adsense tracker
An overview of Adsense tracker software
Back in the old days of Google Adsense, publishers simply threw ad units on to their pages, and hoped and prayed they would earn money. These days, we are still in the dark when it comes to what percentage of revenue we get to keep and exactly who is clicking our ads, but there are now several excellent pieces of software that make tracking your Adsense clicks that much easier.
The three programs I will be talking about today are Adsense Gold, Adsense Detective and the free Adlogger. I strongly suggest trying at least one of these scripts - they are all very easy to set up and once you try it, you will wonder how you used Adsense without these Adsense trackers!
Adsense Gold
Adsense Gold costs $97 and provides real time Adsense stats, so there is no delay in tracking your Adsense performance. This is fantastic for those high traffic sites where the difference between mediocre and big time earnings can be implemented and tested within minutes.
Adsense Gold will obviously track which ad units are being clicked in a simple to understand format. The latest version of Adsense Gold also tracks YPN ads, making it that much more effective for US publishers who are using YPN.
Adlogger
Adlogger is a free script which is extremely easy to install and use. From the time I downloaded to completion of set up, it took me less than 10 minutes to get it all up and running and have Adlogger begin tracking my clicks.
Adlogger allows you to receive email notification when someone clicks on an ad (great for new sites, perhaps a bit much for traffic heavy sites!), but this is an optional feature.
What I like best about Adlogger is how you can limit the amount of times a certain IP address can click an ad in a certain timeframe. For example, you can set Adlogger to only allow 2 clicks per IP address per hour - this is an excellent way to combat click fraud.
The downside? Adlogger counts mouse hovers (when your mouse simply glides over a link rather than clicks it) as a click, so your stats can sometimes be a little off.
Overall though, Adlogger is an excellent Adsense tracker and for the price of $0, there is no reason why you should not be using it.
Adsense Detective
Adsense Detective is a program I am yet to have a crack at but have heard good things about. Adsense Detective is a little different from conventional Adsense tracker software in that it is based on a monthly fee structure rather than a one off purchase. The fee you pay per month depends on the site your traffic receives.
Currently, it costs $9.97 per month for up to 1000 page views per day and $49.97 per month for 10,001 to 100,000 page views per day.
Adsense Detective is legal as far as the Adsense TOS goes, and has received some rave reviews, so it is definitely worth a shot if you can afford it.
These are just three of the many available Adsense tracker programs that are now available. There is no doubt we will see a heavy increase in the number of new programs and scripts released in 2007, as people come to realise that tracking your Adsense performance is a critical factor in increasing your earnings.
