Does Google take Action on Spammy Guest Blogging Activities?

By far, the most popular method of acquiring links among webmasters is guest blogging. People write for other websites in exchange for links to their own websites. This not only gives people a backlink, it also gives them a small increase in traffic, hence making it a favorite among bloggers. But sometimes, it seems a bit too easy, as anyone can pick up content from the internet and submit a guest post about it. And since the practice is widely used, a lot of spammy activity is bound to surface at one time or another. So what does Google do about it? Will it penalize websites for links acquired through guest blogging?

In a previous post, we talked about when Google is okay with guest blogging. If you are a good writer and blogger, and create quality content, then there should be no problem. You can post as many blog posts as you like to other blogs. Indeed, from Google's point of view, it's all about quality. So a good blogger should have nothing to worry about.

That is as far as it goes for quality content. On the flip side, Google does take strict action against spammy activities. A lot of people, in order to acquire a lot of backlinks, submit one guest post to multiple blogs. This post could either be copied exactly, or spun from another source. In any case, it counts as copied content, and Google does get an indication of low quality from such content.

People who are submitting guest posts should know better than to try this approach, because duplicate content will get them an instant penalty. And if there's a link to their website from a low quality, or spammy page that Google knows has suspicious content, then it will do more harm than good, and the website owner will ultimately have to disavow such links.

But what about webmasters who accept guest posts? If  you accept such blog posts on your website that are low quality, then you will be penalized all the same for duplicate / similar content as well as low quality content that user's aren't happy with. In addition, if those guest posts link to another website, then chances are, it's a low quality website. And Google definitely will penalize your site for linking to a low quality website.

So don't just take guest blogging for granted. Whether you are a website owner accepting guest posts, or a blogger willing to write on other websites for backlinks, always consider the quality of content you're dealing with, and also the quality of the links that will be acquired, because often times, you might end up doing more harm than good to your website. Hope I was clear. If you have any questions, shoot them our way. And for the net time, always check the quality of guest posts before accepting or submitting them. Good luck :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com

How To Fix Rejected Ad Request Errors in AdSense

Google AdSense Ad serving has been a hot topic since like forever, as lots of bloggers and webmasters use AdSense to make money online. Many people have asked questions regarding errors associated with Google Ads. And indeed, the rejected Ad request errors are quite common. These occur majorly when the ads on your site are not properly set up, and hence they can't crawl the correct URL. In such cases, an error occurs, and 'blank ads' might be served as a result. These errors have become quite common. But if you are encountering them, there's nothing to worry about. In this post, we will show you what causes such errors, and how to remove them.

What are Ad requests?

An Ad request is counted whenever a site requests ads from Google to be displayed. For example, suppose there are three ad blocks on a page. When that page is loaded, all the three blocks request ads from Google, and the ads are then displayed. Even if there is some error in displaying, it is still counted as an ad request.

Ad request errors basically occur when the requests are rejected, or could not be fetched. In that case, backup, or blank ads are displayed. This gives the first heads-up that something is wrong with your ad units.

Reasons for errors

The most common reason for such errors is that, your ad blocks are located within one or multiple iframes. This causes problems for the unit, because it crawls and targets the wrong URL. It becomes isolated, and hence cannot access and determine what sort of content you have, hence contextual ads become useless. And when Google can't determine your site's correct information, blank or backup ads might be served.

You might also be getting errors because you are using an SSP (Supply-Side Platform). SSPs include yield managers or ad servers that are used for ad optimization. You need to contact them and notify them of the issue you are having.

Fixing ad request errors

To fix these errors in AdSense and Ad Exchange, you generally need to pass to them the URL of the page that displays the ads.

DoubleClick for Publishers

For DoubleClick for Publishers users, if you are using the Google Ad Manager, then in your ad call, you can try adding this line of code to make your ads work properly

GA_googleAddAdSensePageAttr("google_page_url", "URL");

For Google Publisher Tags, you can try adding the following line of code to your ad call.

googletag.pubads().set("page_url", "URL");

For DART, in AdSense or Ad Exchange, you can pass the correct URL by using the dc_ref parameter in conjunction with the google_page_url parameter.

Other domains

For  tag.admeld.com errors within your report, you need to contact your Admeld representative and ask for JavaScript tags instead of iframes. This should take care of most errors caused by nested iframes.

For other domains, to target correct URLs, you will need to use google_page_url. here's a demonstration. Below is a code which contains a typical ad code

Typical ad code 

<script type="text/javascript"> google_ad_client = "ca-pub-XXXXXXXXXXXX"; /* 728x90, creado 14/04/08 */ google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXXXX"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; </script> <script type="text/javascript"  src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>

And below is a code with the google_page_url added. Notice the line with bolded text.

Ad code with google_page_url 

<script type="text/javascript"> google_ad_client = "ca-pub-XXXXXXXXXXXX"; /* 728x90, creado 14/04/08 */ google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXXXX"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_page_url = "http://myurl.com/fullpath"; </script> <script type="text/javascript"  src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>

You need to update code for all ad units that are showing problems. I know this might be a bit too much to grasp, especially for beginners. But you can contact us and ask questions anytime using the comment section below. All the best with your errors :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com