Well, it is time!

Google adsense has been installed on my site and using the feature from the forum software I can show it to guests differently then to members and to paid members there aren't even any banners.

So far, I really like Google Adsense and they have done a great job. Unfortn. their member area is a bit limited and hopefully that will change. What would be great is paypal payouts to verified premium/business accounts.

Anyway,

How do you use google and have any tips on improving its use?

Let's see ... what I do here is set it up to show ValueClick ads instead of the freebie ones when it hasn't yet spidered the page. This way I make money either way. Also, due to Google's lack of stats reporting, you have to improvise. Try using leaderboards for a week or two. Then switch to skyscrapers, etc. It really takes that long to notice a trend because it fluctuates day by day.

Also, do some google searches for high-paying keywords. Integrate those keywords into the keywords and description meta tags of your site. Google's search engine doesn't use meta tags but AdSense absolutely does!

Disable AdSense from showing up in any forums that guests don't have access to. Google will spider the forum login page and think it's what your members actually see.

More when I think of it

How do you make a difference between valueclick and freebies?

And you use a conditional to not show google on these none public 4 guests forums?

Log into your AdSense control panel and go to selecting Ad layout code. Fill in a URL where it says:

Alternate Ads (Learn more)
To replace public service ads, enter a URL for alternate ads here:

What you do is enter the URL of an .htm/.html page. For example, I created a valueclick.html page where the only thing on it is my ValueClick banner ads. When Google can't find any relevant ads for your site, instead of displaying the free public service ads, it displays this page almost like an IFRAME

I think a large problem with your AdSense code is its size. For starters, your site focuses on web developers. Most web developers who do a lot of surfing have learned to tune out this banner size. Use another more creative size instead.

Another thing is the placement. The top right placement of the ad is great if you wish to sell banner ad space on your site. For example, you can sell 10,000 impressions / month for a banner ad up there. It's a nice out-of-the-way spot that doesn't interfere with your site layout very much.

However, that's not going to entice clicks! You want it to get in people's way. When it gets in their way - they see it - and they click on it. For example, when I browse your forum index, my eye starts at the first forum and scrolls down the list. I tune out the header completely.

For example, just think about how YOU read forums. Lets say you are reading a forum thread. You start at the top and you scroll down as you read. You finally arrive at the QuickReply box. Other times, you read the first post in the thread and then ignore some replies and then arrive at the QuickReply box. A good place to put the AdSense banner would be directly above the QuickReply in that case.

In addition, here's a mistake that I made. I put the AdSense code on all the forum pages as a sidebar. I was generating a good number of clicks. However, I recently redid my strategy. Right now, the AdSense code is a sidebar on the homepage and forum pages. The individual threads have a leaderboard. This does multiple things. First of all, it doesn't overwhelm the visitor with AdSense all over the place. With the advertisements in fewer places, people are more likely to click. In addition, now that the ads aren't on member profile pages, etc. they're not showing as many irrelevant ads and the click-thru rate has gone up. A second thing is that the leaderboard on the top of the thread works better than a sidebar. When you load the page, there it is, in big letters, you can't miss it. In addition, users appreciate that their reading isn't hindered by a sidebar wasting precious space. Believe it or not, changing those two things DOUBLED the number of clicks generated each day!

When I used to have the sidebar on all the pages, I used a conditional to not show on the register, login, and search pages (as that violates the Google TOS.) I no longer do that. Now, I just have it in the 3 templates for the board index.php, forumdisplay.php, and showthread.php - however, I do have a conditional to not show if $forumid=='X'

Thank you for the indepth explanation

Don't forget that Google now allows use of "channels".

Yup, definitely a cool thing. Unfortunately, channel data is only updated every 48 hours. Definitely a minus considering AdSense boasts almost real-time stats