Dawn of the Geeks

In the middle of last month I made some very subtle and simple changes to the display of Google AdSense ads. What I did was to simply remove the background color so that the ads look more like regular links. The result? An immediate jump in revenue. The click thru rate has, on average, doubled. In certain sections it has tripled or even quadrupled. When I originally started using AdSense I thought that I might as well just accept the fact I have ads and not try to hide them. After all, if you hide them, people won’t see them. I’ve seen sites with the ads way at the bottom of a very long page. What’s the point? Nobody is going to click on that.

But, what I’ve found is that people have a certain aversion to ads. If they percieve something is an ad, the odds of them looking at it is immediately diminished. The first experient was of course the javascript check which also had an immediate impact on both the number of ads viewed and the number of clicks. What was proven then and has been proven again is that the old line “I’d never click on ads anyway because I wouldn’t be interested in them” is a complete and utter lie. The javascript check requires that the ads be present on the screen. When that happened, more people enabled javascript because I forced them to, more people saw ads and therefore more were clicked. Now, they don’t look so much like ads so people notice them and clicks went up.

It’s not like I’m tricking people into clicking the ads. I’m simply presenting them in a way that is acceptible to more people. The fact of the matter is, is that if people would notice the ads they would find that they actually ARE interested in them and will actually click on them. The proof is in my account stats.

Of course the best way to increase ad revenue is to present content that people actually want. If your site isn’t showing up in search engines for popular topics, you’re not going to get very many visitors. What I’m doing is trying to maximize the ad revenue from existing visitors. The next step is to try to maximize visitors. That’s done by site improvements which will be coming up more often when I’m done with this semester at the university.

Palmshock.com was mentioned in the State Press Article Groups stand up to Palm Walk site

In an e-mail interview, Thomas McCarthy, the creator of PalmWalk.com, said he would not comment on the Body Project group but was pleased the Duenings started their site.

“The group has every right to voice their opinion, and I compliment the Duening sisters for speaking out,” he said. “I’d also like to publicly thank them for driving more traffic to PalmWalk.com.”

McCarthy, who has left ASU to focus on his membership in the Future Billionaires Association, would not say whether he planned to add more pictures to the Web site.

A quick search on Google for “Future Billionaires Association” turned up nothing.

I was also thanked by McCarthy for driving hits to his web-site. That’s not really verifiable since there’s not a single link to his site from mine anywhere. Visitors from my site would have to type it in themselves. I don’t give them a clickable link. Intelligent business people focus on getting attention from postitive publicity. Business failures embrace negative publicity.

If I had made the mistake of doing what McCarthy did and wanted to run a business, I’d shut that site down. In fact, I did shut down a very large and very popular section of my web-site about two years ago. Why? Because it wasn’t appropriate for the kind of image I want to put out there. Apparently McCarthy wants this negative image. Maybe he thinks he can turn it into a positive image. Here’s a business tip for you: you can’t.

As far as being legal, your site is not. You’re violating copyright law by using full length clips of copyrighted music. Hopefully all this attention you’re getting will include the RIAA’s.

This comment was buried a bit in an old post so I’ll post it here.

I urge readers to check out our anti-palmwalk.com website, palmshock.com. We believe women should consent to having their pictures taken. This is a human decency issue. No one deserves to be subjected to this type of rating system, especially since the average score is around a 5.5 out of 10. Palmwalk.com does nothing but promote low self-esteem and eating disorders. If you decide to look at palmwalk.com, please rate every girl a 10! That’s what each of them deserve! If you want to check out women, please go to a valid site like hotornot.com where men and women submit their own pictures. Again please support our site www.palmshock.com!

The Ten Most Dangerous Mistakes YOU Probably Make With Women— And What To Do About It…”

Every once in awhile a spam will come along that’s actually interesting. The above has actually got some decent pointers on various dating issues. Check it out.

Chicken Little is currently number 1 at the box office. In one of the previews the Numa Numa song can be heard playing. However, you won’t find it in the film. The Numa Numa wiki entry has the original lyrics to the song as well as an English translation and instructions on how to get the Numa Numa song on your phone as a ringtone for FREE.

Disney’s Chicken Little turns the classic story from just being about a chicken that thinks the sky is falling to a story about the relationship between parents and their children. It’s a very consistently funny movie with some serious moments. Highly recommended.

From the Oct 30th edition of This Is True

SLIPPERY SLOPE: A new “teaching document” issued by the Roman Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland warns that Catholics should not take the Bible literally — that it’s not infallible. “We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in the booklet, “The Gift of Scripture”. So what sorts of things aren’t accurate? Creation, for one. Genesis, they note, has two different, and sometimes conflicting, creation stories and cannot be considered “historical.” Rather, the bishops say, it simply contains “historical traces.” (London Times)
…Don’t even get them started on Leviticus 11:6.

Two seconds on Google looking up “two creation accounts” turns up Are There Two Creation Accounts in Genesis? After a lengthy indepth look the answer is, not surprisingly, “no.” So why does the Catholic Church say there is? Because the Bible is a very pesky book. If the Bible were infallible, then the Pope would be required to adhere to it. But, because the Catholic Chuch wants to be mainstream and accept the fairy tale of Evolution, they have to discredit the Bible. So now, where evolution and the Bible disagree, the Pope can say “oh but the Bible can’t be trusted anyway, so let’s trust me instead.” In fact, he can then do this with every issue.

The Pope can bring back indulgences, start telling people they have to pay the church in order to get into heaven or whatever other rediculous anti-Christ doctrine they want and when someone says “but the Bible says this!” they Pope can say “oh, that’s corrupt, trust me instead.” Sure thing, Pope.

What of that Leviticus verse? Do rabbits chew their cud? In the modern definition, not exactly. In the historical definition, yes.

I don’t know if the author of This is True, who IIRC is Catholic, is intending to show the rediculousness of “The Gift of Scripture” or if he is showing how “obvious” the church’s stance is. Considering later in the newsletter he points out that rabbits don’t chew their cud, I’m going to have to assume the latter. The slippery slope then perhaps is that eventually the church will throw out the Bible all together.

The only reason they wouldn’t do that is because it would make them far from mainstream. Sadly, the current mainstream view is that the Bible is corrupt and that people should trust self appointed (or alledgedly appointed by God himself) leaders instead. And why? Because people in the upper levels of the Catholic church can’t read (or think their followers won’t bother to read for themselves) and therefore see contradictions where their own inability to understand is the real problem.

Just because you can’t understand that 2+2=4 doesn’t make it a contradiction.

These “contradictions” have been regurgitated for decades if not centuries. It’s sad to see a large Christian organization being fooled (or allowing themselves to be fooled) by them simply because it doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to evolutionist fairy tales.

When a Jew from Israel blew himself up on a bus the immediate reaction from Israel was to condemn his actions. They didn’t seek “understanding.” Israel understood it was wrong and said so with no excuses for the murderer. There hasn’t been a Jewish suicide bomber since. Two muslim kids running from the cops hop on an electric fence resulting in their death. Now Muslim youths are rioting in France burning down a couple schools and torching nearly a thousand cars. What’s the reaction from Muslim leaders? “Please show tolerance and respect.”

There’s a word to summarize the actions of Muslim leaders: cowardice.

I think people would be more quick to side with Muslims if Muslim leaders weren’t so quick to excuse or so long to condemn the absolutely rediculous actions of members of the faith.

Muslims need to start being openenly and genuinely appalled at those who murder and destroy in the name of Islam. Stop asking for tolerance and understanding. Murder and carnage are not acceptible means to get attention in a civilized society. And they are certainly not things to tolerate or understand. These actions must stop and Muslim leaders need to stop being cowards and take the first step to tell these kids, and all others who shame their religion, to stop.

Whatever message these kids think they have, it’s getting lost in the fire.

October was the first month I broke $100 in ad revenue in a single month. I’ve been using AdSense since March of 2004. A big part of that was the result of using the DigitalPoint ad network. I’m constantly trying to come up with ways to improve this site to increase visitors and therefore increase revenue. My goal for November is to break $150. If there’s anything you’d like to see changed or improved, contact us and let us know.