Google AdSense for Feeds Will Be Shut Down. Feedburner Next?

Last week Google announced a new spring cleaning round, which is basically when they decide to shut down services that they don’t consider important or relevant anymore. Normally those are services that very few people are still using, indeed, but on the latest round that was one curious item: Google AdSense for Feeds.

I use that product, and make a decent amount of money with it (combining all my sites close to $1000 per month). So yeah after December 3rd that will be gone.

I suspect that there are still a lot of people using it as well, as AdSense for Feeds was the main/best method to monetize an RSS feed. Even if you only made $100 per month it was still good money, as it could pay for your hosting fees, for instance.

In other words, I don’t agree with Google’s decision. I would rather have them announce they won’t be updating the service anymore or providing support for it, instead of completely shutting it down.

But hey that’s life. They probably had their reasons, so let’s accept that.

If you made decent money with AdSense for Feeds there’s one immediate alternative: substitute those units with private banner ads or affiliate offers.

The shut down of AdSense for Feeds raises another important question, though: is that a signal that Google’s overall plan is to shut down Feedburner? There are many people around the web speculating so.

If this is the case such a measure will affect A LOT more people. I am sure there will be alternatives around to deliver your RSS feed, but changing that will be a bit of a pain if you have a large subscriber base.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of the RSS saga.

Sign-up to the Daily Blog Tips newsletter and you will be able to download the "Make Money Blogging" eBook for free (worth $47).You will also receive tips to improve your blog, strategies to make money and useful resources from around the web.

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Anyone Still Tracking Google PageRank?

Until a couple of years ago most bloggers and webmasters would track the PageRank of their sites almost religiously, and use it as street cred on most situations. A PR2 or PR3 was average. PR4 or PR5 was pretty good. PR6 was pro level, and anything above that was reserved for the Internet moguls.

Every three months or so Google would also update the nominal PageRank (the one you could see using a toolbar or an online service), and people would go crazy about it. The folks who saw their PR increase would celebrate and brag. The ones who got downgraded would complain bitterly.

Myself included.

I remember one update when this blog got a PR7. As you can imagine I was pretty happy. Too bad it didn’t last long. On the next update it went down to PR6, which I believe is the current PR.

Anyway over the years people started talking less and less about the PageRank of websites, probably because we started to understand that it was just one out of hundreds of factors that affected your search rankings.

In many situations it would be hard to see a correlation at all between PR and search traffic, as we had cases where a site lost most of its PR while its search traffic surged.

The last time I checked the PageRank of any of my sites was probably two years ago, and I don’t see many people talking about it or about PageRank updates either.

So my question: are we finally over the PageRank hysteria? Are you still tracking it? Have you heard about any updates lately? Let me know what you think with a comment below.

Sign-up to the Daily Blog Tips newsletter and you will be able to download the "Make Money Blogging" eBook for free (worth $47).You will also receive tips to improve your blog, strategies to make money and useful resources from around the web.

View the original article here

Google AdSense for Feeds Will Be Shut Down. Feedburner Next?

Last week Google announced a new spring cleaning round, which is basically when they decide to shut down services that they don’t consider important or relevant anymore. Normally those are services that very few people are still using, indeed, but on the latest round that was one curious item: Google AdSense for Feeds.

I use that product, and make a decent amount of money with it (combining all my sites close to $1000 per month). So yeah after December 3rd that will be gone.

I suspect that there are still a lot of people using it as well, as AdSense for Feeds was the main/best method to monetize an RSS feed. Even if you only made $100 per month it was still good money, as it could pay for your hosting fees, for instance.

In other words, I don’t agree with Google’s decision. I would rather have them announce they won’t be updating the service anymore or providing support for it, instead of completely shutting it down.

But hey that’s life. They probably had their reasons, so let’s accept that.

If you made decent money with AdSense for Feeds there’s one immediate alternative: substitute those units with private banner ads or affiliate offers.

The shut down of AdSense for Feeds raises another important question, though: is that a signal that Google’s overall plan is to shut down Feedburner? There are many people around the web speculating so.

If this is the case such a measure will affect A LOT more people. I am sure there will be alternatives around to deliver your RSS feed, but changing that will be a bit of a pain if you have a large subscriber base.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of the RSS saga.

Sign-up to the Daily Blog Tips newsletter and you will be able to download the "Make Money Blogging" eBook for free (worth $47).You will also receive tips to improve your blog, strategies to make money and useful resources from around the web.

View the original article here

Anyone still tracking Google PageRank?

Until a couple of years ago, most of the bloggers and webmasters to keep track of their websites page rank almost religiously, and use it for street cred for most situations. PR2 or PR3 was average. PR4 or PR5 was pretty good. PR6 was a pro level, and all of the above, that was reserved for the Internet moguls.

Every three months or so Google should update the nominal page rank, (the one you see in the toolbar or by using the online service), and people go crazy about. People who saw the PR upgrade would celebrate and brag about. Those who got lowered complain bitterly.

Including myself.

I remember one of the update when this blog got a PR7. As you can imagine, I was pretty happy with it. Too bad it didn't last long. The next update, it went to PR6, which I think is the current PR.

In any case, during the course of the year, people began to talk about less PageRank sites, probably because we are beginning to realize that it was just one of hundreds of factors that contributed to the search rankings.

In many situations, it would be difficult to see correlated with at all between the PR and search traffic, we had cases where the site lost most of its PR, even if its search traffic grew.

Last time I checked, the page rank of any of my sites was probably two years ago and I do not understand a lot of people talk about the increase or PageRank updates either.

So my question: we are finally over the PageRank hysteria? Are you still follow it? Have you heard of any updates recently? I would like to know what you think with a comment below.

Sign up for our newsletter and Daily Blog Tips can be downloaded from the "Make Money Blogging" eBook for free (a $ 47 value).You'll also get tips to improve your blog strategies to make money and useful resources from around the web.

View the original article here