I’m a big fan of Google hosted email. You get that great Gmail experience, but with your own domain. It also incorporates Google Docs and Calendar right into the mix so companies can easily share documents and meetings. This is great.

But what happens if your company wants to use AdSense? Well, you have to “sign up” for a Google Account using your email. Then it will create an account for you. But wait, didn’t you already have an account? Yes. So now you have two accounts with the same email, and they are both google accounts, but they are not the same. The AdSense account will also hook you up with Google Docs, but its a whole different Docs than the other account. Confusing, huh?

Now add Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Voice, and Google Reader. They can only use one of the accounts as well.

Furthermore, lets say you had a thriving business and were actually making good money by participating in AdSense? Let’s say this account was under some Gmail address. Well, now you have this wonderful domain address, and you don’t really need that Gmail address. You want to transfer everything over. Well, too bad. You can’t. You just can’t. It’s not like you have to know the right people or something. Google just gets fixated on the email associated with these services and has no concept of ever changing that. They actually “recommend” you shut down the old AdSense account completely and start a new one. Oh, and by the way, the policy clearly states that you can’t have two AdSense accounts at the same time, so that should be a fun (and expensive) transition for you if you choose to make it.

This might seem odd to you. You might even try to search (using Google) for an explanation. But there isn’t one. Google is bizarrely silent on the issue. Well, you can imagine that one day they will have it sorted out, but for now, it’s just a big, and often expensive, mystery.

Update: I recently found that Google will allow you to change your email address as long as it is not an @gmail.com address. So the moral of the story is never ever sign up for AdSense with an @gmail.com address.

I hate that AdSense only reports on what channels have had activity, not on the actual ads. It’s ridiculous, just show me which ads were seen and clicked. Instead I end up creating one channel per ad, which is just a pain in the ass, and then things still don’t ad up. For instance it will show 100 ads have been clicked but only 99 clicks have happened on any available channel. So where did the other click come from?

The way these ads are set up just begs for people to stop using them. I think of them as what I use as an experiment or when I can’t think of anything else. We’ll see what happens.

I’ve come up with the four main kinds of AdSense ads:

1. The Honest Guy Ad

   These are purchase by small companies who have a good product that they actually want people to click on and buy. When Google places these ads on your site and the right reader comes along, it’s good very everyone involved, and you get a click. This almost never happens because these people don’t have enough money to buy enough ads to succeed.

2. The Spam Ad

   This is the most common type of ad. When you start out, you get almost all spam ads. Generally, while these ads are trying to get clicks, which is good, they don’t because they’re lame. Additionally they make your site look bad. These ads are only good for Google.

3. The Impression Ad

   Bigger companies with large budgets buy these. For instance, a dog food brand would use these. These ads aren’t attempting to get clicks, which is bad. They just want to look pretty and use your website to build brand recognition. If you have a blog about pets, for instance, almost all of your ads will impression ads. These ads are only good for Google and the advertiser.

4. The Exploitation Ad

   These are not only the worst kind of ad, they are just plain bad. These are the ads by people who believe the opposite of you, who buy ads on certain key words you use, to insert themselves in the eyes of their opposition. These are basically impression ads. These only make money for Google. But they give the advertiser what they want, visibility. Ann Coulter loves to have her picture on gay rights blogs, because she’s pure evil, and AdSense is her vehicle.