If you are seriously into content publishing and earning money from Google AdSense, you want your own domain.

Depends on the structure of your site, perhaps you can use subdomains for subtopics but generally you want at least one standalone domain.

The reason is simple: ownership.

You can host your pages on your friend’s domain, but once they take away access from you, nothing you can do about it.

There are horror stories I have heard again and again people have lost a part or all of their advertising revenue just because their access have been rescinded.

It happens. Don’t think it will never happen to you.

Domains are too cheap nowadays. With under $10 per year, you can’t do wrong.

There are even greater deals if you look hard enough.

This is not a promotion, because there are no links.

Just for your own good. Please take my advice.

Google has made another improvement to channels in its AdSense program. Starting today, it is now possible for publishers to assign multiple custom channels to a single ad unit. When generating ad code, now we can add up to 5 custom channels to a specific instance of ad code.

An example of the benefit of tracking more than one custom channels will illustrate the point, and why this excites me in the first place. Right now, perhaps publishers are tracking AdSense ad units based on the location, format, or sections in the site or blog.

For each component they want to track, they must create one custom channel and assign it appropriately when generating ad code.

With this new feature, publishers now choose to track different ad format, in this or that location, and among a group of topical pages in a site, for example, all at the same time.

Keep in mind that ad units tagged with multiple custom channels will log impressions or clicks in each channel. As a result, you’ll see a higher number of impressions and clicks when you view your channel reports than when you view your aggregate reports.

[Inside AdSense]

Google AdSense publishers will now have the capability to control account access for third party sites that require their AdSense ad code and reports in order to provide them with AdSense account management from the sites.

Currently the only host with access there is only one site: Blogger.com.

If you are using a site that takes advantage of Google AdSense API to manage your account information, the host will appear in the list.

Publishers who are inserting AdSense ad code manually into their Blogger template will still have their AdSense displayed on their blog.

Click This! features blackhat spammer

The Click This! show, a podcast hosted by Jenstar as part of the Webmaster Radio series, features DaveN, a blackhat spammer. They are going to talk about suspended AdSense accounts, including how he would go about getting someone suspended from AdSense for click fraud.

Lava Lamps: gifts for Adsense MTV ad testers

Publishers participating in the AdSense MTV premium video pilot should have a package delivered to their address, containing a Lava lamp.

Google detects hidden AdSense ads by div tags

Hari K Gottipati figured out a way to earn Google AdSense page impressions and money without displaying the ads. He thought his method was sophisticated enough that Google won’t be able to detect this.

It turned out to be wrong.

Morale: Never underestimate Google and avoid doing something cheesy. You might get caught in no time and get an account booted.

Google AdSense video ads trigger intrusion attempt alert

Norton Internet Security is triggering medium risk intrusion attempt alerts, even with ad blocking turned off. What caused the alert is a standard Google AdSense video ad.

Either Google has changed their code or it is purely the fault of Symantec, the company behind the Internet security software?

BusinessWeek runs a story about click fraud, highlighting different schemes and problems related to the pay-per-click advertising industry.

While certainly the issues around clickfraud are more complex than what could be written on a single article, nevertheless it still gives an interesting perspective on how easy it actually is to get fraud the system.

A 23-year-old son of computer technician owns about 20 paid-to-read sites, as well as 200 parked sites stuffed with Google and Yahoo advertisements. He claims to take in $70,000 in ad revenue a month, of which 10% of that comes from PTRs.

The problem with PTR groups is that they urge members to click agressively on ads. People don’t click because they are interested in the subject. They are clicking on ads to get paid.

A typical web user could just purchase a cheap domain, get a lousy web page with lots of ads and join the group to earn revenue. Too easy.

It is no longer about the validity of the click alone. Advertisers should now start to really control where their ads should appear. Not only for branding purpose but also quality of clicks.

The article says that an Atlanta company notice puzzling clicks coming from places such as Botswana, Mongolia and Syria. Claiming to spend a total of $2 million in advertising fees with Google and Yahoo, I am sure he knows about geographical targeting.

[BusinessWeek Online]