- The Problem: Aggregators
- The Solution: AdSense for Feeds
- The Controversy
The Solution: AdSense for Feeds
AdSense for feeds is the third AdSense program introduced by Google, but it's much closer to AdSense for content than AdSense for search. Like AdSense for content, AdSense for feeds inserts contextually targeted advertisements directly into a feed. The program is still in beta, but it's open to any AdSense publisher with an appropriate feed. (Currently, Google is only interested in feeds with 100 or more active subscribers. This is actually the cause of some controversy among AdSense publishers because there is no real way to know the actual number of subscribers to any given feed.)
Because JavaScript is unavailable, the program works by embedding clickable images in the feed content. The ads are dynamically "drawn" into the images when the images are fetched for display, not when the feed itself is created. Meanwhile, Google's crawlers will have fetched the feed and analyzed its content, thus ensuring that relevant ads are chosen from the AdWords ad pool for display in the feed. It's a simple, but effective, way to insert advertisements into a feed.