Amnesty International says these Uighurs risked torture at home in China. -AFP
PHNOM PENH-AFP - Amnesty International urged Cambodia Wednesday not to deport 22 Uighurs who are seeking UN refugee status in Phnom Penh, saying they risked torture at home in China.
The right group's appeal came after China warned Tuesday that UN refugee programmes "should not be a haven for criminals" and said the 22 Uighurs, including three children, were involved in crimes.
Bangkok Post - Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Thursday declined to respond to Cambodian premier Hun Sen comments that Thai-Cambodian relations will not improve as long as the Democrat-led government remains in office.
"I will not respond to Prime Minister Hun Sen's comment because the situation isn't good at the moment," the Democrat secretary-general said. "The Thai government must be patient in the face of the frequent criticism emanating from Cambodia."
He said the government did intend to send ambassador Prasas Prasasvinitchai back to Phnom Penh, but diplomatic ties between the two countries would not improve if Cambodia maintains its unyielding stance.
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
Mr. Thaksin (seated second right) with Mr. Hun Sen (seated middle) when he visited Cambodia in mid November, 2009.
Abhisit vs. Hun Sen
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday urged Thai government to release two Khmer women who were convicted with death penalty in Thailand as the exchange with two Muslim Thai teachers' release.
"We already released two Muslim Thai teachers (June-July) this year who charged with terrorism plot in country but so far Thailand does not set free two Khmer women as exchange," he said in a scholarship awarding ceremony for 500 students at a university in Phnom Penh.
The United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia has for the first time charged two former leaders of the Khmer Rouge with genocide. A court official said the charges against the two men, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea, were related to their treatment of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities. The two men were high-ranking members of Pol Pot's government in the late 1970s, when as many as two million Cambodians are thought to have died. Both are already in pre-trial detention charged with crimes against humanity.
Cambodia's United Nations-backed war crimes court has issued genocide charges for the first time.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen says charges have been laid against two former lead
ers of the Khmer Rouge regime.
![Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Comrade Duch, who is charged with war crimes. [ABC]](http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200911/r477344_2414018.jpg "Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Comrade Duch, who is charged with war crimes. [ABC]")
Japanese brewer says it is considering the launch of a lower-end product
AT a meeting with officials in Ho Chi Minh City last week, Vietnamese exporters complained of high import tax rates of between 25 and 40 percent imposed by Cambodia, Vietnam News reported Monday. The meeting was aimed at helping firms resolve export difficulties with the Kingdom. Delegates said duties made it difficult for them to compete. The trade ministry said it had sent a list of 32 essential items to the Cambodian government to reconsider import tariffs ahead of negotiations expected for next year, the report said. Vietnam earned US$1.43 billion from exports to Cambodia last year.
THE government Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) aimed at boosting trade, investment and industrial development. JETRO will establish an office in Phnom Penh in March, according to a copy of the agreement. Official figures showed that Japan invested just US$148 million in Cambodia between the end of 1994 and the end of the third quarter this year, compared with China’s $6.511 billion and $2.856 billion by South Korea over the same period.
SAIGON – Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has agreed to halt the rerouting of flights between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City that would have seen planes fly over Cambodian airspace and therefore provide fees to the Kingdom, state-run Saigon Giai Phong reported Tuesday. The decision follows recommendations from the defence and transport ministries, it added. The new route would also have taken planes through Laos. Fees to Vietnam’s neighbours would have outweighed savings on fuel from cutting the current route by 60 kilometres, the report said.
AT least 15 Asian countries, including communist North Korea, participated in Cambodia’s fourth Import-Export and One Province, One Product Exhibition on Tuesday in Phnom Penh. However, the impact of the global economic crisis meant just 126 companies joined the four-day expo – held at the capital’s Mondial Centre – compared with 201 firms last year, both domestic and from overseas. Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh noted that Japan had the largest presence, taking up 10 booths at the exhibition out of 96 run by foreign enterprises hoping to sell their products in Cambodia.
THE Khmer Rouge tribunal on Wednesday announced the appointment of veteran war crimes lawyer Andrew Cayley as international co-prosecutor, filling a position that was left vacant by the departure of Robert Petit in September.
A tribunal press release noted Cayley’s extensive experience in international criminal cases, including more than 10 years at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and two years as senior prosecuting counsel at the International Criminal Court, where he led the investigation of crimes committed in Sudan’s Darfur region. His most recent work has been as a private defence attorney for former Liberian president Charles Taylor and Croatian military leader Ivan Cermak.
William Smith, who has filled in as international prosecutor on an interim basis since Petit left, and who worked with Cayley at the ICTY for a total of five years, praised his “high moral character and integrity” in an email Wednesday, adding that he had “a wealth of experience” in cases similar to those before the Khmer Rouge tribunal.
“His other cases, whether acting as a prosecutor or defence attorney, contain consistent allegations that the Accused held high-level positions in which they have abused their power by participating in widespread crimes in various ways,” including by relying on “subordinates and others to carry them out”, he wrote.
Cayley’s was one of two names forwarded by the UN secretary general’s office to the Cambodian government after Petit’s departure. The final appointment was made by the Supreme Council of the Magistracy. Nicholas Koumjian, the other candidate, was appointed reserve co-prosecutor.
UN court spokesman Lars Olsen said Wednesday that Cayley was due to arrive in Cambodia “within a few weeks”.
Important decisions coming
By some accounts, the departure of Petit midway through the trial of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, detracted from the prosecution’s performance.
A report released last week by the Asian International Justice Initiative, for example, referred to a “noticeable lack of coordination between the different prosecutors assigned to different stages of the proceedings”, among other perceived flaws.
AIJI Deputy Director Michelle Staggs Kelsall said Wednesday that Cayley’s experience would be a boon to the prosecution during the tribunal’s second case, which is set to try the four other regime leaders currently in custody.
“For the complexities of that case, with multiple accused and with the various issues that will be confronting the prosecution in bringing that to trial, you need somebody with extensive expertise in complex investigations, and Mr Cayley obviously fits the bill,” she said.
Heather Ryan, a trial monitor for the Open Society Justice Initiative, noted that Cayley might soon be called on to make “a lot of important decisions” as the investigation wraps up, such as whether to submit additional investigative requests. Judges have said they would try to complete the investigation by the end of the year.
“Whoever is going to be the prosecutor to take that case all the way to trial should be the one to make those decisions, because they will impact the trial,” Ryan said, adding that other unresolved issues include the potential application of joint criminal enterprise and genocide charges.
Several events of note so far this month:
1. The tribunal on December 2 announced the appointment of veteran war crimes lawyer Andrew Cayley as international co-prosecutor, filling a position that was left vacant by the departure of Robert Petit in September.
2. Judges ruled on December 8 that joint criminal enterprise, a controversial form of liability under which suspects can be found responsible for crimes committed as part of a common plan, could apply at the tribunal, setting the stage for further debate on the issue between prosecutors and lawyers for the four regime leaders awaiting trial.
3. And the Pre-Trial Chamber on December 9 dismissed a request, filed in October by the defence team for former Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary, for the dismissal of International Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde on bias charges. The defence team had earlier this month supplemented its request with allegations stemming from a December 2 witness statement given by Wayne Bastin, the same former staffer who in October accused Lemonde of communicating a preference for inculpatory rather than exculpatory evidence. In the December 2 statement, Bastin charged that Lemonde had compromised the confidentiality of his office's work and communicated inappropriately with a prosecution expert. The Pre-Trial Chamber declined to consider the supplementary filing before handing down its December 9 ruling, though the Ieng Sary team has since filed a new request for Lemonde's disqualification based on the December 2 statement.
Eight countries joined the fourth annual trade fair in the Mondial Business Center in Phnom Penh.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Finance and Economic Keat Chhon said that “This is the fourth year of celebrating this good forum to boost all international investment in Cambodia.”
Japan, S. Korea, N. Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and China attended the forum.
Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said that 230 stalls and 126 companies joined the four day event.
The 18 categories of products included agricultural products, industrial and agricultural machines, silk products, souvenirs, office equipment, food products, daily goods, decorating tools, textiles, jewelry, drugs, cosmetic, plastics, electronics and construction tools.
Cambodia’s economy will increase about 3-4 percent in 2010, a senior financial officer said on Tuesday.
Secretary of State of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Kong Vibol said in a press conference at the Phnom Penh Hotel that “the agricultural sector rose 4.3 percent, the industrial sector rose 8.6 percent, and food and beverages increased about 13.1 percent.”
Larry Strange, director of the Cam-bodian Development Research Institute (CDRI), said that “the agricultural sector is a solid base to boost Cambodian economy.” But Cambodia depend on funds from donors to improve, he added.
“In future, Cambodia will improve business, infrastructure, tourism,” Larry said.
Kong Vibol said the downturn of 2009 has driven exports down.
“The Cambodian government strategy is to reduce the poverty and aim to stay in positive growth while the global economic crisis is still on.”
“Cambodia has two ways to solve its problems; create new jobs and revenue for Cambodian poor families.”
National Economist for the UNDP Lim Sovannara said that tourism, construction, marketing fix assets and garments have taken a hit, with exports down 23 percent in the first 8 months.
Cambodia on Tuesday held the 34th annual conference of the federation of the ASEAN Economic Association (FAEA) focusing on impact of the global economic downturn on the ASEAN countries and mitigating the impact on the poor.
“The global economic slowdown rea- lly affected our economy and the govern- ment has set the top priority as recovering the economy of the country,” Kong Vibol, secretary of state for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said in his opening remarks. “The government has taken actions subsequently in this bad time to help the most vulnerable people.”
Lim Sovannara, economic official for UNDP Cambodia, said that “We have concern on HIV/AIDS infection because more women are now in entertainment industry after they lost jobs in the garment sector,”, adding that there is a strong indication of rising poverty and a likely decline in children’s nutrition, as well as increased crime from the impact of the crisis. The driving economic forces of the country are agriculture, garments, construction, and tourism, but the last three have been hit by the crisis, Kong Vibol said, adding that most Cambodian garments are exported to the EU and US, markets that are now showing lower demand. “But we have potential for agricultural sector,” he said.
“Our economic growth will recover when the global economic recovery and anyway we have set up policy to attract investors here. We also have social responsibility from the impact through creating social safety network and the government also is continuing to walk with existing factors to reduce poverty in the country.”
He added that Cambodia should see economic growth of 2 percent this year.
Larry Strange, executive director of the Cambodian Development and Research Institute (CDRI), said that the forum will help strengthen integration cooperation of ASEAN in forwarding the ASEAN Economic community by 2015. ASEAN “needs to join in hands from macro economic and private sector policy to deal with this hard time,” he said.
The event is supported by the Cam-bodian Economic Association, UNDP, CDRI and the Economic Institute of Cambodia (EIC). Next year, Indonesia will become host country for this economic forum.
A Cambodian Government spokesman on Tuesday rejected an opposition claim that the Sivarak Chutipong case is political ruse by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The rejection comes after Sam Rainsy alleged that the Sivarak case was staged.
“Sam Rainsy never led the nation, that is why he said like this,” Khieu Kahnarith told DAP News Cambodia on Tuesday.
“Thai citizens will know and understand Cambodia’s dignity,” he added.
The official lamented that Bangkok government had not responded to Sivarak’s concerns.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thau- gsuban said on Tuesday that he would make no further comment on the case involving Sivarak Chutipong, the Thai engineer convicted of spying in Cambodia who returned to Thailand on Monday after being granted a royal pardon by King Norodom Sihamoni, accor- ding to the Bangkok Post on Tuesday.
He earlier said the incident was a conspiracy by the Puea Thai party and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to discredit the government and boost the popularity of the convicted former prime minister, who arrived in Cambodia on Sunday to arrange for Sivarak’s release.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday morning gave a pardon letter to Siwarak Chutipong, a Thai man convicted spying on Thailand’s fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, in front of his mother, Simark Na Nakhom Panom, and some Phue Thai members at Hun Sen´s house.
Fugitive former Thai PM Thaksin Sinawatra on Tuesday vowed to build two model farms in Cambodia for local farmers to emulate, according to a Tuesday press release from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF).
Thaksin’s promise came after an address on how to develop Cambodia’s economy after the global economic crisis.
However, no formal confirmation of the amount of money earmarked for the project, but one MEF official said that the issue will be discussed next month.
“To develop agriculture is very important … and is crucial because Cambodia has much potential,” the press release added.
The meeting apparently focused on meeting domestic demand and exporting to other countries, the press release confirmed.
The Thai billionaire telecoms mogul talked about how to develop the impoverished nation’s economy during the worldwide financial crisis and discussed agricultural reform.
Thaksin is living abroad, mostly in Dubai, to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption handed down by a Thai court in September 2008.
The visit to Cambodia by Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, has further raised diplomatic tensions with Thailand, which flared last month when Phnom Penh refused to extradite him during his first visit as economic adviser.
The release of Sivarak Chothipong has also strained diplomatic ties between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Thaksin visited Siwarak briefly in prison Sunday.
Thaksin won two elections in Thailand and remains an influential political figure at home, stirring up mass protests by his “Red Shirt” supporters against the current Thai government.
Phnom Penh, December 16 (DAP) – Cambodia to send 106 scholarship students to study in Thailand under the sponsorship of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Project, said the Cambodian education ministry on Wednesday.
The students will be dispatched to keep up study in Thailand for the academic year 2010 within the context of the Royal Scholarship, which was awarded by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, said the release.
“Cambodia will soon send 106 students to Thailand under Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s sponsorship,” said the release seen by DAP.
It said the ministry said that Cambodian and Thailand’s officials met on December 15, in which Thai side agreed to support the continued sustainability and development of the high school in Kampong Thom province.
Both sides discussed in great details of referring to the implementation of the Project Agreement 2002- 2005 related to the project on the continued sustainability and development of the Kampong Chheuteal High School in Sambor district, Kampong Thom province.
“The Thai side has clearly re-affirmed that The Project Agreement, which is financed by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Project, is to be signed for an extension until 2013,” it said.
A Cambodian Government spokesman on Tuesday rejected an opposition claim that the Sivarak Chutipong case is political ruse by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The rejection comes after Sam Rainsy alleged that the Sivarak case was staged.
“Sam Rainsy never led the nation, that is why he said like this,” Khieu Kahnarith told DAP News Cambodia on Tuesday.
“Thai citizens will know and understand Cambodia’s dignity,” he added.
The official lamented that Bangkok government had not responded to Sivarak’s concerns.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thau- gsuban said on Tuesday that he would make no further comment on the case involving Sivarak Chutipong, the Thai engineer convicted of spying in Cambodia who returned to Thailand on Monday after being granted a royal pardon by King Norodom Sihamoni, accor- ding to the Bangkok Post on Tuesday.
He earlier said the incident was a conspiracy by the Puea Thai party and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to discredit the government and boost the popularity of the convicted former prime minister, who arrived in Cambodia on Sunday to arrange for Sivarak’s release.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday morning gave a pardon letter to Siwarak Chutipong, a Thai man convicted spying on Thailand’s fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, in front of his mother, Simark Na Nakhom Panom, and some Phue Thai members at Hun Sen´s house.
Government signed off on building projects worth $212m in October and notes that activity in the sector is picking up
Some projects which were delayed last year have been resumed."
Target price of 1,000 riels per kWh still too high, opposition says
THE Asian Development Bank on Tuesday lifted its prediction of economic growth for developing Asia in 2009 and 2010, although the lender kept its Cambodia forecast unchanged at negative 1.5 percent for this year, the latest sign the Kingdom is faring worse than many of its neighbours in its bid to recover from the global downturn.
The ADB lifted its 2009 forecast for 45 developing Asian countries to an average 4.5 percent, up from 3.9 percent in September. In 2010, gross domestic product in the region was expected to hit 6.6 percent, a small improvement on the 6.4 percent forecast made in September.
“The prospects for much of the region look rosier than they did in September,” said Jong-Wha Lee, ADB’s chief economist. “Fiscal and monetary stimulus policies and a moderate improvement in the G-3 economies of Europe, Japan and the US helped East Asia and Southeast Asia in particular.”
By contrast, Cambodia was expected to see growth of just 3.5 percent next year.
“Cambodia’s economy was badly hit by a sharper-than-expected decline in garment exports, construction, and tourism,” the report said.
An International Monetary Fund report on December 9 showed that Cambodia had largely failed to benefit from external stimulus spending, as demand for the Kingdom’s garments in the US – the country’s largest export market – declined 23.1 percent in the first eight months compared to an 14.3 percent drop on average across all suppliers.
The government increased spending 28 percent this year on 2008 levels, according to the ADB.
Fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra addressed Cambodian ministers in his new advisory role Tuesday on how to develop their economy during the global recession, reporters said.
Fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, pictured, has addressed Cambodian ministers in his new advisory role on how to develop their economy during the global recession, reporters have said.
The visit to Cambodia by Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, has further raised diplomatic tensions with Thailand, which flared last month when Phnom Penh refused to extradite him during his first visit as economic adviser.
Foreign language media were locked out of Thaksin's meeting Tuesday at the Council for the Development of Cambodia, but local reporters said he spoke to between 20 and 30 senior Cambodian ministers and their deputies.
The Thai billionaire telecoms mogul talked about how to develop the impoverished nation's economy during the worldwide financial crisis and discussed agricultural reform, the reporters added.
Thaksin arrived in Phnom Penh on Sunday, and the Cambodian government credited him for the release on Monday of Siwarak Chothipong, a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service jailed for spying on his previous visit.
Siwarak, 31, was handed a seven-year prison sentence last week for supplying Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai embassy, but he left Prey Sar jail early Monday after receiving a pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni.
Siwarak's arrest last month was followed by a brief tit-for-tat of diplomatic expulsions.
The two countries had earlier withdrawn their ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin's appointment as government economic adviser.
Angered by Thaksin's presence in Cambodia, Thailand also put all talks and cooperation with the neighbouring country on hold and has torn up an oil and gas exploration deal signed during Thaksin's tenure as prime minister.
Thaksin is living abroad, mostly in Dubai, to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption handed down by a Thai court in September 2008.
He won two elections in Thailand and remains an influential political figure at home, stirring up mass protests by his "Red Shirt" supporters against the current government.
Law enforcement in Cambodia is handled by the Cambodian police force, which numbers 64,000. The force is organized into six departments. The national police chief was General Hok Lundy.
The police are organized into six departments: security, transport, public order, border, administrative, and judicial. While the judicial police are meant to function under the prosecutor-general's office, in fact they receive orders from the national police commander, meaning prosecutors lack control over the judicial police department.
The former National police chief General Hok Lundy was a political appointee known for his loyalty to Prime Minister Hun Sen. The international community had quietly pressed the prime minister to remove his police chief for several years, but he was too central to Hun Sen's power structure and he showed no sign of changing his position. Hok Lundy died in a helecoptor accident on Nov. 8, 2008.
In addition to the political role of the police, there is widespread evidence of involvement in drug and people trafficking and corruption. At the level of ordinary police, this phenomenon should be contextualized by noting the average salary of many police officers barely exceeds USD20 per month. There are several documented incidents of open fighting between drug investigation units and other police involved in trafficking.
The police have little regard for procedure, either in terms of gathering evidence or in handling suspects. The police have also gained a reputation for brutality, venality, and corruption. Amnesty International reported in June 2005 that torture of prisoners in police custody was widespread. According to the United States Department of State, local police rarely investigate reports of crime against foreign tourists.
The goal of choosing keywords is to build a table of keywords that can bring targeted traffic to your Web site and are often searched for, but still not so competitive as to make a top ranking next to impossible.
Start with the Web site concept that excites you the most and create your original list of keywords. Write down all the words and phrases that you think are related to this concept and can be used by people when they search for your Web site.
When choosing keywords, don't limit yourself to single words. Statistical research has shown that most people search using multiple-word keywords composed of two, or even three, words in order to get more targeted results.
Try to look at the Web site from the visitor end. Who are they? What are they trying to do? What other stuff do they look for? Figure out what problem your target market is trying to solve when they do a search. Your Web site should solve that problem.
What other keywords would they look for? Add them to your original list. You can add a whole new major direction, and income stream, to your Web site simply by thinking about your target's other needs.
Open any text editor or spreadsheet program and create three columns...
There's a remarkable online tool that will assist you in choosing keywords and estimating their popularity on the Internet.
Go to WordTracker and start the free trial. Then go to the Keyword Universe. WordTracker will guide you through 4 steps:
Step 1. Type in your first keyword, and click on the "Proceed »" button. WordTracker will display a list of keywords related to the word that you've typed in.
Step 2. Click on the first word which is applicable for your Web site concept and WordTracker will show a list of keywords which contain the word you had clicked on and the number of times they have been used by searchers (the figure present in the Count column).
Add related keywords to your basket by clicking on them, then click on the second related word in the first window. Again add related keywords to your basket. Repeat this process for each of the related words, then click the link to move to Step 3.
Step 3. Your chosen keywords appear on the screen. They are organized in descending order with the most popular first. Go to Step 4.
Step 4. Select a search engine on which you want to do the competition search and click "Proceed »". You'll see keywords from your basket along with their attributes, the most important of which is the KEI Analysis. The amount of competition is determined by searching for each phrase on the selected engine and finding out how many sites come up in the results.
Write down the most profitable keywords (KEI > 10) along with their attributes, click the link at the bottom of the page to try again, clear the basket and type in your next keyword. You may repeat it as many times as you need to analyze all related keywords.
Note:
Now it's time to pick the keywords with the best profitability. These will be ones with high KEI. A low score means that either not many people search for this phrase, or that there's too much competition for it. Eliminate any words with low KEI, especially if they're not searched upon very often (i.e., Count is low).
Add the most profitable keywords along with their KEI to your table. You can return to Step 1 and repeat the process of choosing keywords and adding them to your table for each word or phrase from your original list.
Go to Google and search for the first keyword from your table using exact match search (surround phrases in quotation marks). Read the listings for the Top 10 or 20 Web sites, perhaps visit them and make brief notes in the third column of the table for the kinds of sites.
Repeat this process for each of the keywords present in your table.
As you review the Top sites, you may get some great ideas for content on your own Web site. You may add new relevant words and phrases to your original list of keywords or, perhaps, you may even discover a concept that is so strong that you decide to adjust your first concept, or even replace it with this new one!
If you have several Web site concepts to choose from, build the tables of the most profitable keywords related to other concepts from your list and select the best concept. Here are the factors to consider before finalizing your idea...
Google AdSense is a new, fast and easy way for small and medium sites to make money free online by displaying relevant, text-based, un-obtrusive ads from Google AdWords (Google's own advertising program) and receiving a share of the pay-per-click payment.
Because the ads are related to what your users are looking for on your site, the results can be much better than you'd earn from banner networks and many affiliate programs.
For now, AdSense is the best way to make money free online from informational sites even if there are no obvious related affiliate programs. But you don't need to disregard affiliate programs. You can combine both these ways to make money free online and double your income.
AdSense is easy to join, it doesn't cost you anything, all you have to do is paste a few lines of code into your pages, and Google does the work of finding the best ads for them from hundreds of thousands of AdWords advertisers. You can check the relevance of the ads by looking at the text ads on the right side of this page.
There are three obvious ways to increase your income from Google AdSense...
1) Increase traffic
Create more keyword-focused pages. See Building: Site Content: Choosing Keywords for more information on finding the most profitable keywords.
2) Increase click-through rate
Use simple design with the AdSense ads displayed prominently. According to Google, ads in the skyscraper format works better (especially on the right side of the page). Focus to only one topic per page - that should make it easier for Google to serve up the more tightly contextual ads which means better click-through.
3) Increase the value of clicks
Of course, you can't do it directly. However, you can find some "expensive" keywords and create pages optimized for them, within your site's theme. These keywords are highly competitive and you'll unlikely get high ranking for them, but visitors will arrive from other "inexpensive" pages and click on Google's ads.
To estimate the relative value of a keyword, search for it on FindWhat. The search results page will show the cost for each listing.
Directories are often over emphasized - "they are the most important part of your website promotion", or under utilized - "I don't know any directories other than Dmoz or Yahoo so I'll just submit to them and see what happens".
The role directories can play lies somewhere in the middle. I like to use them as the backbone of my link building strategy. The reasons for this are simple:
1. If you choose right they generally always accept your website - there's not many things quite as frustrating as sending out 100 link requests and only hearing back from 10!
2. Their pages are optimized around a certain theme - this means that the page title and the rest of the content on the actual page your link ends up on will often correspond with the theme of your website.
3. Many directories have good Page Rank (4+) which implies good link popularity.
4. The people who build directories "generally" understand SEO and so limit the number of links on a page to 20 at the most - useful for passing Page Rank.
5. Niche directories can be a good source of direct traffic and assist your branding efforts in your particular market.
6. If you're willing to spend a little bit of money the turn around time of getting accepted is normally only a few days.
7. Many directories allow flexibility in the anchor text of your link - for example my link could be Make Money With Adsense, rather than just my domain name - Understanding Adsense. This is important in telling the search engines what your website is about and improving your rankings for your target keywords.
This is only a summary of the good points. There are thousands of directories online, many of which have been set up purely to take a submission fee from unsuspecting website owners. A proper strategy is fundamental to successful directory submission. A good starting point is my website Which Directories.
Search engine optimization is the process of doing certain things so as to rank higher in the search engines - particularly Google, MSN and Yahoo.
If you get listed higher in these three search engines for the search terms that match what your website is actually offering, then you will receive free targeted traffic whose conversion on Adsense will be very good as the ads will match what they're looking for.
The aim of search engine optmization is to tell the search engines what you are relevant to - you are basically trying to tell them which search terms you should rank highly for.
The content on your webpages will already be doing this for you. For example, this page is relevant to "search engine optimization", whereas my home page is relevant to "making money with Adsense". Each page is about a different topic and will therefore be related to different search queries but there are various techniques you can use to stress each pages relevancy to different keyword phrases.
This is called Onpage Optimization and includes:
1. Including a keyword rich title on the page,
2. The appropriate use of Meta Tags,
3. Using Header Tags for your main and secondary keywords,
4. Including your keywords in the content of your page,
5. The appropriate keyword density and placement.
By doing all of this, Google will therefore know that my home page is about "Making Money With Adsense" but how does it determine how valuable it is in relation to other websites which stress they too are about "Making Money With Adsense". How does it determine which order these websites should appear in when someone searches for that term.
Here the second part of seo comes into play which has been named Offpage Optimization or Link Building.
By analyzing the linking structure of the internet the search engines hope to work out which websites and which webpages are more valuable. A link from another site to yours is considered as a kind of endorsement - a vote in your favour.
The aim with link building is to have a good supporting linking structure which pushes you up the search engine rankings and holds you on the first page. There are many ways to get inbound links to your website including:
1. Submitting your website to directories.
2. Exchanging links with other websites (this is called reciprocal linking).
3. Including your website in your forum signature or when you leave comments on other peoples websites or blogs.
4. Submitting articles (which include a link to your site) to many of the internets article directories which other webmasters then take and place on their own sites.
5. By buying text links from one of the internets many text link brokers.
6. By advertising on or becoming a sponsor of another website.
But beware - before you spend months trying to get links from every website you come across the twist in the tale is that not every link carries the same weight. What you want is high value links. The factors which affect the value of a link include but are not limited to these:
- Whether the website is a highly regarded website - an "authority" site.
- Whether the website and it's webpages have a high page rank (note that page rank can be a good indication of value but is not absolute in its accuracy).
- Whether the title of the page and it's content matches or is related to your target keywords
- How many other external links there are on the linking page - there should be no more than 20 links on this page
- The number of steps from the home page that the link page is.
- The anchor text that you can use in the link - you want to be able to use your target keywords and not your business name.
- Who links to the page and to the site?
Please note that this page is an inevitable simplification of search engine optimization in order to give a basic grasping of it. Search engines are constantly evolving the ways in which they rank websites and so search engine optimization must too constantly evolve. It's importance in relation to Adsense is it's ability to drive LOTS of free and targetted traffic to your website and as this websites continues to grow we will cover it in much more depth.
Successful Adsense publishers know one thing. Real money with Adsense has nothing to do with Adsense. The optimization strategies that haunt every forum, blog and article are only a very small part of the story of receiving a sizeable monthly cheque from Google.
The fundamental rule of Adsense is traffic. Without traffic, no Adsense clicks, regardless of how precisely you’ve picked your placements or how much time you’ve spent perfectly blending the ads into the structure of your content so that they now appear as additional links and not advertisements.
The large majority of Adsense Publishers forget this very important fact and focus on solely trying to improve their click through rate. Finding your optimum click through rate is extremely important but cannot take precedence over traffic as without the latter you can not find the former.
If you obsess about optimization before you’ve fleshed out your site and expanded its reach into the search engines you will never actually develop your website and even if you get your CTR up to something quite formidable you will only be making a fraction of what you would be if you’d focused on your sites expansion.
So what should you do? If the fundamental rule of Adsense is traffic, the fundamental rule of traffic is that you can’t get a repeat visitor until they’ve been a first time visitor, and a first time visitor can only come to your website through a certain number of channels.
Putting advertising aside as unless you’re playing the arbitrage game you won’t convert on the margins, you are left with two serious options - the search engine results and incoming links from other websites. The latter supports the former so I always concentrate on getting as many pages under as many keywords into the search engines as are related to the particular website I’m working on. This is Search Engine Optimization territory.
With SEO you are trying to force the search engines to recognize your website and individual pages within it as relevant to particular keywords. What you’re trying to say is that “my website is more relevant, and so more valuable, to that keyword search than the first ten that are already there”. The more times you can convince the search engines of this the more traffic your website will receive. The more traffic your website receives the more clicks it will generate on Adsense and the more money you will make.
Focus on working out which keywords are related to your particular niche, build content of value that answers the question of each keyword phrase and then get supporting links to back up your relevancy. If you do this for your website you will significantly increase your traffic. Once your traffic is organic and automated turn to optimizing your Adsense ads through testing different placements, colors, formats etc. Once you’ve done that, this website can be left pretty much on auto-pilot and you can turn your attention to the next project where you will be very easily able to replicate what you’ve just done. Now you’re into Adsense Empire Building territory and this is where the “real” money lies.
