Shopzilla is an ad network (currently in beta) that pays per click (CPC). I have been using it since last month and it has done really well on my product related site – DigitGeek.

I have tried many ad networks on DigitGeek like AdSense, Kontera, , TTZ Media, Chitika and WidgetBucks and none have done as good as Shopzilla. It has to be because Shopzilla has clickable images on their ads which gets it more clicks.

Both Chitika eMinimalls and TTZ Media used to have clickable images, but stopped it later. They even made their ads display only for some countries. I hope Shopzilla wont do this in the future as it can reduce the Click Thru Rate a lot.

As long as they don’t do it, Shopzilla will be a good alternative to programs like Chitika’s eMiniMalls, TTZ Media and WidgetBucks.

Continue reading ‘Shopzilla Publisher Program’

I noticed some days back that JohnTP.com was banned on Digg, but first thought that it was a temporary thing. But it seems that this blog is really banned on Digg.

But for what? I have not submitted any post from this blog for maybe more than a year.

Continue reading ‘Banned on Digg’

A few readers in the past have emailed me to ask on how I made the Archive page on this blog. I thought of writing a post on it after reading this email from a reader

Hi John,

I have one doubt. What plugin do you use to create the Archives page https://johntp.com/archives/

I have searched many places but didn’t find an answer.

I don’t use any plugin to create the Archive page, I just use this code:

Browse by Month

You may also use a WordPress plugin called Clean Archives. I have not tried this plugin but have seen some bloggers using it to display all the posts of their blog on the archive page.

If you sell ads directly on your blog using block advertising (125×125 ads),  then you will be knowing on how time consuming it can be to add ads from advertisers on your blog and then remove them when they expire. You may have also wanted to rotate your ads to give your advertisers equal exposure.

Here are two easy to use WordPress plugins that should make managing your 125×125 ads a lot easier: UBD Block Ad and WP125.

Continue reading ‘125×125 Ad Management Plugins for WordPress’

During the early days of your website, you will find that most of the traffic you see on for your site is from your own visits. To prevent this, you can try excluding your own visits in Analytics.

You could do this  by IP or maybe even cookies.  The best method I find for WordPress blogs is to use this code :

your Google Analytics code here

This code will prevent adding analytics code to a page when it’s requested by a logged on user. I am currently using this code on my blogs and it’s working well.

Continue reading ‘Exclude your own visits in Google Analytics for WordPress blogs’

Here’s my first video post. Its on how you can replace your WordPress blogs search with the better AdSense for Search. Why is it better? Read my ‘7 reasons to use AdSense for Search‘ post.

Since this is my first screencast, do not expect the video to be perfect

Note: You can watch the above video in higher quality .

This video was created using Camtasia, which I took some time to learn but it was fun and worth it. I will try to put up more video posts again.

I hope you like the video and if there’s something you don’t understood, leave a comment.

If you still use WordPress search on your blog and have not tried out the improved AdSense for search, here are seven reasons why you should:

1. send traffic to lower traffic sites: AdSense for Search lets you specify a list of sites to search across.  Using this option you can send some traffic to your lower traffic sites by placing AdSense for search on a site with more traffic. When a user makes a search, they will get results from all the sites you specified. I have added the DigitGeek URL for the search on this blog, so if you do a search for a keyword like ‘nokia’ you will find results for both this blog and DigitGeek.

2. search results: If you are using WordPress search, you will find that the search results are displayed according to post date – the newer posts show first. One the other hand, AdSense for Search displays results that best matches a users search query.

Continue reading ‘7 reasons to use AdSense for Search’

We all know about the FeedBurner FeedCount that we use to display the number of readers our blog has. Here’s a similar counter for called which can be used to display the number of followers you have on Twitter on your site or blog.

Continue reading ‘Increase your Twitter Followers with Twitter Counter’

Today while checking my AdSense earnings, I noticed a new option in the AdSense Setup page -’Video units‘. I think these were already introduced by YouTube earlier, but it was never shown on the AdSense Setup page until today.

I currently have the Video units at DigitGeek below posts on single pages and find both the YouTube videos and the AdSense ads are related to the content. I am not sure how well they perform though.

Continue reading ‘Have you tried the AdSense Video units?’

We have seen some ‘pay to Digg‘ sites in the past which promised to get our stories on the frontpage for some fee. Here’s a similar but better service called Social Elves. They say they are the first organic manual Digg service.

I found the site when one of their team members contacted me to advertise on this site.

Continue reading ‘Hit the Digg Frontpage with SocialElves’