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May 10th, 2006 
QuadsZilla Have you ever noticed that when you go to MSN, Yahoo, or Google the cursor goes to the search box when the page loads? I know I notice it when I start to type something in the address bar and half way through the cursor goes to the search box. I call this phenomenon the “mouse trap.”
The reason the search engines force the cursor to the search box on their sites is the same reason you should do the same on your site: to make more money. I have made this change on SEO Black Hat and will show you how to do the same on your sites.
Aaron Wall points out that the Adsense search box is the most profitable ad unit per pixel you can have on your website. BY A LOT!. So for this project:
– Sign up for Google Adsense.
Once you have an Adsense account:
1. Log in and choose the AdSense Setup tab.
2. Choose the Adsense for search
3. You can choose either the Google WebSearch or the + SiteSearch option.
4. Customize the colors however you want and generate your code.
It should give you a code that looks like this:
<center>
<form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="google_window">
<table bgcolor="#ffffff">
<tr><td nowrap="nowrap" valign="top" align="left" height="32">
<input type="text" name="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value=""></input>
</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top" align="left">
<input type="submit" name="sa" value="Google Search"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-8383871056003291"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1; DIV:#FFFFFF; VLC:663399; AH:center; BGC:FFFFFF; LBGC:336699; ALC:0000FF; LC:0000FF;T:000000; GFNT:0000FF; GIMP:0000FF; FORID:1;"></input>
<input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en"></input>
</td></tr></table>
</form>
</center>
5. Cut and paste this code to a text editor.
6. Now you have to add a name (let’s go with name=”google”) in the form tag so:
<form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="google_window">
becomes
<form method="get" name=”google” action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="google_window">
7. Paste this code where you want the search box to appear on your site.
8. Change your <body> tag to
<body onLoad="self.focus();document.Form_Name.Field_Name.focus()">
So in this case it becomes:
<body onLoad="self.focus();document.google.q.focus()">
9. Profit!
Now, whenever anyone goes to your site, the cursor will go to the search box so if they start typing and press enter, it will do a Google search. If there are adwords for the search term, they will appear on top of the search results. When they are clicked, you get paid.
I’m about 99% sure this is kosher with Google (after all, they do it themselves!). Matt, if you could give this method a thumbs up I’m sure everyone would appreciate it.
Posted in 
I’m on to the real genius of this, sneaky pants. but I won’t spoil it for you
-the mole
[...] Interesting cursor trapping technique described by SEOBlackhat. “The reason the search engines force the cursor to the search box on their sites is the same reason you should do the same on your site: to make more money” [...]
hi, this is my first comment: first of all u’re great seo-game genius – i’ve always considered this a cool game.
I dont know if i got the point here, after the search people have to click on the ads to make me money, right? so qhat is the advantege of this instead of normal adsense?
ciao
Isn’t this kind of a modification against the AdSense TOS? – How about leaving the code intact?
Additionally, why not place a popular – and related – search term in the box ready for the site visitors to click? And why not vary the search term every day or so and monitor and compile a list of the most popular, then a simple server-side script could alternate the most popular on a daily or by-daily basis?
I’ve got a feeling this technique may be very effective on forums, because it seems natural to search for information on them. Gonna try it in the next few days….
Just a quick thought: instead of displaying Adcents, why not produce your own site-search results (one way is with ZoomSearch) and include your own affiliate links at the top (potentially more profitable than Adsense).
“I’m on to the real genius of this, sneaky pants. but I won’t spoil it for you”
Depends if your talking about within the TOS are as a slam dunk action, grab the $$ and run
I have been a long believer in the S’box as the PPC between content and search within a’sense is very different between the 2.The PPC for an S’box click in my experience tends to be 30% higher as so nany advertisers due to click fraud are staying away from the content network
With sites 140 pages per site + relevant unqiue content (not scraped, article bot(ish)crappy TE sites etc…..) I still get a good % of house ads with a’sense, as so many advertisers are wary of getting shitty results after paying $10 + for an insurance click because the winged monkeys at there agency are so stupid and waste 30% of there results buying such wide reaching results
The biggest crime is how PPC agencies buy for there clients, I am going away for a week and I am looking for a hotel by an airport as a pickup location. So I look for “Malaga airport Hotels”
Skip the affiliates as most of the results are from PPC companies buying broad searches “Hotels” “airports” etc..
I know its not new news but am in a bad mood and I am sick of people saying my style of traffic is B’S
So if for example someone wants to search for “best deal on widgets” at least my traffic might get banned from the bigger engines but is targeted
Anyway I’m in ranting mood so best if I go now to the corner of my living room and scream a bit at myself, chanting “die agencies die”
On the upside will be on a beach tomorrow so maybe will find some harmony
[...] Tutorial: Make More Money on Your Sites with a Mouse Trap [...]
This can be handled without modifying the Google code at all, and presumably not violating TOS. Just create a little JS function that selects all of the elements by name (”q” in this case). If you know you that you don’t have other elements on the page with a name of “q”, just set the focus on the element that is returned. If you have multiple, just handle the loop appropriately based on your page structure.
Devilfish,
Are you saying that if an adwords advertiser opts out of advertising on the content network his ads will still show for searches done from an adsense search box? Isn’t that still considered part of the content network?
Ever since Adwords seperated the ability to bid on the content and search network, adsense payouts for content have gone way down. Maybe this is a way to avoid that problem?
Here is an idea I have thought about but never tried.
What about having the search box results automatically and directly appear on the page?
That way all SERPS on your page result in you getting paid. Heck, you might consider leaving the Adsense off completely if the search box serps make you more money.
I call this stealing focus. Its time for the mozilla people to add more checkboxes to advanced JavaScript settings.
I did it filling search box with the same keyword used to build optimized page, u don’t have to change google code and user only needs to clik on “search” button
it works great
Hi I got this to work with IE but not firefox. But still awsome Thanks