Ask Kalena

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Google has announced that all their non-search display advertising will be collectively called the Google Display Network from now on, replacing the existing Google Content Network.

The new network covers Google display ads on Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Google Finance, Blogger and other ad partner sites.

Google made the announcement on their Inside AdSense blog, claiming the move was to make their display media clearer to advertisers:

“The Google Display Network will comprise all of the sites where advertisers can buy ads through Google, including the over one million AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange partners as well as YouTube and Google properties such as Google Finance, Gmail, Google Maps, and Blogger… The Google Display Network offers all ad formats – text, image, rich media, and video ads – enabling advertisers to unleash their creativity and engage visitors on your websites in various ways.”

If you’re an AdSense publisher you’re already part of the Google Display Network. No changes have been made to how AdSense works and no action is required by you to opt-in. However, if you use AdSense for search, your AdSense for search ad space won’t be part of the Google Display Network.

Advertisers will continue to be able to purchase ads on your search results pages in the same way they always have.

Hi  Kalena…

From your article Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission on Search Engine Guide you write:

“You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.”

I’d like to implement this trick into my own blog but would like to see the visual example on your blog so I understand what you mean. I’ve searched and searched your blog and either I am blind or it is gone. Help!

Chris

Hi Chris

That article was written over 3 years ago and I have completely changed the blog design since then and no longer use AdWords on my blog pages. However you can still see the old 4 link ad unit I was talking about in the header of the Ask Kalena blog archive pages.

To implement the color matching on your own site, follow the instructions in the article, being sure to choose your ad unit background color that best matches your blog color scheme.

Good luck!

Hi Kalena

I’m a regular reader, but have not “asked Kalena” anything in probably over a year now. I own around 40 URLs, all related to real estate in the Atlanta area. Currently they are sitting in my Hostmonster account, doing nothing. Q: Should I “park” all of them which will point them all to my main URL?

Thanks!
Rob

Dear Rob

Thanks for your question. It really doesn’t make any sense to point 40 domains to a single domain.

In my opinion, the only logical reasons to park one domain to another domain include:

• Moving an entire site from one domain to another.
• Pointing identical domains with different regional suffixes to a central domain for targeting purposes (e.g. redirecting site.com.au and site.co.uk to site.com).
• Pointing several brand-related domains with different suffixes to a central domain for marketing and trademark purposes (e.g. redirecting brand.net and brand.org to brand.com).
• Pointing misspelled or similar sounding brand-related domains to a central domain for marketing and branding purposes (e.g. redirecting misite.com and maisite.com to mysite.com).
• Pointing hyphenated domains to a un-hyphenated domain, or vice versa, for marketing and branding purposes (e.g. redirecting my-site.com to mysite.com).

You should think carefully about your motivation for buying the domains in the first place. If some of them meet the criteria above it might be worth parking them to your main domain. But there really is little search engine value in redirecting so many domains, even if the keywords are of a similar theme.

I think you would be better off monetizing the domains using Google AdSense for Domains and making some affiliate income from them. You could still include a text link or image ad promoting your main domain on each of the parked domains, but just be aware that 40 instant incoming links to your main domain may trigger a red flag in Google’s ranking algorithm.