQ - The Adsense support centre for official guidelines.
• Adsense Tax information - how google collects and uses your tax information
• Adsense Taxes - a free resource about paying income tax on Google Adsense Revenue.
• 15 Common Adsense Mistakes - Avoid these errors that could get your adsense account banned.
• Ad formats - Official list of different types of ad formats you can use.
• Webmaster Guidelines - will help Google find, index, and rank your site.
• Report a policy violation - If you notice a site displaying Google ads that you believe is violating program policies, let them know.

Adsense Starter Demos

• Google Adsense Tour - introducing you to the Adsense program.
• Getting Started Demo: learn to sign in, copying and pasting your code, setting up alternate ads, and using your Competitive Ad Filter.
• Help with Ad Code Demo: troubleshoot basic problems when implementing your code. Also covers how to implement your code using two different types of WYSIWYG software.
• Payment Demo: learn about the AdSense payment cycle, from a click on your ads to money in the bank!
• Optimization Demo: learn how to use ad size and placement to maximize your AdSense revenue.

Track Adsense Income, Statistics and Clicks

• Adsense Notifier - Firefox extension that displays your Adsense earnings on the Firefox statusbar.
• SysSense - personal desktop Google AdSense monitor. It keeps your current Google AdSense information in the Windows system tray.
• Adsense Widget - a Mac Dashboard widget that automatically logs into your AdSense Google account and displays the last 6-days of revenue generated from your Google advertising account.
• Google Adsense Yahoo Widget - displays the current income directly from your Google AdSense account.
• Stats for AdSense widget - allows you to view your Google AdSense™ reports directly from your Mac OS X Dashboard.
• Adsense Status - GoogleDesktop plugin to View earnings information from your Google Adsense account in the Google Desktop sidebar. Available information: page impressions, clicks, page CTR, page eCPM, and your earnings.
• Adsense Alert - desktop client monitors your adsense earnings.
• Adsense Gold Tracker - tracks clicks from Google adsense and Yahoo publisher network ads
• AdLogger - an open source Adsense tracker designed for web publishers and website owners.
• Performancing Metrics - a free professional grade blog statistics service that track limited adsense click data
• AdSenseDesktop - provides a wide variety of analysis methods for your AdSense statistics.
• Google AdSense Module (Clicksafe) - special edition Google Adsense module for Joomla.
• Adsense earnings RSS feed - a simple script that will create an RSS feed with your daily Adsense earnings to track via your regular feed reader.
• Google AdSense Charts and Graphs - chart your adsense data in a multidimensional line charts.
• AdSenseLog is a tool for checking and analyzing your Adsense ads data (Content, Search, Custom/URL channels and Referrals).

View / Test Adsense Ads

• Google AdSense preview tool - addition to the right-click menu for Windows Internet Explorer 6.x, allowing you to preview the ads that may show on any web page.
• Adsense Preview - Preview the Google ads that may show on any web page.
• Google AdSense Sandbox Tool - see what sort of Google AdSense ads will appear based on content or keywords. See up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords.
• Overture Keyword Tool - suggest keyword bid amount and keyword suggestions, which help you target high paying keywords.
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool - generates potential keywords for your ad campaign and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and seasonal trends.

Google Adsense Wordpress Plugins

• AdRotator Wordpress Plugin - rotate your adsense ads with other affiliate programs like Chitika Eminimalls
• Adsense Deluxe - offering advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts.
• Adsense Injection - inserts Adsense code randomly into a pre-existing blog.
• Adsense Inline - insert adsense in blog posts
• AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar - Google AdSense widget I designed for the new WordPress Sidebar Widgets plug-in.

Google Adsense Optimization Tips

• Adsense Success Case Studies - detailing success stories from top adsense publishers.
• AdSense Optimization for Forums - get higher CTR by a unique adsense placement strategy.
• Blogtimize! - ad placement for blogs for higher CTR
• Adsense Optimization Tips - General tips for better ads postitioning and earn higher revenue.
• Adsense Webinars - online seminars that help publishers obtain the highest results from their implementations of AdSense.
• How to increase Google Adsense CTR - simple tips on colors and ad placement can increase CTR.
• The Best of Eyetrack III - What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes. How readers scan a webpage.
• How to Remove Public Service Ads - simple tips to help you remove non paying PSA ads.
• AdsBlackList - will teach you how to seek, recognize and filter low paying google ads.
• Yahoo Ads placement tips - suggestions to place Yahoo publisher network ads. Apply the same idea to adsense ads.
• Rotate Google Adsense Ads Colors - helps to reduce Ad Blindness
• High Paying Adsense Keywords - updated list of current highest paying keywords for Google Adsense.
• Top Paying Google Adsense Keywords - free list arranged by category.

Alternate Ads

• Alternate ads - allows you to utilize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page.
• Alternate Url - provides a 50/50 Revenue Share, full global coverage monthly payments automatic referral income, family safe ads, paypal supported and gives detailed stats.
• AlterNut Ad - pays you a flat rate every month in return for you displaying thier ad rather than the PSA. Invite only.
• Default Ads - load your affiliate or other ads into DefaultAds and generate a link to include in your Google Adsense alternate ad URL. They show their own ads 1 out of every 100 impressions for this service.

Google Adsense Books and Videos

• Google Adsense Books - a list of Google Adsense books for sale on Amazon.
• What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense - Joel Comm
• The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense - William Charlwood
• Google Adsense Videos - Michael Cheney

Adsense Chats and Forums

• Inside AdSense blog - Official blog that posts new tips and information about new AdSense features.
• Adsense Help - Google group for adsense support. Only posts from user ‘AdSensePro’ are approved by Google.
• Digitalpoint Adsense Forum - discusses Adsense payments, guidelines, stats and reporting and much more.
• Webmaster World Adsense Forum - Discussions around Googles Text Ad service AdSense.

Miscellaneous

• Google AdSense Stats Syndrome (GASS) - the compulsive need to check AdSense stats every 15 minutes or so to see how much you’ve earned since your prior login. more.

You can always check out Alternatives to Google Adsense. This post will be regularly updated. Suggest a link in the comments.

There are hundreds of firefox extensions on the web. Which ones do you use? Here is an attempt to collect the 50 popular and best firefox extensions which make your browsing, downloading and navigation in Firefox as easy as possible, while harnessing the full power and features of Firefox.

Please Note -
- Most of these extensions should work on the latest versions of the Firefox Web Browser 2.0. If they dont, then use the Nightly Tester Tools extension to make them work. When a new firefox version is released, it allows easy update of these extensions whenever a new update for your version is available.
- You need to check that similar functioning extensions may not work with each other.
- Use extensions which work best for *your* needs. You can always uninstall extensions easily if you do not like them.
- Some say installing too many extensions may slow the startup time for firefox.
- Fastest way to install these extensions from developer sites is to drag them to the url bar.
- Look at these top extensions to manage firefox extensions.
- You probably already use many of them, and may find some new good extensions here…

Control Firefox Tabs

• All-in-One Gestures - merges the popular following extensions for management of mouse gestures, scrolling and power navigation. (Mix of Mouse Gestures, Rocker navigation, Tab scroller, History scroller, Link tooltip and Autoscrolling extensions)
• Tabbrowser Preferences - a comprehensive UI for changing a number of the hidden tabbed browsing preferences in Firefox. It also provides the ability to control how internal and external links are opened in the browser and how the browser will react when links are sent to it.
• Tab Mix Plus - More tweaks added to tabs. Ability to select and open muliple links in tabs, open link in a duplicated tab, merge tabs and close tabs from similar domain…
• Restart Firefox - Adds “Restart Firefox” menuitem to “File”, and a toolbar button for easy restarting. Great for when you install themes or extensions and need to restart Firefox.
• Sessionsaver - restores the pages you had open the last time you used Firefox - even if it crashes or there is a powerout.
• Duplicate Tab - allows you to clone a tab with its history and place the duplicate tab in a new window or in the current window.
• Colorful Tabs - Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface.
• Viamatic foXpose - Click on the icon in the status bar to view all the browser windows with a single click.
• Firefox Showcase - easily locate and select any open browser window in Firefox.
• Separe - Helps you keeping tabs tidy by introducing a new kind of tab.
• Permatabs - turn tabs of your choice into permanent tabs that can’t be closed, and stick around between sessions.
• FaviconizeTab - resizes the width of the tab to display the favicon only (and back again).

Control Website Links

• Linky - Lets you open or download all or selected links, image links and even web addresses found in the text in separate or different tabs or windows.
• WebMailCompose - Makes mailto: links load your webmail’s compose page and adds a Compose link to the context menu.
• Linkification - Allows Firefox (0.9+) to view plain-text URLs and e-mail addresses as actual links
• IE Tab - can open the current page or a selected link embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. Very useful for those IE only pages.
• FirefoxView - Open Firefox with the current page or a selected link displayed in Internet Explorer. Adds “View in Firefox” menu items to the content and link context menus.
• Paste and Go - lets you paste an URL from the clipboard into the address bar and load it as a single step, either via the adress bar’s context menu or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-V
• ErrorZilla - changes the default 404 error page with following choices: a google cache, an archival snapshot from the wayback machine, a ping, a trace route, and a whois lookup.

Control File Downloads

• FlashGot - handles single and massive downloads with several external Download Managers.
• PDF Download - Every time you click on a link, checks if the target is a pdf file and in this case let you choose what you want to do (open pdf file inside a new tab, download it to the filesystem or view it as HTML).
• ScrapBook - helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections.
• DownThemAll! - adds new advanced downloading capabilities to your browser. It lets you download in just one click all the links or images contained in a webpage or refine your preferences using fully customizable filters.
• TargetAlert - provides visual cues for the destinations of hyperlinks. If a hyperlink points to a something that is not a web page (in cases of pdf, doc, zip files etc.), then TargetAlert will try to append an icon to the hyperlink that represents its destination
• Download Manager Tweak - modifies the default appearance of the firefox download manager and allows it to be opened in a separate window, the sidebar, or a tab.
• Download Statusbar - is a browser extension that allows you to keep track of ongoing and completed downloads in a hide-away statusbar
• Disable Targets For Downloads - Prevents sites spawning blank windows when clicking binary downloads.
• FireFTP - is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

Control Webpage Behaviour and Navigation

• GreaseMonkey - Install user scripts and change the behavior of any web page
• Image Zoom - Right click on an image and select a zoom option from the popup menu, or, hold down the right mouse button in combination with the mouse wheel to zoom in or out on an image.
• Fasterfox - Speed up Firefox. Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with Fasterfox’s unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing. Also tweaks many network and rendering settings. (Some readers said it actually slowed down their firefox - verify yourself)
• SpellBound - enables spell checking in web forms such as html textarea / input elements (html input password elements are not checked by SpellBound) and rich text form elements. This allows you to spell check forms before submitting them.
• BugMeNot - Bypasses compulsory web registration using the BugMeNot without the hassle of surfing to it and querying its database everytime.
• AutoCopy - Select text on any web page and it will be automatically copied to the clipboard. Middle click to Paste.
• Copy Plain Text - Copies text without formatting. Have you ever copied something and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again?
• Google Images Re-Linker - This will let you click the thumbnail images on images.google.com, skip the referred framed page, and jump straight to the full-size image.
• Stop-or-Reload Button - Makes the Stop and Reload button behave like a single one (as in Safari).
• Extended Statusbar - adds an Opera-like statusbar for Firefox that shows number of loaded images, bytes downloaded, average download speed, load time and percentage of the page loaded.
• Resizeable Textarea - Resize small textareas in forums to your needed size avoiding scrolling.
• Adblock Plus - is an enhanced version of Adblock. Block ads, applets, flash, embedded-media etc.
• Flashblock - blocks all Flash content from loading on a webpage.
• Sage - add a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator which integrates with Firefox’s bookmark storage and Live Bookmarks.
• Cacheout!- lets you try to access articles on servers affected by the Digg Effect /Slashdot Effect through Google’s caching service and CoralCDN.org.
• Pearl Crescent Page Saver - capture screenshots and save full webpages as images easily.
• Reload Every - adds an option to the context menu to reload the web page you are viewing every so many seconds or minutes. Useful if you keep refreshing some pages often.
• Copy URL+ - copy to the clipboard the current document’s address along with additional information such as the document’s title, the current selection or both. Customize it to add your own menu entries.
• InFormEnter - adds a small, clickable icon next to every input field in a web form, from where you can select the item to be inserted with your frequently used information such as name, email, address and whatever else you want to be available from the form menu.
• All-in-One Sidebar - is a sidebar control, inspired by Opera that lets you quickly switch between sidebars, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source code or websites in the sidebar. Can be extensively customized.
• Text size toolbar - Adds buttons to increase or decrease text size or restore default size easily. Useful for those small unreadable font sizes.
• Reveal - allows you to see thumbnails of pages in your session history and quickly find the page you want.
• Mystickies - allows you to place sticky notes all over the web and organize them with tags.
• Clear Cache Button - Adds a clear cache toolbar button that cleans the cache in one click. Very handy for those who have use for it.
• gTranslate - translate any text in a webpage just by selecting and right-clicking over it. Uses the Google translation services.
• Xinha Here! - is a wrapper for the Xinha HTML editor that enables WYSIWYG editing in any textarea and text box on any website.
• Yoono - instantly suggests alternate sites and people who share the same interests while you are surfing.
• BlueOrganizer - It helps you personalize your web experience based on what you already like, helping you discover relevant new information and save time.

Control Privacy / Security

• SwitchProxy - lets you manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations quickly and easily. You can also use it as an anonymizer to protect your computer from prying eyes.
• NoScript - allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice. This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities with no loss of functionality
• Always Remember Password - Instructs web sites to always remember your password. Some sites like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and banking sites instruct the browser to never allow your password manager to retain your information.
• CookieCuller - Extended Cookie Manager to protect/unprotect selected cookies.
• Stealther - surf the web without leaving a trace in your local computer by *temporarily disabling history (and address bar), cookies, formFill, disk cache and sending of ReferrerHeader. Verify details of what exactly it can work for you.

Control Web Searches

• Google Toolbar for Firefox - Lets you search google and all its services easily. Also powered by Google Suggest (Get query suggestions as you type in the search box), SpellCheck, AutoFill, Pagerank of webpage, access to gmail, WordTranslator etc.
• CustomizeGoogle - enhances Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam).
• NextPlease! - allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to jump to next and previous links on search results pages, like Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, and many other sites.
• BetterSearch - enhances Google, MSN Search, Yahoo Search, A9, Answers.com, AllTheWeb, Dogpile.com, del.icio.us and Simpy.com bookmarks by adding previews (thumbnails) and Amazon product images and info etc.
• Answers - Press Alt (or Option on a Mac) and click any word to get a quick, relevant definition or explanation, drawn from a collection of over 100 reference titles.

Control Your Music / Video

• FoxyTunes - Listen to music while surfing the Web, and control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser.
• MediaPlayerConnectivity - Allow you to launch embed video of website in an external application with a simple click

Control Your Email

• Gmail Manager - Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.
• Gmail Notifier - checks and notifies your email in Gmail accounts.
• AJAX Yahoo! Mail - Preview your messages with a single click. Adds AJAX support to the Yahoo! mail.

Control Your Bookmarks

• Bookmark with Del.icio.us - Integrate del.icio.us right into Firefox. Easily access your bookmarks and post new bookmarks. Post a bookmark without leaving the page you are on.
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized
• StumbleUpon - is an intelligent browsing tool for sharing and discovering great websites.
• Reliby - provides you with Reload all Live Bookmarks functionality.
• Clipmarks - lets you save and share Web page content without having to bookmark the entire page.

Control Other Popular Services

• Adsense Notifier - Displays your Adsense earnings on the statusbar.
• Forecastfox Enhanced - Get international weather forecasts and display it in any toolbar or statusbar. Now with improved radar images and allows for pausing, restarting and setting the frequency of automatic updates.
• StockTicker - Shows your favorite stocks in a customizable ticker.
• DictionarySearch - Looks up a user selected word in an online dictionary you selected.
• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various essential web developer tools.
• Performancing for Firefox - A full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox and lets you easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.
• Map+ - enables you to quickly view a map of a selected address in Firefox without changing windows or tabs.
• ChatZilla - is a clean and easy to use Internet relay chat (IRC) client.

This list is by no means complete and you may not agree with my choice, but this is merely an attempt to find the top and best firefox extensions. This post is regularly updated. If there is some favourite firefox extension you use which deserves a mention here

Technorati tracks the buzz about every word you type and publish on your blog. I was always confused about how these Technorati link count works, and recently contacted support to understand them. Though I got no reply, they decided to write a post about it.

If you have never heard about Technorati, I suggest you read the Top 10 Reasons Why You Need a Technorati Account.

Try a quick example of technorati links to our blog. It shows Rank: 2,055 (1,605 links from 793 blogs) and a little below it says 1,744 links to this URL.

This means
* Rank 2,055: the number of blogs, plus one, that have more than 793 blogs linking to them
* 1,605 links: the number of links pointing at this URL in the last 180 days
* 793 blogs: the number of distinct blogs pointing at this URL in the last 180 days
* 1,744 links: the total number of links we found pointing at this blog, ever

Further inferences to deduce -
If you look at the top 100 Technorati blogs, technorati rank is decided by the number of blogs linking to you and not the number of backlinks. So you might have your favorite circle of blog friends crosslinking each other posts, but though it might get you hundreds of backlinks, it will not improve technorati rank much. At this point you need at least more than 3,062 blogs linking to you to get into Technorati Top 100.

You can read more about the John Scott $10000 Challenge which expressed concern of gaming technorati as many in the Technorati Top 100 only link to others in the Technorati Top 100, with the result that the A-list Bloggers keep on getting bigger.

Another inference you derive from this is that active blogs rank higher. If you stop posting and people stop backlinking your blog, your technorati rank will start dropping and after 6 months, irrespective of how popular your blog was or you were featured in the Technorati 100, you might be sitting at the bottom of the blogosphere.

It also means consistently good blogs rank higher. You write a great post, drive huge site traffic manage a hundred blogs to link to you which zooms your rank, but if you are not consistent in writing good blog content and maintain a stream of regular backlinks, those spikes and peaks will disappear after 6 months and you will notice a sudden drop in technorati rank. So regular posting of good content, with regular backlinks help to maintain your technorati ranks.

CCNP Certification

CCNP Instant Answers
The CCNP certification (Cisco Certified Network Professional) indicates advanced or journeyman knowledge of networks. With a CCNP, a network professional can install, configure, and troubleshoot local and wide area networks for enterprise organizations with networks from 100 to more than 500 nodes. The content emphasizes topics such as security, converged networks, quality of service (QoS), virtual private networks (VPN) and broadband technologies.

CCNP Required Exams


Required Exam(s)
642-801 BSCI Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI)
642-811 BCMSN Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN)
642-821 BCRAN Building Cisco Remote Access Networks (BCRAN)
642-831 CIT Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting (CIT)

OR

642-891 Composite Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) / Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN)
642-821 BCRAN Building Cisco Remote Access Networks (BCRAN)
642-831 CIT Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting (CIT)

download>

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/10039695/A.T_642-801.zip

So you have decide to create your first blog on Blogger. It has a simple and fine interface that takes care of many things for you. This is my suggestion to you for your first free essential must haves for your blog.

1. Feedburner - It generates an smart feed compatible with all feed readers for free like my feed. It allows you to put easy subscribe buttons for XML, Add to yahoo, Add to Newsgator, Add to MSN etc. Read about how their single feed policy can benefit you.

It can give you a cool feed count chicklet button to show how many readers are using your feed to read your blog. It also gives you a headline animator which you can attach to your blog to display the recent 5 posts in a nice animated fashion. You can get an authentic Creative Common license, get a browser friendly RSS feed, Splice photos and links and more…

2. Haloscan - Trackback is an essential component of blogging these days. Unfortunately Blogger does not have trackback. Haloscan provides you with a seamless way to integrate free trackback in your blog by adding a small code. You can also integrate their comments component if you like to replace the Blogger comments. Read about Haloscan or Blogger comments.

The benefits are that you can edit Haloscan comments, and open them in a pop up and keep them separate from your post (Blogger allows you to only delete comments and not edit them, also on the post page all comments will show whether you like it or not).

The main disadvantage is it will not email you these comments (like Blogger) for free and it is difficult to track where these comments were made. Another major benefit is that it allows you to send pings and trackback to other sites when you mention about them in your posts.

3. Imageshack - Dont you want to fill your blog with images without hassles of registration. Imageshack provides an excellent interface to take care of your free image hosting needs. Maybe it is this the fastest way to host an image on the web. Allows lots of image format, hotlinking, transloading from other sites. Its a good idea to register to keep track of all your images in one place. It is much convenient than the proposed Hello and Picassa options…

Update: Blogger enabled hosting of images on its own webspace making it easier to host images in your posts. But you cannot manage or edit / delete your blogger images in any way

4. Technorati - Create and add a technorati profile. It allows you to claim your blog in this huge blogosphere. It allows you to put an excellent technorati search on your blog. The best part is that whenever someone mentions or links to any page of your blog, technorati knows and a search for your blog on technorati shows exactly how many sites link to which pages of your blog and when they were added with a small description. See why you need a technorati account.

5 - Sitemeter - Just takes 5 minutes to get a free tracker which gives you realtime site traffic statistics to check the quantity and quality of your site traffic with detailed referrer and geographic data. I have checked out several other tracking sites, but this one seems the best. Although you need to keep a counter visible (as a logo, visitor counter) and the statistics can be made private too.

StatCounter gives much more detailed statistics and the counter is totally invisible and free totally till you start getting large traffic, when you need to pay. But the disadvantage is that both of these track the last 100 visitors only, while another free service Extreme Tracking tracks them all… but you statistics cannot be made private. More options I like are Google Analytics for deep traffic statistical analysis and it is hidden too.

6. Feedblitz - It quickly allows your blog visitors to subscribe by email to your new posts. They just have to enter their email. You decide which page opens after they press Subscribe. A quick confirmatory email to them and they get 1 email daily with all your new posts. You can decide if you want to send the full post or short posts with defined number of characters. Very good to keep your subscribers informed of new posts. It allows them to unsubscribe easily also. Example for our blog.

7. My Blog Log - Tracks outgoing links to let you know where your traffic is going. The free limited version data is not in much detail, yet provides a good idea. You can also add a Top 5 Our Links module to your web site. Now they have a MyBlogLog community to get some extra site traffic too.

8 AudioBlogger- Audioblogger allows free unlimited audio posts from any phone to your Blogger blog. You call the number (Currently a US phone number), record a post, then your blog is updated with an audioblogger icon and a link to your recorded audio.

9. w.bloggar - It is a Post and Template editor, with several features and resources that the browser based blog editors do not offer. It enables users to have only one interface to several accounts hosted on several different sites, using different publishing systems. Helps to manage multiple blogs on Blogger very effectively.

10 Blogger Mobile - opens a new concept of Moblogging i.e. blogging by your mobile phone. When you send text or photos from your mobile device to go@blogger.com they’re automatically posted to your new blog page.

11. Blogexplosion - helps you get confirmed traffic to your blog. The principle is simple, you visit other peoples blogs and they visit yours. For every 2 blogs you visit, one visitor comes to you. This is very good if you are new blogger and have hardly any traffic. Definitely try the Rent a Blog advertising swap service.

12. Pingoat - Pinging lets dozens of blogging services know you’ve updated your site and increases traffic to your blog. Just enter your blog name and blog home page, check the blogging services you want to ping, just click ‘Submit Pings’ and in one click it pings all of them. Pingoat offers a wide variety of such services and is fast too. See many more one click pinging services.

13. Creative Commons - It offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. They have built upon the “all rights reserved” of traditional copyright to create a voluntary “some rights reserved” copyright. They are nonprofit and all tools are free and useful to highlight the way in which you want others to use you content.

14. Google Adsense and Search - When you take all effort to write for a blog, why not optimize it to make some money. Let users search for good posts in your blog. And now it even helps to monetize you feeds.

This is periodically updated. Happy Bloggering!

Google Adsense program is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are well defined terms of service to strictly adhere to when participating in the program.

On my visit through sites and forums, I daily notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.

2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad unit and 1 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.

6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.

10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.

11. Do not send your ads by email. Html formatted emails look good and allow placement of these javascript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!

12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches - Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of ‘excessive’ is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.

15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”. In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.

Update:
16. Only single referral button per product per page - With the launch of the google adsense referral program, you are allowed to put only one referral button for adsense referral, adwords referral, and Firefox with google toolbar referral

17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads. - Several services like Chitika eminimalls allow you to place alternate urls, when a targeted paying ad cannot be displayed. This involved creating an simple html page and putting the ad to be displayed instead. Even Adsense allows an alternate url feature instead of displaying public service ads. But never use Adsense ads as alternate urls.

18. Do not confuse with adjacent images - It was a common policy to increase CTR by placing same number of images as the number of text ads, which falsely gave the impression that the text ads represented an explanation to these images. Inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads is not allowed. Make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. More.

Whenever in doubt, it is better to ask for adsense help from the learned staff of Google Adsense. They are very helpful!

I have always taken adsense revenue lightly. Of late, I am having a total rethink because adsense is one easy way to make a passive income that just has a habit of not stopping. Okay, here's how to easily pull $20 every single day from adsense.

If you don't have a website, the first thing you need to do is research a high traffic web niche. Niches like health, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, music, dating etc. These niches get a lot of traffic pull. Your goal will be to give out quality free stuff about the topic you choose to pull in traffic.

The next thing to do is to register a domain name and build a website, blog or forum around that niche. If you consider that too much of a trouble, just go to blogger.com and create an account in 3steps. If you have a site already, just skip this step and move on to the next.

Next, go to http://articlejoint.com, http://ezinearticles.com, http://ideamarketers.com or any other article directory and pick up articles and quality information for your new site. Post the articles and go to the next step.

Once you have that up and ready, go to google.com/adsense/ and sign up a free adsense account. They will manually review your site, so it may take a while but usually not more than 48hours. Once you are approved, login and follow the step-by-step help in the control panel to generate your adsense codes.

Go back to your website and insert the codes. Test to see everything works fine but please don't click on the ads yourself because google pays you each time the ads are clicked and clicking it amounts to cheating (all stated in the rules).

You are almost done. The last bit is to pull people more traffic to your site, so they will pick up the quality information and also click your ads. This can be done fairly easily. You can write a press release and submit to prweb.com, talk about the topic at online forums and leave a signature containing your website's link, write articles, submit your site to search engines etc.

The goal is to get people to start coming. Once the traffic starts flowing, you will make $20 a day easily and with time shoot up the figure astronomically.