 So you've decided to visit Chitika and take their unique, eye-catching, high earnin' ads for a trial run? How do you do that without violating the Adsense TOS. If you've already got Adsense on your site you must be aware of how they deal with those who break their law: they guillioutine them. Well, not quite ... but that's a recurring fear for most Adsense publishers. This page addresses how you can stay within the TOS for both the Adsense and Chitika programs while maximising your income with both.
First, the contextual issue
Google forbids any other contextual ad on a page where you are serving Adsense ads. Note, it's not Search but Adsense ads. On pages where you have only Google search but no Adsense ads you can have Chitika eMiniMalls with no problem. But you can also have Chitika on the same page as Adsense ads provided you turn off Chitika's contextual feature (see Chitika's FAQ page). It's simply done by adding this line to your code: ch_non_contextual = 1;
Depending on when you got your code from Chitika it may already have this line. If it does then your ads are all non-contextual by default and Chitika won't serve contextual ads on your site (even if you remove that line of code). You have to actually request them to activate contextual ads for you.
Yahoo: The same applies to the Yahoo Publisher Network. Initially they were reluctant to allow Chitika ads on the same pages as YPN ones, but now there are several publishers reporting that they've had the OK from Yahoo provided Chitika is running in non-contextual mode.
Chitika Search: Is it search the way Google sees search?
No, it isn't. There was some initial confusion about this and several publishers wrote to Google for clarification. The essence of Google's reply is that the Chitika search box with the eMiniMalls ads is not a standard search across all pages on the net; it's a search within a specific product category of Chitika's database. It is hence not seen as competing with the Google search box and it is allowed on the same page as Adsense and Google Search. And your visitors can happily hover over the search box, type in a search term, and click the result confident in the knowledge that they're not causing you to violate your Adsense TOS.
However, if you do want to turn off Chitika search you can add this line of code to your ad: ch_nosearch = 1;
Using Chitika as your Adsense Alternate ad
As you know Google serves what are called Public Service Ad - or charity ads - when they don't have an ad that matches your content. But they do have a facility called Alternate Ads that lets you specific something else. For a particular ad size, say 120x600, you could make a 120x600 banner, post it somewhere on your site and give Google that URL to serve instead of PSAs. (You do it on the page where you create your Google Adsense code.) But, you aren't restricted to just an image - you can have pretty much what you want on that alternate ad page you've created.
The terms and conditions are not as strict
We wouldn't advocate violating anybody's TOS but Chitika allows you to, for example, open more than one account. That alone can make for substantially more earnings than programs which restrict you to a single account.
Comparing the two contextual advertising programs
CHITIKA |
ADSENSE |
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Size: Small but growing fast
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Size: Market leader though there are some rumours that it has been losing publishers to YPN and Chitika.
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In beta and still improving
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Out of beta a long time ago but still improving
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Restrictions on entry: Low
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Restrictions on entry: Low
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Appearance: All ads have graphics, text, mouseover interactivity. Visitors can search from within the ad, see price comparisons and reviews without leaving the site
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Mostly text ads. Some graphics ads available but they are static ads and only appear rarely
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CTR: CTR is believed to be slightly lower than the CTR Adsense achieves in similar spots
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CTR is marginally higher than Chitika
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EPC: EPC is generally much higher than Adsense
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Lower EPCs and SmartPricing trimming EPCs is quite common
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eCPM: Effective earnings per thousand page views is higher (based on reports elsewhere and our own experiences)
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Lower eCPM and lower total earnings despite the higher CTR.
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Disclosure: Does not allow you to disclose very much about stats/earnings
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Does not allow you to disclose very much about stats/earnings
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TOS: Terms and Conditions: Medium/strict
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Terms and Conditions: Strict
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Contextual ads but ability to turn off context and specific a product, keyword, keywords, or a rotation of keywords/products
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Contextual only. Does not allow you to specify keyword but you can mark a portion of text on the page that you want Google to base the ad-targeting on.
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Search: A search facility built into the ad block
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No search facility with the ad unit but you can use a Google search box elsewhere on the page.
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Quantity of ads: There is no limit to the number of ads you can have on the page but they recommend no more than three
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There is a maximum of three ads, one search box and one "Ad Links" per page
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Code Modification: Several code modifications are allowed: to enable/disable search functions, to specify keywords, and various others
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No code modification is allowed under any conditions.
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Ad sizes: 10 of the most popular ad sizes are offered ranging from 728x90 to 180x150.
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11 sizes offered in all, six of which take only text ads and not image ads
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Colours: a 256 colour palette is offered for Border, Background, Title, and Text
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a 256 colour palette is offered for Border, Background, Title, and Text and Background
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Font control: Allows you to specify font, font options etc within the code.
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You cannot change the font
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Stats: Limited stats - shows you Date | Impressions | Clicks | Revenue. They have promised to add to this and offer more stats information in due course
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Have refined their stats to provide a range of breakdowns - by channel, by date etc. Much better than Chitika stats for the moment
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Referral program: Pays 10% of what your referred webmasters makes
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Payment terms: 30 days net
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Payment: Paypal. Cheque/Check offered if amount is more than $50. Minimum payout $10
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Options of cheque by post, check by FedEx but, crucially, can also pay by electronic funds transfer to most countries but not Paypal. Minimum payout $100 but will clear sub-$100 accounts at end of each year.
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Chitika pays a fixed 60% of earnings to the publisher
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Has a complex system called SmartPricing which discounts publisher income depending on what conversion rates their clicks generate. Google does not disclose the SmartPricing formula or how much is discounted from publishers' income. It's very much a matter of trusting them.
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My Two Months Income Graph
I personally prefer Adsense than any other Pay Per Click Program, have a look of my earning chart given below. Adsense dominates !!!!
My Final Thought
According to AdBrite's CEO, Philip "Pud" Kaplan, AdBrite wants to be the Internets marketplace for ads, the first and last place you go to promote you business online. But when you cut through the hype you find that AdBrite is remarkably similar to Google's AdSense. Both display text adverts on your page (AdBrite also displays banners), but there is a large difference in the openess between the two.
To begin with AdBrites allows you to sell your own adds, so a user can buy an ad you on your site with AdBrite taking 25% commission. Google on the other hand doesnt, it sells its own inventory. More to the point Google doesnt ever reveal its commission, since both buyers and sellers are forbidden from revealing the true cost.
If you have a well established site with a loyal advertising population, then AdBrite is probably best for you. However, if you're just starting out then Google AdSense is the easiest to make work and start the pennys flowing in.
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