Google AdSense Video Unit Trials and Tribulations
Thanks for visiting the Affiliate Tip blog. Subscribe to my RSS feed or enter your e-mail on the top left to get updates by e-mail.
I was excited to get access to the new Video Units in Google AdSense today, and went about the setup process.
After going into the Video Unit area and agreeing to the terms, I had to link up my AdSense account to my Google account.
Then, I was able to create my New AdSense Player from within YouTube. There are a handful of options to configure the player. I had to name and describe the player, select a color theme, and then a layout size (400 x 415, 500 x 510, and 780 x 560).
Next up, there are two options to determine the content displayed in the videos on your site: Automatic Content or Choose by Category / Provider.
If you go with Automatic Content, “YouTube will automatically target the most relevant videos for your website.” They give an option to refine the targeting by entering some keywords.
The alternative is to Choose by Category / Provider, where you can pick from one of the twelve categories on YouTube or specify a particular YouTube partner like AskTheBuilder or LisaNova.
Then, you get to generate code for the Google AdSense Video Unit.
This is where I hit a pothole. When I pasted the code provided to this blog (WordPress 2.2.2, theme: K2 0.9.6), there was no player to be seen.
Just the phrase, “Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com,” which was linked to http://www.youtube.com/browse. OK, so that’s lame.
So I went and created a new, static page with an article I wrote years ago on the history of affiliate marketing, and placed the AdSense video code in there.
I chose to have a video from LockerGnome, since I think Chris Pirillo’s content is pretty relevant to my visitors.
See http://www.affiliatetip.com/history-of-affiliate-marketing.php for a live example of Google AdSense Video Units.
Now I’ve got to start tinkering around to see if the upgraded version of WordPress will enable the video player to work. Maybe it’s my theme?
I don’t know. It’s annoying, since I’m able to embed regular YouTube videos and Google AdSense code on my blog without a problem. Mix them together and something funny happens.
- Posted in Affiliate Opinions
12 Comments
-
On October 11 @ 6:24 pm posted[...] Collins has a blog post about it: Google AdSense Video Unit Trials and Tribulations __________________ Make money with Azoogle! Let’s Talk Music – Do you love music? Let’s Talk! [...]
Me neither! How could Google overlook this?
reply to this commentI didn’t have a problem getting the adsense video player working using wordpress 2.2.3, so it’s probably something theme related.
reply to this commentI upgraded to 2.3 last night and it still isn’t working for me.
Maybe it’s time to drop this stale theme anyway.
reply to this commentHi Shawn,
Change in subject, since you brought up your article about the history of affiliate marketing. There is no “written by” nor date when the article was written. When did you write it?
Plus…
“The consensus of marketing folks and adult industry insiders is that Cybererotica was either the first or among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost-per-click program.”
Do you have an online or offline source for this as reference?
Regarding affiliate directories “…but it all started with Refer-it.com.” Do you have a reference for this as well? At least something that shows when it was launched?
Thanks
reply to this commentCarsten
Hi Carsten -
The article was written and published on ClickZ.com in November 2000: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=832131
I don’t have my notes from the article, so I can’t do anything for you on the adult industry citation.
As far as Refer-it, it was launched in October 1997, as founder James Marciano states at http://www.up-set.com/index.htm
The next affiliate directory was AssociatePrograms.com from Allan Gardyne – I believe that was January 1998 or so.
reply to this commentThanks Shawn, I guess you know why I am asking for this
reply to this commentCheers! Carsten
Always feeding that Wikipedia monster.
reply to this commentYep, two articles actually
It makes sense, doesn’t it?
reply to this commentA fix/solution was posted at: http://internetstarter.com/how-to-make-google-video-adsense-work-with-wordpress/
reply to this commentIt seems like a great idea, but there have been many problems.
I had a player in place and it worked fine for about a week then would load any videos.
reply to this commentNow, my player has vanished. Every time I click the “AdSense Video Units Players” link in my account, it just refreshes the page.
It seems like a great idea, but there have been many problems.
I had a player in place and it worked fine for about a week then would load any videos.
reply to this commentNow, my player has vanished. Every time I click the “AdSense Video Units Players” link in my account, it just refreshes the page.