Why sometimes AdSense unit missing and how to fix them
Bloggers who have Google AdSense units set to display in their blogs often complained about missing AdSense units. I will use this blog to explain.
I have set the following AdSense units to display in this blog with the number of AdSense units in bracket):
- wide skyscraper unit in the left column (1 unit)
- leaderboard unit in the footer (1 unit)
- large rectangle in between posts (6 in the main page but only 1 in the individual post page)
Now in you count the total number of ad units, you will get a total of 8 ad units (1+1+6) in the main page but only 3 in the individual post page (permalink).
Why sometimes AdSense unit missing and how to fix them
Google AdSense only allows a total of 3 AdSense ad units in any page and so in the main page, the extra 5 ad units get suppressed and you only see 1 wide skyscraper unit in the left column, 1 between the first and second post and 1 between the second and third post giving a total of three.
However, in the individual post page (permalink), there is only 1 ad unit immediately after the only post, 1 in the left sidebar and 1 in the footer giving a total of 3 (allowed) units with none suppressed.
Now if you have set AdSense units to display between posts and you don't want any ad units to be suppressed and you have similar settings for the AdSense units, all you need to do is to set the number of posts to display in the main page to 1 and only 1.
New Blogger Custom Domain
The New Blogger has recently rolled out its latest feature - custom domain. With custom domain, you can have your own domain name like myblog.com and have your blog hosted with Blogger for free. You may also choose to host your blog with a third party web host or even on your own, but you will have to grapple with various issues like the hassle of publishing your posts via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). A big disadvantage of hosting on your own is that many of the new features of the New Blogger like drag-and-drop Layout, Label List, etc., will not be available to you as you will have to use the old classic Blogger template.
Others who don't use custom domain will have to live with sub-domain like myblog.blogspot.com. Some don't like it because they say the sub-domain does not belong to them, but to Blogger. In addition, some are of the opinion that sub-domain are command less respect from surfers, rather like using a home as an office.
If you want to use custom domain, the first thing you need is to register a suitable domain name. The problem is, the Internet has been with us for quite some time already, and many of the more desirable domain names have probably been already taken. This is where services like www.buydomains.com can come in handy. www.buydomains.com have many domain desirable domain names that you may want to use for your blog. There is a search box into which you can type in keyword/s and search for your desired domain name. They also have Advanced Search to help you narrow down the search.
If you have a domain name which you think may be saleable, you can also put up the domain for sale through www.buydomains.com. You may also start a blog with custom domain (which means that the domain belongs to you, and not to blogger, and you may do whatever you want with it). You take care to choose a desirable domain name with good keywords in the URL, publish posts regularly, get the blog indexed by search engine, and get a high PageRank which will make your domain name more valuable.
You may even join the Google AdSense Program and put contextual ads, search boxes and referral links on your blog and work on it to produce revenue. There may be people who are looking for AdSense ready blogs to buy as then they can start earning straight away rather than starting from scratch.
Adding AdSense Ad units, link units or searchbar to the blog Header
First generate the script for your Ad unit, link unit or searchbar in your AdSense Account. Then sign into Blogger Dashboard, select the blog and click LAYOUT. See screenshot below. Click to enlarge:
In the pop-up, select HTML/Javascript, and paste your script there. Then click "Add to blog". If the Page Element is not in the place you want, hover your mouse over the Page Element, drag and drop to whereever you want it.
If you want another page element to contain, for example the link unit, just repeat the process.
BTW, you can actually incorporate both scripts into the same HTML/Javasscript Page Element if you wish.
Advantages of Google AdSense URL and custom channels
One disadvantage of adding Google AdSense directly from Blogger LAYOUT is that you cannot use custom channel to track the performance of your ad units. Fortunately, there is also URL channels which tracks the total earnings from a particular blog (URL). Now if you track the custom channels for AdSense units generated directly from Google AdSense, then by simple subtraction of the total earnings from custom channels from the total earnings for the blog (URL) you can get what is left, that is earnings from the AdSense units inserted directly from the Blogger LAYOUT placed after each each post. This was how I was able to get a Google AdSense channels report for this blog which is my main blog for bloggers.
