Thanks Eli, that should be enough information to “get creative” appreciate you listening to those of us clamoring for more info and posting this - Rock on!
Matt

Some more great ideas, thanks Eli. I’m curious if doing this could possibly show up as invalid clicks (or traffic) in your Adsense account?

That is illegal, we are not allowed to use our adsense ids in software

Google is not the law, therefore it is not illegal.

Maybe against Adsense Terms and Conditions, though I haven’t read them lately, nor have I completely investigated the options… (creating a desktop search as above to redirect to a Google search using the above technique doesn’t seem too hard…)

technically your adsense id isn’t in software. Because the band is technically a webpage
I’m sure they wouldn’t like it but who cares.
haha i’ve done much worse and gotten away with it.

As far as being illegal….huh?

Yea, thx for the speedy response! It seems like alot of the other blogs I go to are a little tight when it comes to commenting and responding to what some of their visitors say. Its nice to see that you actually pay attention to your visitors and actually help us and not leave us in the dark.

“illegal=against TOS” in my first comment
Eli, technically you will be 100% breaking the rules
Ask AdSense Team and let us know their answer
I have similar issue recently
Don’t mislead people about the search…

But for your other part - homepage - superb idea

One celebrity website, full of adsense and affiliates, one “screen saver” and you are the king of $$$

Theoretically, despite what the Adsense ToS may say, all the Adsense team really cares about is that legit people click their ads.

Unless you’re doing “very bad things” like using traffic exchanges for the sole purpose of getting clicks (bad traffic), or some sort of click fraud (one of the many autoclick programs, paying people to click, etc.), Google is making money. Obviously, they want to keep the advertisers happy so will issue emails and shut down the occasional account when an advertiser complains, but realistically, everytime someone clicks Google makes money. As long as the clicker is happy with the results and as long as the advertiser is happy with the clicker, why should they care how that money is made?

Blackhat sites normally don’t get a person’s adsense account shut down, even while Google will put them at the very bottom of the SERPs or ban the site altogether. Why? Because the majority of blackhat sites offer VERY targeted traffic to advertisers…something a whitehat site can rarely offer.

Install your adsense ads on their computer and change their homepage? Altering their registry?

C’mon, guys… that’s incredibly ‘greasy,’ as the trailer park boys would say.

James, whats described here isnt reallllly “greasy” - now changing their hosts file so every time they typed in google.com they went to your google search page instead, now THAT would be greasy

Just out of curiousity, at what point do people feel that a piece of software becomes malware/spyware/etc? As long as you have everything your installer does to a computer in a ToS blurb as they install are you protected?

Sorry if these are n00b questions, this is a new realm for me…

Hello,
great idea, but from the adsense-tos:

Client Software

“A site or third party cannot display our ads, search box, search results, or referral buttons as a result of the actions of any software application such as a toolbar. No Google ad, search box, or referral code may be pasted into any software application. Web pages displaying our ads, search box, search results, or referral buttons may not be loaded by any software that can trigger pop-ups, redirect users to unwanted websites, modify browser settings, or otherwise interfere with site navigation. It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct traffic to pages that contain your AdSense code. Accounts involved in this type of activity may be permanently disabled. “

I have to agree with kansieo, after a certain amount of experience you loose all fear of getting an adsense account banned. It really isn’t a big deal.

The worst possible thing that can happen, you loose one months income on one account. Like mentioned in another post, this isn’t an ethics debate blog. Its purely about money and traffic. You’re welcome to choose your own level of involvement, but there really is no point in people posting comments up trying to talk others out of doing these techniques.

Posting about possible ambuguities you might encounter = encouraged.

Posting counterproductive “are we making the web better or hurting it” bullshit = discouraged.

“…one account…” hey, it would be a nice if you could write something about it, i’m kinda a beginner and would like to know the best way to get more than one Adsense account. (Because Google allows just one …)

As long as people are willing to keep a very open mind I am probably willing to post a tutorial on having multiple adsense accounts. I’ve been asked to post about that topic at least 10 times I’ve just been debating on whether or not to do it.

Keep in mind people from Google DO read this blog. As if the other techniques weren’t making them upset already, a post on this topic would probably set them over the edge on how much they can tolerate. We may just get a fun little witch hunt on our hands

You have been amazing eli and i just started my blog lol. i know its a shameless plug, i just wanted to prove to myself that this thing works and then i am going to start with the screen savers.

Thanks alot be blessed have a nice christmas.

Cheers, thought I was sweet with ZangoCash until they asked for identification, I’m only 14

God i have no money in my bank account right now, but trust me let me get some money in there and i am going to do this all the way through. i will have at least 3000 screensavers out there. i know what eli is saying and the problem is that it makes sense. i have a sister who keeps downloading those fucking screensavers and changing the damn webpage. i Cannot imagine some fool gets paid off this and i am sitting here clicking hopelessly on their ads. jesus thanks for people like you eli.

Definitely would like to hear about multiple Adsense accounts, Eli.

When you change the Homepage URL in the registry, do you need to open up Internet Options and click ‘Use Default URL’ to change it? or is this just my particular ISP being a cunt?

antz,
you, the easiest way is through the internet options. If that isn’t working for you and it keeps changing it back than you got a browser hijacker on your computer. Download Hijack this and remove all the keys that say startpage or anything else you don’t recognize.

I was thinking, if anyone was going to do the zango installer part, for some added money, we should write a zango uninstaller to put in front of their installer. This will make sure we get credit for the download just in case they already have it installed If not that, we could at least check to see if they have it installed and do one of the other ways to make money mentioned here.

Eli, sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant is this the case for other people that download my screensavers, it is for me, I have to click on ‘Use default URL’ then it changes my homepage to what i specified in the registry(permanently), is it the same for others?

Justin - Its never a good idea to “cheat” a sponsor.. Cheat the user base, but not the sponsor.

Peter - By that defintion, it would be against googles terms of service for anyone to view any ad. For instance.. Internet Explorer is a 3rd party peice of software (not created by google) and so is Firefox (Mozilla - also not created by google) so by that description its not valid for any software to view their ads. So you can make a peice of software call it a browesr - make it only load one website, and then have adsense on that page..

I have a set of games that people download and install and they are just VB browser programs that link to a URL and then when they play the game it shows adsense ads and banner exchanges around the games.

works great.

Eli,
I changed Default_Page_URL in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main but the IE loads the old homepage. I even tried it with the old IE6.

Another problem: It made a setup with Setup Specialist, but how can I make that it installs and views the screensaver? It just says it’s ready and that’s it.

Another thing: How about using Google Co-op: [3] http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
to create a search engine and put in the adsense-code?

To change the start page for I.E. you need to set:

“HKEY_USERS\{SID OF LOGGED ON USER}\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page”

This seems to work on my test machines, but retrieving the SID is tricky.

Anyone know where to change the Firefox start page? It doesn’t seem to be stored in the registry.

Yeah, thanks Kyle, this works.

However, the next problem: How to find out the sid?

Well, there’s fragments of code around the net but they seem quite unstable. One way you could do it is to simply enumerate all keys in HKEY_USER, remove the ones that contain “.default” or “classes”, and set those that remain. This way you’ve changed the start page for all the users on that pc.

I wouldn’t bother trying to change the firefox start page. The people that use firefox use it for a reason, they’re usually a hell of a lot more tech savvy than a standard IE newbie and changing their homepage will just piss them off, and waste your bandwidth.

You are nothing more than a virus writer doing this to computers. Go think - how may systems are you going to fuck up for your petty Adsense rewards?

Script kiddies unite - then burn in hell!

Stop crying ya weenie.

This site rox.

How do I set the exe for the screen saver to get initiated right after the first install completes?

installer programs are all slightly different but each one has a section where you can specify a path to be excuted after you click on each step. So when the person clicks hte finish button you can have it execute %program files%\My Title\mysoftware.exe

In Setup Specialist its the last tab on the bottom.

awesome. That’s the one I’m using. What about setting/getting the SID . I’m struggling with that now…:-(

Thanks!

Good question,
Are you using the homepage method or the toolbands method?

In Setup Specialist the last tabs are “Create Setup” and “Registry”…is this where I set the step for it to execute the second exe?

Sorry..I’m not much of a techie

I’m using the hompage method. It seems a bit easier..

In setup specialist click on Start Programs. Its just to the right of Program Icons. Then click “Setup Finished.” Then right click in the box and click New >> Program. Then put in the path to your exe. Click OK.

For the homepage method you shouldn’t have to grab the sid. You should just be able to put in your search box code Adsense gives you.

Thanks! everything seems to be working fine, but the default homepage does not change automatically after the installation. Meaning, the user will have to go to Internet Options and set the homepage to “default” and save this.

I was under the impression that after the complete installation the default homepage would change automatically?

shit sorry man
I just realized the mistake i made in the post.
The actual regkey to change is
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
its not a bad idea to change the default in the local machine to though.

I updated the post.

Honest mistake

No worries. I’ll change. I also would love your advice on a bigger project I’m working on. I’ll send you and email to get your thoughts.

Thanks!

Well, first off, thanks for this post. Now, onto my bump in getting this to work.. I can’t seem to make the homepage change optional in the install. What I’d like is for at some point in the install the user be asked if they’d like their homepage changed, just a tickbox that says something like “Change homepage?” or something along those lines. I’ve toyed around with Setup Specialist quite a bit, and couldn’t seem to figure it out.

So, if anyone knows how to do this, or knows of any other software that may aid me in doing this, I’m all ears.

this sounds very very lucrative. but how can you “con” a load of people to instll you app or web browser.

sounds like hard work to me..

For me it is unethical t put search button on others webpage without their consent.

Thanks for the post Eli. The Toolband link no longer works, but it is still good advice.

I have never made any money by displaying the Google Search Box on any of my sites. Pennies at the most.

This technique is not illegal but definitely against adsense terms of service.

BS, I say. Has anyone other opinion?

welll…does this really works….man and is it against TOS..huh…i really wanna know

Yeah, I have never even tried it myself, its probably because I do not concentrate on such areas, if that is possible.

Haven’t tried this yet but seems temtping… tsk tsk

Never tried this form of advertising, but I was wondering if anyone else has had success with this?

nice information…and thanks for your share…

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This is the one post I really love going back to. I constantly read this and it keeps me on the toes! Nice work Eli!

I just added this weblog to my feed reader, great stuff. Can’t get enough!

2 I do agree with all of the ideas you have presented in your post. They’re really convincing and will definitely work. Still, the posts are too short for newbies. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.

Thank you for the tips and tricks - you are writing very useful articles. I can´t thank you enough!

The Toolband link no longer works, but it is still good advice.

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This no longer works properly - perhaps it’s because you no longer get paid by impressions but rather by clicks?

We are all quite attacked to hacks xD

I will second that

Great information actually

Yeah i do have an opinion lol

There may have been a chance that it was working before but after 4 years the chances of it workin is quite slim

yeahh #96

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change ur Comment frnd

what dose that mean ??

3rd #97

High quality advice as always

I like it, not a lot, but a little.

1 + 1 is definitely 2 don’t you think ?

Eli, you are definitely the doyen of link building, respect !

You can always adsense ads on their computer and change their homepage to better.

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are these against adsense TOS?

I just wanted to prove to myself that this thing works and then i am going to start with the screen savers

Thank you for this amazing article

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Really Great article ! thanks for sharing with this with your readers. Have a nice day!

It’s useful to get a new talents. We will never know if we don’t see they do the demonstration for showing their skills

The Toolband link no longer works, but it is still good advice.

“illegal=against TOS” in my first comment

Such an important point to make , im a personal trainer and so many people come to me not understanding the benefits of and importance of rest periods, they are entirely consumed by excercising and dieting alone and miss probably one the most important factors, sleep, when trying to [4] get rid of your arm fat ,a good nights sleep after a hard workout will work wonders,
a point well made in this article , thanks