How To Show Ads To Search Traffic Only
May 2nd, 2008 by CourtLately as we have talked about the Colorado Lasik case study (if you haven’t read about that case study go here: keyword sniper case study #1), many of you have asked what I’m going to do to monetize that site.
Adsense is one of the best ways to monetize a site like that, except my situation hasn’t allowed me to use it. Every time I post about the case study, I get at least a few hundred of you looking at the site, which would be terrible for Adsense. My CTR would be horrible, and some people would probably click an ad just to help me out, and that would be even more terrible because the click wouldn’t convert well for the advertisers. Please don’t do that if you end up on the site because of a search.
I’ve been looking at ways to go about setting up ads that show to search traffic only. The first method I found was using OpenX, but I REALLY didn’t want to take the time to learn it. Anyway guys as it turns out, there is a very easy WordPress plugin that allows us to show ads to search traffic only. This is huge for those of you that have social blogs. Your social traffic will ruin your Adsense. Search traffic is amazing for Adsense.
The plugin I’m using to make this happen is called Who Sees Ads. It’s a very easy install and config.
Installing the Plugin
2. Extract the folder that you downloaded using your mouse. Right click your mouse on the folder and select ‘Extract All’. You will then probably have to click ‘Next’ a few times to get it extracted.
3. The extracted folder will be called ’ozh-who-sees-ads’ or something similar. Upload the folder to the wp-content/plugins folder of your website. Here’s a lesson on how to upload using FTP if you need it.
4. Login to your WordPress admin and go to ‘Plugins’.
5. Find the plugin called ‘Who Sees Ads?’ and click the ‘activate’ link that appears next to it.
Configuring the Plugin
1. Go to the configuration page, which will be in your WordPress admin in the ’settings’ tab in WordPress 2.5+, or the ‘options’ tab in older versions. The page will be called ‘Who Sees Ads’.
2. In the box labeled ‘Name’, type a name - something like ‘Search Only’.
3. Locate the ‘Possible Rules’ section on the page.
4. Within that section, locate the rule that states ‘if visitor comes from a search engine, then display’.
5. Drag that rule into the section below that’s called ‘Active Rules’.
6. Get your Adsense code from your Adsense account
7. Paste Adsense code into box labeled ‘Ad Code’.
8. Click ‘Save Context’ button.
After that you will see a button in the code view of your ‘Write Post’ box:
9. Put your cursor where you want the ad to appear and click the button, the ad will be inserted.
Note: You can also use this plugin to insert Adsense directly into your theme files. The download page for the plugin explains this process very nicely.
Let me know if you have any questions guys!! Hopefully this answers some of your questions about monetizing a site like my lasik one. 
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May 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
That plugin sounds VERY helpful for a site like that. I bet your CTR on that site would be under 1% because of all the visitors you would get from this site. Great find Court!
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Thanks for posting about my plugin
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
YOU are the one that deserves thanks.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
WSA is great! Adsense only for search visitors I think is a must if you want to use social sites to help get traffic for other purposes to you site.
It can be a little confusing to set up the contexts though.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Wow… this is fantastic! By the way, my first niche site I created with your advice was just now a PR 4 in this most recent update… I actually havent touched it for a little bit so it’s dipped in the rankings, but I need to get back to working on it for sure…
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Perfect i’ve been looking for something like this!
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for! Slick find Court!
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Thank-you Court. I will install this plug-in right away. I looked into open ads but it seemed kind of complicated. This is just what I need. Thanks again.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I might be taking Google’s guidelines a bit too literally, but couldn’t there be an issue of this being considered cloaking? (showing different content to different visitors)
As a side note, Court I’ve been meaning to thank you for some time for the brilliant articles on your site. It’s completely changed the way I try to make money online in the last few months and my earnings have gone up about 5-fold already. So thank you!
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
We’re not showing different content to visitors. The content that Google is ranking is the exact content that visitors are seeing.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I was thinking more that you’re showing the Googlebot different content than a visitor from a search engine, but I guess it’s only an iframe loaded through javascript so not really an issue.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
The instructions on the download site don’t make any sense to me. They’re obviously written for people that already know what they are doing, which is basically pointless.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Flar the instructions are the way you install any plugin in WP with minor specific variations for this plugin - which looks incredibly cool and I off to install it right now
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 am
WOW mate thanks a lot…this is going to be a great asset for people like me!!
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Morning,
Why not use lasik and eye-care related resources from eBay? That would provide extremely niche, targeted advertising for your blog.
An idea,
Barbara
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 am
That’s not a bad idea Barbara. Usually when I create a site I either do Adsense or eBay, not both. It’s hard to design a page to convert well on both types of advertising. However, I could see adding a separate section to the site to do what you have suggested, and that’s a possibility for the future.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:33 am
I’ve got Openx but haven’t been able to get it to work yet. I’ve got Adsense Manager and I’ve got it to only show Adsense on individual pages which helps, but this is great. Simpler than OpenX and able to show people that arrive from search engines ads on the front page as well.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
If you get your openx up and running - put a channel to your zone where you filter on source. Then script your source parameter for referer traffic.
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Court — You are now one of the top 3 sites (IMHO) for great internet marketing information and site construction. I have been “rolling my own” code for sites. Now going to dip my toes into the WordPress waters with your water wings.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
This is great info, I did not know there were tools that could do this!!
Thanks Court!
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Thanks, court. Just installed it on one of my adsense sites, its a really nice plugin. Will help my CTR a lot.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:05 am
what spma plugin are you using?
May 4th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Thanks Court! I know Vic likes OpenX but it is so complicated. This plug-in is way simpler to install and use. Not to get organic traffic versus traffic from my link clusters.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Hey court,
About ctr, what figure counts? the sum of all channels? or can you have a poor performing channel and not affect the others?
May 4th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Why this blog always give me inspiration to the best SEO?. You are the Man Court. Thanks For This Plugins
May 5th, 2008 at 12:10 am
great info - I’ll have to check it out.
Have you seen a boost in earnings after installing it?
May 5th, 2008 at 2:46 am
[…] it looks like I found that answer when opening up my inbox this morning and found a post by Court, How to Show Ads to Search Engine Traffic. (BTW… congrats on breaking the 3000 RSS […]
May 5th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Thanks for the tip on this plug-in, very informative and helpful!
May 5th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Court, I’ve been using WSA for some time on my sites, and love it. But could you elaborate on this one point you made: “Your social traffic will ruin your Adsense.” Does this mean that Google uses your CTR to determine, at least in part, what ads appear on a site? Will a site with higher CTR get higher paying clicks? I use WSAs to display different ad units depending on whether the visitor is from search or a regular visitor. Maybe I should just limit it to SE visitors.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hey Smarter -
Go read this. It’s the best answer to your question I’ve ever seen.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Mark, thanks. Maybe I should take “smarter” out of my name and replace it with “Still Learning”!
May 5th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Thanks court!
I’ll add this plugin to my zip file of free plugins on my blog.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
This is really great Court. I started my first Sniper site over the weekend, and I was ready to monetize it with AdSense, but didn’t know which plugin I could use. So then I come to your site, and here it is! I can’t wait till this site starts making me money.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:56 am
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May 6th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I think this plug in rocks and will have to get it installed. I have been using adsense deluxe but this may be better in many ways. Being able to place the cursor and click and thats where you add goes is totally unique.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Is this necessary for a sniper site that will not be getting any or very little social traffic?
May 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Hi Court,
Great article, as always. For those who use the Shylock Adsense plugin, I’ve got a post explaining how to hack it so that it only shows ads to search engine visitors.
Hope you don’t mind the blatant plug - I figure it may help some people who prefer Shylock…
May 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Been looking for something like this. However, I noticed that once the SE visitor clicks into any other page of the site, the adsense goes away.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
[…] said that, I have just learned from Courtney Tuttle about a WordPress plugin that allows you to show AdSense only to search traffic which is a major […]
May 8th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Wow, that is a nice plugin
May 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
The ads only show up on the first landing page the visitor comes to. If the visitor then clicks on a link to read another post or clicks on one of the tags or categories to see what is there, then they have no chance of clicking on the adsense anymore.
From your experience, have you found that the majority of your clicks come from people who only look at one page while on your site? If so, then I don’t see this as a problem, but if not, then you are effectively not making as much as you could with this site.
Although, I do understand that you have plenty of other sites/income streams and that this is a case study that you have used to teach us your strategy, so you just have to live with this situation either way.
thanks for all the good information!
May 21st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Is there a plugin for Blogger users?
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
[…] including a very useful tip for displaying Adsense only to search visitors which is explained at Courts Internet Marketing School, but we are discussing the pros and cons of RSS subscribers […]
August 17th, 2008 at 4:21 am
thanks