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Written by Tech Notes

Category: Web Design

Published: 24 November 2014

How many Google Adsense ads are allowed per website page and what kind?

I often forget the details of this, and I see a lot of people, including professionals, are wrong or confused about this.  So, I created this article for regular and easy reference.  You would want to bookmark this to come back when you have this question again; you will forget over time.  If changes occur, let me know to update.  This articles focus is on Google's Adsense For Content and not Adsense for other things, like parked domains.  However, it does take into consideration the Adsense For Search.

Please note that I do not get paid to write these articles.  All are done in a best effort manner.

1. Number of display ads allowed per page?
   
   
   1.  THREE. A maximum of 3 display ads are allowed per page.  They can be of any sized defined by Google: 728x90, 320x100, 970x250, 970x90, 468x60, 300x600 (read exception below), 300x1050 (read exception below), 160x600, 120x600, 120x240, 336x280, 300x250, 250x250, 200x200, 180x150, Responsive size.
      
      
      1.  EXCEPTION.  The exception is when you use a 300x600 or larger, which would be 300x1050 as of writing this.  When displaying one of these large ads, then you are only allowed to show 1 of these sizes along with other sizes.  This also means that all 3 display ads can be the same size only when they are less than 300x600.  In case you are wondering, a 160x600 or 120x600 are less (smaller) than 300x600, and so those sizes can repeat.
         
         
2. Total ads allowed per page?
   
   
   1.  SIX Google ads plus two Google Search Boxes (different product: Adsense for search). The maximum number of Google ads types you will be able to get on a page will be 6, plus 2 search engine boxes.  Search boxes would be only if you were enrolled for the Adsense For Search product of Google.  Please note that we are talking about Google ads, and this does not restrict you from having your own or other ads along with the Google ads.  The restrictions are ONLY for the Google ads, which means you can have other ads too.  However, you do not want to abuse the system or do excessive ads or many large ads in a way that causes problems for the visitor, or worse cause Google to frown upon it as making them look bad and end up having your account closed.
      
      
      1.  Per website page, Google allows 3 Display (text or image) ads (refer to size exception indicated above), plus 3 Link Units (regardless how many links display per unit), and 2 Search Boxes of Google's Adsense for Search.  The size of the Link Units does not matter, and can be 728x15, 468x15, 200x90, 180x90.  (Link Units display only text links; a form of advertisement via text).  So, if you got all 3 Display Ads, and 3 Link Unit ads, you get a total of six; and you can still add two Search Boxes on that page.
         
         
3. Can I have the same size display ads on the page?
   
   
   1.  Yes, up to 3, except when your display ad is 300x600 or larger.  Only 1 300x600 ad allowed, along with 2 other smaller sized display ads.
      
      
4.  Can I have my own ads or other ads shown along with Google Adsense ads?
   
   
   1.  YES.  All of the rules and restrictions indicated above are for Google's ads.  In other words, Google does allow other ads to be shown along with their ads.  This is something that I admire about Google's Adsense program.  Do your ads in a reasonable and non-abusive way.  Do not make the ads excessive and in my opinion, if you are gong to show a 300x600 or larger ads, then you should not be showing many of those and probably one is enough.
      
      
      1.  Just make sure you do not violate any frame rules Google has for showing ads.  From Google: "When a site displays someone else's site within a frame or window on their own site, this is considered framing content. Placing Google ads on such pages is strictly prohibited."  I am not sure if they are referring to ads within the frame or on the whole page in general.  Regardless how lame you think such frame rules are, or how disgusted you may be with such rules, since Frames and Iframes are fantastic tools for designing pages, I think Google does not like them.  I suspect it causes problems for their search engine and also removes control away from them and allows abuse.  Frames can be used for good or bad, and unfortunately, if I am not mistaken, Google has taken a stance on not allowing their ads along with frames.  Although, I think I read somewhere on Google, a while ago, that there was exceptions or circumstances where frames were okay on the page. That is separate topic from this article that I cannot go into.

EXAMPLE:

The following page linked is a good example of 3 Display ads being shown along with 2 Link Unit ads:
http://technotes.whw1.com/TNSingles/AppleIpadsComparison1.html

Useful Link

At the time of writing this article, the following link was valid for their Ad Placement Policies.
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en&ref_topic=1271508&rd=1

Feel Free To Leave A Good Comment. :)

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Written by Tech Notes

Category: Web Design

Published: 05 April 2014

New Versions of Internet Browsers Can Show Animated (Dynamic/Moving) Icons Images.

Please note that I do not get paid to write these articles.  All are done in a best effort manner.

With new versions of Internet browsers, like Firefox and Chrome (NOT all; such as IE), you can have a non-static icon showing in the Internet browser window or browser tab.  Depending if the browser supports this ability, you can have an animated icon showing as the Favicon, which is what the icon image representing website is called.  The favicon image is what is shown when you Bookmark or add to Favorites.  The image file will typically have the name of favicon.ico.  An .ico has a special format of it's own, and not a .gif or .jpg or .png or other graphic formats.

Animated (Dynamic/Moving) Favicon Is A GIF File.

In the case of an animated favicon, again supported by newer Internet browsers, the format of the favicon is in fact a GIF.  A GIF that has multiple slices or frames, and when flipped through the different image slices/frames, the images seems animated (moving or in action).

These two images, and , are part of this animated image, .  There are specific time delays indicated for each image slice within the GIF file, which is located at http://technotes.whw1.com/images/TNfavicon16x16-animated.gif.

Need Software To Make An Animated (Dynamic/Moving) Favicon Or An Animated GIF File.

The animated favicon is also a 16x16 unit image, as is the typical normal favicon (other sizes like 32x32 and 48x48 exist too for static favicons and .ico files, and larger for iphones and more).  Unlike static image favicons you cannot just use an online favicon maker or static image maker to make it, and would need a software that creates an animated GIF.  An animated favicon is a 16x16 animated GIF file.

I have included here an Oldie, but a Goodie for you to download for FREE (click here to download).  An animated GIF maker, the Microsoft GIF Animator.  No strings attached, and free of viruses and malware free, and pre-scanned.  A super tiny program; less than 1MB!  Does what you need.  You can use more elaborate softwares like Adobe Image Maker, but it will take you a lot longer to figure out it's usage. 

You will need to use a software like Paint or GIMP or any other graphic software or collect online images for this software to combine them into an animated GIF.  You can also have online places make the image slices for you and this software takes care of combining them.  It only works with GIF files, and so you would first have to convert any other graphic formats into a GIF format.  You would have to load (open) a .jpg or .png or other format file with something like Paint (or any other simple graphics software), and do a Save As or Export to a .gif format.  If you do not have Paint (included for free on all Microsoft OS computers) or any graphic softwares, you can download GIMP (click) for free.

The HTML Code - How To Make Favicon Show On Internet Browsers And Bookmarks

Once you have created an animated GIF file to be used as the favicon, and uploaded the image file to your website's file system, you can put this code into any page of your site to cause the animated (dynamic/moving) favicon to be seen on the Internet browsers of visitors to your website.  This works for regular static favicons and animated favicons.

You can change the above "animated-favicon.gif" to the file name you are making use of and it's location within your website's file system. In the above case, the animated favicon file is named animated-favicon.gif and it is located in the images folder directly within your website's main folder.  For those who have sub-folder sites, then it would be within your sub-folder website's main folder, which is just a sub-folder of something like public_html or www folder.

Below are Favicon and/or Thumbnail size examples for reference:

144x144 Example Usage: On 3rd Generation iPad	128x128 Example Usage: NA	114x114 Example Usage: On iPhones
72x72 Example Usage: 1s-2nd Gen iPads	57x57 Example Usage: iPod, Andriod, iPhones, Other Smart Phones	48x48 Example Usage: Within multi-resolution .ico files, & softwares.
32x32 Example Usage: Within multi-resolution .ico files, & softwares.	24x24 Example Usage: Within multi-resolution .ico files, & softwares.	16x16 Example Usage: Within multi-resolution .ico files, & softwares.

TIP

When creating Animated GIF or image slices, start with a much larger size that is a multiple of 16 (such as 128x128), and then after you are done, shrink (scale down) the animated GIF or images slices to a 16x16 size.

Details

Written by Tech Notes

Category: Web Design

Published: 20 October 2014

How To Improve Grade Of Browser Caching Of Static Content/Assets For Website On An Apache Server

The following instructions are applicable if your website is on a server using an Apache web server software, but the the concept applies to all web servers.  Most of the time it is an Apache.  Your hosting company would tell you, or you would see it listed on your hosting control panel.  The hosting company of $1 Website Hosting (known by several brand names) provides Apache 2.2.26 and higher web servers, at the time of this article writing, and thus my focus on the commands for it.

This article assumes you know of and are using a Web Page Test site, or a Website Performance checking site, or a Speed Testing site, or a Load Testing site or software that checks if a site is slow or fast to help you figure out what needs to be improved.   Typically done to check on the performance of a website and improve the websites performance.

This article will step you through on How To Change Cache Static Content Grade from F to A. 

Same as improving Browser Caching Of Static Content/Assets.

Also same as improving the Leverage Browser Caching results.

IMPORTANT INITIAL COMMENT

First I want to point out something important that most do not seem to realize.  People commonly assume that a Grade of A or a rating of 100% is better than a lower grade of F, D, C, B or a something lower than 100%.  This is not correct.  An F rating can be just as good as an A rating!  The testing sites and softwares are setup to grade according to the time period the static content of a website is set to expire.  It is common for the results to show an A grade for cache expiration periods of 7 days or more, and for smaller periods the grade drops to B, C, D and F respectively for shorter periods.  If you are busy making changes, and constantly, to your website, you may want your site to indicate to browsers to only cache (temporary store) 5 minutes.  Because you are regularly updating the page(s), and you want the visitors to get the updated content and not be displayed old content from the browser's cache.  The lower expiration period of 5 minutes or even several hours would cause a grade of F or a low number rating to show for the measurement of your website during a performance test of your site.  As you can see, this is fine, since that is what you would want.  If you have completed your site design and do not expect changes for a long time or for a time period outside of a week, then it is perfectly fine to have the Browser Caching indicated as 7 or more days.  Indicating a cache period of 7 days or longer would cause a Grade of A or 100 to be displayed for the measurement of your site after the performance testing is done.

Steps For How To Change Grade or Rating for Browser Caching Of Static Content/Assets.

1. Make use of a file management tool or software.  Such as the hosting control panel (cpanel) File Manager tool provided by Web Hosting With $1 (WHW1.com) or a FTP software (List of FTP softwares and tutorials here).  Modern versions of Internet browsers, like Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE), can also access your files as an FTP connect when used with your FTP login information. 
   
   
2. Locate and edit the .htaccess file in the root folder (directory) of your hosting.  The root location (just /) is typically located above your website's content folder, which is commonly /public_html or /www.   In other words, you want the /.htaccess and not just the /public_html/.htaccess (or /www/.htaccess), since you want a broader impact.  Note that the following changes implemented in the .htaccess file of either folders of /public_html or /www or other folder locations will still work, but the effect gets limited to only what is within that .htaccess folder (directory) and sub-folders.
   
   
   
   
3. In the .htaccess file, at top or at bottom, add the following commands, assuming that no portion of it already exists.
   
   # Info provided by Tech Notes (TechNotes.whw1.com).  START.
<ifModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
# Default Expiration set to 1 week
ExpiresDefault A604800

# These Expire after 1 month
ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000
ExpiresByType image/png A2592000
ExpiresByType image/jpg A2592000
ExpiresByType image/x-icon A2592000
ExpiresByType application/pdf A2592000
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType text/plain A2592000

# These Expire after 1 week
ExpiresByType text/css A604800

</ifModule>
# Info provided by Tech Notes (TechNotes.whw1.com).  END.


4. Redo the Performance Test or Speed Test, and you should see green grade of A or 100%, or high good rating for the "Cache Static Content" or the "Leverage Browser Caching" or other similar titles. . :)

Done.

Feel Free To Leave A Good Comment. :)

Look around, and you may find other useful articles.  Add this site to your Bookmarks/Favorites for easy return for new articles.  Consider submitting technical articles for publication, including your embedded links.