Adsense for Feeds has my head spinning!
Round and round and I'm lost
It is not all that long ago, perhaps less than a year ago, that I figured out what RSS feeds were, but perhaps I still don't fully know.
I have a few self-hosted WordPress blogs and I'm aware of the little RSS orange button on my pc toolbar.
Then I came across FeedBurner, and thought I had to have it, and learn how to burn a feed for my WordPress blogs, so that people could subscribe if they wanted to.
At this stage I had already started showing Google Adsense ads on my blogs, and was pretty pleased I'd managed to get that right, and had also managed to learn a lot about Google Adsense program policies and TOS to make sure I didn't do anything wrong, and get myself banned from Adsense. I'm still struggling to understand custom channels though, although it does not seem totally necessary that I do understand channels to be able to run Adsense on my blogs. I add URL channels to my Adsense account to monitor which pages or blogs with Adsense are getting impressions and clicks, and how many impressions and clicks.
FeedBurner had me confused at first, but eventually I got it right, and added a "subscribe to my blog in a reader" and a "subscribe via email" link. When I clicked the "subscribe in a reader" link I was happy to see all my latest posts displayed on a page (the feed page, I guess.) I'm still not sure where people who subscribe to my feed go and check the feed when they want to see my latest posts - I'm not sure if they "put" it somewhere, or what!
Then, to confuse matters more (for myself!), I see that Adsense has a Adsense for Feeds section. So, I think that because I now have a feed, I might as well display Google Adsense ads on it. To do this though, it seemed I had to at some stage of the set up add a custom channel. It appears I got it right, for some of the blogs anyway.
So why do I still feel so confused?
What bothers me now, is that I chose the ads to appear after every post in the feed - the option is there so I understand that to mean it's allowed, but when looking at my feed myself (by clicking the "subscribe in a reader" link on any of my own blogs) I have ten most recent posts, and, like I chose, ten Adsense block ads (some image blocks ads and some text block ads), one ad block after each post, and that's a lot of Adsense ads on only one page, when, usually, only 3 Adsense block ads and 3 Adsense text link ads are allowed. Choosing the ads to appear as they do now though was an available option, so I guess it's allowed. Perhaps people who subscribe to my WordPress blog in a reader don't see all ten at once? Of course I'm not exactly sure what a reader is, either.
If I just accept the way things are, and not worry about them, I think it would be safe to say my confusion is over, and I should just get on with life? Not yet!
My free WordPress theme (that I am thrilled with - I use the same free theme for all 7 of my self-hosted WordPress blogs) comes with two litte RSS buttons at the top of each page. One has the word "articles" next to it and the other has the word "comments" next to it. When hovering my mouse pointer over the articles one, an alt tag comes up: RSS feed; when hovering my mouse pointer over the comments one, an alt tag comes up: Comments Feed. Clicking the articles one takes me to a page identical to the one the FeedBurner "subscribe in a reader" link takes me to, but does not have the Adsense ads after each post.
On top of all this, I'm using a fixed social buttons widget at either the top or bottom of my WordPress blogs, and I have yet another orange RSS button there for viewers to click - this page does not have Adsense ads on either.
On either Feedburner or Adsense I've seen that one can transfer all one's feeds to one account, just not sure if from Adsense to FeedBurner, or from FeedBurner to Adsense - it takes loads of time reading through all the information and steps, then veering away from pages to help pages, and from those help pages to more help pages, and I get totally lost!
The whole thing bugged me a while ago already, and after struggling for a bit, I gave up, thinking a break from the frustrations of not being technologically inclined would do me good. I had another bash at trying to understand everything earlier today, but I think I may now just be more confused than ever! I think my next break (starting today) will be longer than the last.
It frustrates me though - when I face a challenge, I like to work through it and conquer it.
I don't think I should be too hard on myself, though, as just four years ago I couldn't even copy and paste!
