Thursday, 15 November 2012

3 new posts in "Quick Online Tips"

In This Issue...

New Google Adsense Large Skyscraper 300×600 Half Page Ads
Its Official: Google Will Penalize Spammy Guest Blogging
Use GASP to Stop WordPress Spam Comments Instantly
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New Google Adsense Large Skyscraper 300×600 Half Page Ads

Google AdSense launched the much awaited large skyscraper 300×600 half page ad units for all Google AdSense publishers. These Google AdSense advertisements are so large in size that they are called half page ads. On popular news media sites you would have observed these extra large ad sizes in sidebars are getting popular over the last year.

Large Skyscraper 300×600 Adsense Ads

These large skyscraper units are live in our AdSense account right now. We placed these large ad units in our sidebar. See how they look.

large skyscraper ads

Right now it is full of text advertisements only. Some ad links are also visible at times. Hopefully, as AdSense gets more image ads inventory and as this ad size becomes popular across websites, more image ads will compete and become visible.

Why Half Page Ads? Google AdSense claims that such large ad units are getting popular, allow advertisers to get better engagement with the advertisement and to get their message across to the target audience effectively. Google had recently released the Display Business Trends, which revealed that the 300×600 is one of the fastest growing premium ad unit sizes, and was particularly favoured by brand advertisers for creating a visual impact.

300x600 ad

Where will you place such a huge ad unit? These ad units are not called half page ads just like that. Obviously the current placement is suitable in the sidebar of websites and blogs. Currently wherever you place the 300×250 medium rectangle ad unit, it can be replaced by these huge large skyscraper 300×600 ad units. Remember that these ad units need a lot of space, and an above the fold placement will push a lot of content in the sidebar below the fold.

It would be interesting to observe how Webmasters choose to integrate these large advertisements into their websites. What are your thoughts about using this ad unit size?

Its Official: Google Will Penalize Spammy Guest Blogging

Home > Blogging > Google > SEO

Matt Cutts has revealed in another video post Google’s official view that it will penalise spammy guest blogging activities. Guest blogging has become the new way to get free links from popular blogs in exchange for free content. We warned you that Google might penalise guest blogging blogs some months ago.

Matt Cutts, Google’s spam quality chief posted the Google’s official view on guest blogging links a few weeks ago, where he suggested that high-quality guest posts by reputed authors might be acceptable. But apparently bloggers accepting guest posts are now really concerned about the low quality links of these guest authors affecting their website rankings. The new video clarifies it further.

The key takeaway messages from this video post about Google’s strategy for dealing with guest blogging sites are as follows:

If guest bloggers are spinning articles on multiple guest blogging sites, or if guest blogging sites are accepting low quality articles linking out to spam websites – then both could be penalized by Google.
If guest blogging sites link out to low quality websites (engaged in poor guest blogging practices and article spinning), then it could harm your site rankings. If anybody can post a low quality guest article on your website, just to get free links – then your website could be in trouble. You need to tighten your guest blogging guidelines and need to moderate and monitor quality of guest post content being published on your website.
Consider this – would users be happy to land on your guest article page and be willing to read the full post and share the content. Unhappy readers make Google unhappy.
Google is willing to take action on low quality sites and those engaged in poor guest blogging practices.

Guest blogging has become the new way to get free links on popular websites. Unsuspecting bloggers accept free content to push more content into search engines for better site rankings, but they forget that Guest blogging has changed over the years – and it has become a huge new link marketing strategy. Your guest articles are no longer being written by small-time bloggers looking for publicity and traffic – but is being generated by dedicated freelance writers and SEO writing companies hired to get back links from high page rank sites.

Be careful of what guest posts you publish on your site, and which sites you link out to … Google is watching.

Use GASP to Stop WordPress Spam Comments Instantly

Home > Blogging > WordPress

Have you tried the amazing GASP (GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin) to stop WordPress comments instantly from reaching your comment moderation queue. We have been using this WordPress plugin in combination with Akismet for the last few months, and it has dramatically reduced spam comments from overwhelming our comment moderation queue.

GASP (GrowMap Anti-Spambot WordPress Plugin)

QOT gets 1000+ spam comments everyday, and many of these include valid comments by our learned readers. Previously it was impossible to review the spam queue and weed out a few valid comments from thousands of spam comments. So we were lazy to never review our spam queue, and many of the valuable comments which Akismet blocked were lost forever. What GASP does is that it prevents automated spam comments from reaching Akismet, so now our spam queue gets just 5-10 spam comments! Now we actively review and moderate the spam queue and are able to save and retrieve valid comments.

How does GASP integrate in your website design?
It simply adds a checkbox alongside the Post comment button. When your commentator checks this box, then only the comment is allowed to pass through. Typically the alongside text asks users to check the box to confirm they are not a spammer (this text can be changed using the plugin settings).

check comment for spam

Is the commentator does not tick the box, he gets an alert confirm he is not a spammer. Note that the comment will not be submitted till the box is checked.

confirm not spammer

How does GASP stop spam?
GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin generates this check box using client side JavaScript. This basically means that automated comment spam bots cannot detect this check box, and therefore will not tick the checkbox, thereby preventing the comment from passing through to the WordPress comment moderation system.

How is this checkbox better than captcha?
Captcha’s are excellent ways to detect humans by displaying text and numbers which human users need to type. But sometimes difficult captchas have unreadable text and numbers which are difficult to type and confuse commentators (especially if they get it wrong more than once) – thereby demotivating them to comment. Is much easier for them to tick on the checkbox.

Should we use Akismet now?
GASP is not a substitute for the amazing Akismet Spam blocking plugin (which has blocked over 3 million spam comments till now on our site alone!). But it works wonderfully in combination with Akismet. We run both these WordPress plugins on our site, and comment spam is not a problem any more.

Try it for yourself and see the difference in your comment spam today.