It looks like we can expect a decrease in our AdSense CTR in the future. Google is changing the clickable area in AdSense ads. Instead of being able to click the entire ad block rectangle, you can only click the ad link title (first line of bold text) and URL (last line of small text). This is supposed to reduce the number of erroneous clicks which many websites rely on for revenue.

It sounds like this change isn’t set in stone yet. As an AdSense publisher, I hope Google ultimately decides against it. If Google does decide to go through with the change, hopefully we will see advertisers dumping more money into Google. A larger percentage of legitimate clicks will drive more quality viewers to the advertiser’s website, giving them a reason to bump up their advertising expenses. It could take some time, but it all may level out - our CTR will drop while our PPC revenue will rise.

You can read more on this over at JenSense.

Got a creative block? Or just want to save yourself some time designing your next website? I’ve kept a collection of bookmarked sites that contain dozens of free web site templates. With a bit of digging, you can find some very high quality templates that won’t cost you a penny - most of which are designed with standards compliant CSS and XHTML.

• Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates.
• Open Web Design - Download Free Web Design Templates
• Download free CSS templates - Free CSS Templates
• Open Design Community - Download Free Web Design Templates - OpenDesigns.org
• The CSS Tinderbox - Open Source Web Design Templates
• Open Source Templates | Free CSS and XHTML Website Templates
• Free web templates by Art for the web
• Free Website Templates, Free Photoshop Web Templates, Website Design
• Free Web Templates | Free Flash Templates | Premium Web Templates
• Free Website Templates

There’s one template from one of those sites that just caught my eye. I’ve been looking around lately for some inspiration for a design for my game cheats website. I think I’ve found it. Time to get some work done.

It’s been a while since I updated this blog. I’m still working on developing a blogging habit.

It turns out one of those sales I made during the Thirty Day Challenge was charged back, so unfortunately I didn’t get paid for it. I’m still waiting on Ed Dale and Dan Raine to get their act together and finish up the awards ceremony for the Thirty Day Challenge.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of surfing around looking at websites for sale. After a week and a half or two of surfing, I found one worth buying. I’ve had it for 24 hours now and it hasn’t made a sale yet (it’s supposed to making about 1.6 sales a day on average). I have until Monday before I need to complete the transaction so I’m hoping it makes a sale before then so I don’t have to return it and waste the 10-12 straight hours of work I spent on it last night. At least the site looks acceptable now, and the bounce rate appears to have gone down.

I just got my hands on a few great albums.

• Fatboy Slim - Why Try Harder
• Prodigy - Their Law
• Basement Jaxx - The Singles

I was headed off to one of my favorite websites, Lavamus, when I noticed their domain failed to load. I did a little research and it seems it was ripped down due illegal selling of music without royalties. That lead me to the whole fiasco with AllOfMP3 which then lead me to their new clone site MP3Sparks. And finally, that lead to the purchase of the three albums listed above which are the top picks of the Electronica category.

Fortunately, Lavamus is up again so I can continue to enjoy my $80 music credit - which I happened to get for free for a few backlinks. Their search function is horrible but they generally have the most obscure techno and trance tracks and that’s why I love ‘em.

Anyway, all three are awesome albums if you enjoy electronica with a hint of rock and funk.

Woohoo! After all that trouble with my first site - getting tumbled, redoing it on its own domain, getting slapped for duplicate content, etc. - it finally made me a sale. Now I just need to get them updated and submit a few more pages to social sites to get the traffic flowing again.