Adsense tricks: 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

[Inside AdSense] A look back at 2007

2007 is drawing to a close, but before you get out the party hats and start practicing the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, we'd like to take a moment to recap some of the biggest developments in AdSense this year.

New feature launches were abundant in 2007, and many were based on your direct feedback and requests. To help improve the performance of your ads, we revamped the look of our ad formats and introduced ad placements to let you promote your site to potential advertisers. The new Manage Ads feature gave you the ability to make changes to your ad units directly in your account and quickly experiment with optimizations. In addition, we launched such features as video units, AdSense for mobile content, and referrals 2.0 to bring in new revenue streams for your site. Still others like the Allowed Sites list and the recently announced Ad Review Center were inspired by your requests for more control over your ads and your account.

With our growing community of publishers around the world, we also continued our international expansion of products and online resources. AdSense for content was launched in languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Bulgarian, while AdSense for search became available in a number of Southeast Asian languages. We added payment options such as Western Union Quick Cash in a few countries and EFT in Mexico. To help publishers connect with one another around the world, we introduced AdSense Help Forums in 9 new languages, including Polish, Arabic, and Russian.

And of course, we can't forget to mention the exciting things that happened right here on our blog. We welcomed 6 new languages into the Inside AdSense family (Italian, Korean, Japanese, French, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese), bringing the total number of AdSense blogs to 11. All 11 blogs combined received 2.6 million pageviews from 1.7 million visits, and global Groups subscriptions to all blogs crossed the 43,000 mark.

Finally, we'd like to close with our second annual Reader's Choice Award, which goes to the post you visited most this year: 'Introducing video units'. Accepting the award on behalf of the post is author Ryan Hayward, who had this to say: "In a world where Hollywood writers are striking and my favorite show, 'The Office,' is off-air, I hope that announcing video units helped to fill the creative void and made each of our lives just a little more entertaining. Cue the orchestra."

Here's to a very happy and prosperous 2008. Cheers!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/31/2007 07:07:00 A
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Saturday, December 22, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Happy holidays from the AdSense team

We'd like to send our warmest holiday wishes to all of our publishers around the globe. While you may not be catching snowflakes where you are, we hope you find a winter wonderland (or summer wonderland for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere?) wherever you're located this holiday season.

Our U.S. offices will be closed until Thursday, December 27th, so it may take us some time to respond to your emails. In the meantime, you can consult our Help Center for immediate answers, or spread holiday cheer by discussing your questions with other publishers on the Help Forum.

Happy holidays!

Posted by Arlene Lee on behalf of the Google AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/21/2007 11:38:00 A
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Thursday, December 20, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Manage Ads gives you more ad functionality

As we mentioned last week, we're constantly working to improve the new ad management feature. There's another wave of minor tweaks to this feature, inspired by your feedback as always.

Hide and seek
We've heard from more than a few of you that you'd like to see a 'delete' function on the Manage Ads page. To avoid deleting any ad unit that's currently serving impressions on your pages, we've now added a 'hide' function so you can avoid displaying ad units you prefer not to see on your Manage Ads page. Just click the 'Hide' link associated with a specific ad unit in the Actions column, and the ad will no longer appear when you view your Manage Ads page. Don't worry, hiding any active ad unit won't prevent it from generating revenue for you, and you can view your hidden ad units at any time by checking the box that says 'Show hidden AdSense units'.

Channel IDs for all
In addition to AdSense for content, you can now view the custom channel ID numbers associated with other AdSense products (e.g. AdSense for search and referrals). Visit the Channels page under the AdSense Setup tab, and select the tab corresponding to the product you'd like to view.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/20/2007 11:00:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Saving your advanced reports for later

The busy holiday season is upon us, so you may not have the time to sit in front of your computer waiting for your AdSense reports to finish running. That's why we're happy to announce that any advanced reports you generate will soon automatically be saved in your Report Manager once they're completed.

This means that while you can still wait on the Advanced Reports page for your reports to complete if you choose, you no longer need to do so -- instead, you can navigate through the other pages of your account or even log out once you've submitted the request for a report. You can then view or download your requested reports at a later time in the 'Recently Generated Reports' section of your Report Manager, located under the 'Reports' tab of your account. We're gradually adding this feature to all publisher accounts, so feel free to check for it over the next few weeks.

Your Report Manager will save up to 20 of your most recently generated reports, which will be timestamped with the date and time they were created. We hope this new option allows you more flexibility in choosing when and how you access your reports.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/18/2007 05:50:00 P
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Monday, December 17, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Add taxes to your task list

To all our US publishers: before you spend the holidays gorging on sugar-coated culinary delicacies and spending quality time pelting your loved ones with snowballs, please take a moment to update your AdSense account tax information so we can issue your tax form for 2007. Verifying that your tax info is up to date now helps ensure that earnings won't be withheld from you later. You'll receive a tax form 1099-MISC if you meet the following requirements:

You submitted a Form W-9, are not a corporation, and were paid at least US $600 in 2007 OR
You indicated that you are subject to backup withholding and had taxes withheld

For those publishers whose earnings are reported, please note that payments dated in 2007 will be reported in 2007. This means that unpaid earnings from 2007 that are rolled over to 2008 (for example, December 2007 earnings paid in January 2008) will not be included.

To resubmit or update your tax information, please follow these steps:

Log in to your AdSense account
Click the 'My Account' tab
Click the 'Tax information' link
Follow the instructions on the 'Tax information' page to update your current form, or to submit a new form.

Don't forget to add "update AdSense tax information" to your to-do list!

Posted by Korey Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/17/2007 12:47:00 P
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Thursday, December 13, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Introducing the Ad Review Center

In an effort to provide you with more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your pages, we've developed the Ad Review Center. This new feature, which we'll be rolling out to publishers over the next few months, will allow you to review ads placement-targeted to your site and ensure those ads are relevant to your site's users.

When you first opt into the Ad Review Center, you'll be able to see all placement-targeted ads currently targeted to your site, and a couple of days later you'll be able to review placement-targeted ads that have previously run on your site. If you think an ad is not relevant for your users, you can prevent it from appearing again by blocking it in the Ad Review Center. We recommend you carefully consider the revenue impact of blocking an ad, since blocked ads won't compete in the auction on your site, and advertisers whose ads you block may choose not to target your site again in the future.

In addition to letting publishers weigh in on the relevance of placement-targeted ads, the Ad Review Center will also help advertisers improve their placement-targeted ad campaigns. When you block an ad, you'll be prompted to select a reason. We'll share this constructive feedback with advertisers so they can use it to improve the quality and relevance of future ad campaigns.

As we've done with past features, we're gradually launching the Ad Review Center to all publishers over the next few months. When it has been enabled for your account, you'll see a green notification box at the top of your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. By default, the Ad Review Center will let you review all placement-targeted ads after they have run on your site. However, if you have a strong need to manually review ads before they appear on your site, you may do so by clicking on the 'update settings' link in the Ad Review Center. You'll then have 24 hours to review ads before they are automatically allowed to run on your site. Please note that you can also return to the Ad Review Center and allow a previously blocked ad, or block a previously allowed ad.

We strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to 'auto-allow' and review ads after they have run. Ads don't participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked cannot compete in the auction either. The actual revenue impact will vary in each publisher's situation, but when using the Ad Review Center, please consider the revenue effects of blocking ads or switching from the auto-allow setting.

To learn more about the Ad Review Center, please visit the Help Center. We hope you find this new feature useful and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/13/2007 02:36:00 P
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Farewell Onsite Advertiser Sign-up

We have high standards for the services we offer, which means we constantly reevaluate existing features to ensure they are effective as the AdSense product continues to expand.

Our recent findings indicate that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature, which allowed advertisers to sign up for AdWords campaigns on your site, hasn't been performing as well as we had hoped. We've elected to gracefully retire this feature and focus our efforts on developing and supporting features that drive better monetization results for you. Call it time management, call it ROI, call it our unwavering commitment to our publishers. We want you to earn more revenue, and sometimes that means "sunsetting" certain features we created.

Please be aware that any links you've created that lead to a customizable Onsite Advertiser Sign-up page will soon re-direct to the main AdWords sign-up page. Of course, AdWords advertisers will still be able to target your individual sites by using placement targeting. Thanks for your support of this feature in the past. We hope its departure won't cause you any inconvenience.

Posted by Ben Ewing - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/12/2007 10:47:00 A
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Monday, December 10, 2007

[Inside AdSense] New Manage Ads improvements, compliments of you

We've been listening to your comments on our new ad management feature, and so we're excited to tell you about a few updates that stem directly from your requests:

You can now view the ID number associated with a specific custom channel by visiting the 'Channels' link under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. Many of you told us that you needed these channel ID numbers for ad management programs you're using. We've added this information to your account since it no longer appears in your ad code.

Any ad units generated within the last 7 days that haven't yet received any impressions will now be listed as 'New', rather than 'Active', in your status column. This should help avoid confusion about your newest ad units and those already appearing on your pages.
You can now view the most recent date when each of your ad units was updated. Please note that these dates aren't retroactive, so any ad units you generated or edited before this display change will show a last-edited date of November 1st, 2007.
We're starting to slowly roll out the manage ads feature for your referral units. Just as with AdSense for content units, you'll soon be prompted to enter names for your newly generated referral units. If you'd like to make changes to your referral units at a later time, you can visit the 'Manage Ads' page. In the 'Content' column of this page, your referral units will display 'Referrals:' followed by the products or category of products being referred.

It doesn't end here, though -- we've got a few more enhancements planned for the Manage Ads feature in the next few weeks, so keep checking back for more updates. In the meantime, please continue sending your suggestions our way.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/10/2007 09:54:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, December 7, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Phone verification fixed

Our engineers have now resolved the phone verification issue we reported on Tuesday. If your account is still on a phone verification hold, please feel free to retry the verification process. For instructions on removing any holds on your account, visit your Payment History page and look for a 'Required Actions' box at the top of the page.

As always, we appreciate your patience.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/07/2007 04:34:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, December 6, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Meet mobile publisher Mikle

In September, we introduced AdSense for mobile content to provide a simple solution for increasing revenue from your mobile sites. We recently interviewed Jaehong Lee from Japanese mobile site Mikle to find out more about his experience with using AdSense for mobile content.

Currently, Mikle's bulletin boards attract over a million unique visitors each month. With user-generated content ranging from entertainment to nutrition, Jaehong had been looking for a manageable way to monetize Mikle's mobile pages. He found his answer when he began using AdSense for mobile content this year.

Jaehong highlights the performance and convenience of AdSense for mobile content, stating that "the performance of AdSense has been way better than our expectations. Moreover, the features for managing ad performance are easier and more convenient than other ads services. It saves a lot of effort for us in managing and monitoring ads."

With features such as editorial review and the Competitive Ad Filter, AdSense for mobile content has saved Mikle substantial time. Jaehong explains, "We hire people to check all messages and comments posted on our site. The cost of this work was significant... AdSense for mobile content's great performance lets us be free of a lot of work from managing ad performance. We now have firm profitability and can concentrate our resources on the efforts of service development and operation improvements."

To learn more about AdSense for mobile content, please visit our new landing page.

Posted by Takayuki Funakoshi - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/06/2007 01:43:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

[Inside AdSense] And the winner is...

Recently, we launched the AdSense Story Contest and asked publishers like you to send in video of your experiences with AdSense. We were thrilled by the enthusiasm and creativity you put into these videos. Although we can only award one winner, we'll be sharing some of our favorite submissions with you over the next few weeks.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...

Congratulations to Don Vandervort from Hometips.com for his winning video submission! Before we show you his video, here's a little bit of background about Don and HomeTips.

Interestingly enough, HomeTips.com started out in a backyard clubhouse. Don converted the bottom floor of his sons' two-story treehouse into a small office, and launched HomeTips from that office in 1997 as an online portfolio to promote his books. In 2003, Don heard about the Google AdSense program and thought it might be helpful in generating revenue for HomeTips.

During the first week, Don remembers that AdSense revenue paid for coffee; in the second week, it paid for lunches. Now, AdSense revenue pays for all salaries, overhead, and business development. "Solid content is the secret to developing a following," says Don. "If you write expert content with your visitor's needs in mind, the rest will follow." We'll let Don tell you more about his site and his story:

You can also read more about Don's story on our Case Studies page.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and stay tuned for other great AdSense stories in the coming weeks.

Posted by Sunil Subhedar - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/05/2007 02:05:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

[Inside AdSense] A few payments announcements

We'd like to notify you about two issues related to November checks and phone verification.

November checks
If you were issued a check at the end of November, you may have noticed the following message printed on the paystub:

CREDIT NOTE -VAT OVERCHARGE BETW.
1 JAN 2004 & 22/11/07 IF YOU NEED
DETAILS OF THIS VAT PLEASE EMAIL
GOOGLE@BDOSX.IE WITH CUSTOMER REF

However, the paystub should have read:

THIS CHECK IS FOR YOUR EARNINGS AS
PART OF THE GOOGLE ADSENSE PROGRAM.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE
EMAIL ADSENSE-SUPPORT@GOOGLE.COM

Please be assured that the November payment you received is for your AdSense earnings and is not a VAT credit note. In addition, this printing error will not affect your ability to deposit your AdSense earnings as usual.

Phone verification
We're currently experiencing difficulty with our phone verification system, but our engineers are working as quickly as they can to resolve the issue. If you see a prompt in your account asking you to verify your phone number, we ask that you hold off on attempting to do so for the time being. We'll be sure to post a follow-up here on the blog when we have more information for you.

We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused by these two issues. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

Posted by Dan Marcus - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/04/2007 06:49:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, December 3, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Save your top queries

If you use AdSense for search on your pages, we'd like to let you know about an upcoming change on December 10th that will affect your top queries reports. To prepare for a few upcoming reporting enhancements, top queries data older than a year old will no longer be available. In other words, you'll only be able to view top queries reports dating back one year from the day you're generating the report.

If you have important top queries data which are older than a year old, please run any appropriate reports and save them before December 10th. You may also wish to generate a report dating from the date you started with AdSense for search to today, as data not within the one year window will be continuously removed.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/03/2007 10:37:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, November 29, 2007

[Inside AdSense] CNN/YouTube debate highlights for your video units

Did you catch the CNN/YouTube Republican debate on Wednesday night? And are you interested in having the debate available on your site for visitors to see? We've set up a channel for your video units to play the night's highlights as well as those from the July Democratic debate. To get the clips for your video units, choose "CNN YouTube Debates" as a content provider on the Edit AdSense Player page. You can also use our new option to choose the specific videos that will appear by typing in the name of the video you want (e.g., "GOP Debate Song") into the Hints box under "Automatic targeting."

The debates are just one example of the compelling content that we plan to bring to your sites with video units. In the coming months, we'll continue to enhance the depth and variety of the content that is available, while making it easier for you to discover and choose what best fits your site.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

As always, to learn more about video units, you can check out our regularly updated FAQs or view our instructional videos on YouTube.

If you aren't using video units yet, now is a great time to give them a try. Sign in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup page to get started with video units.

Posted by Ryan Hayward - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/29/2007 05:49:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

[Inside AdSense] AdSense for search offered for Thai

We'd like to welcome Thai as the newest language to join the AdSense for search family. If you manage a site primarily in Thai, you can now offer Google search results directly on your pages and monetize the results pages. Don't have an account yet? Feel free to submit an application today.

Here are some fun facts about Thailand to celebrate this launch:

The full given name of Bangkok, Thailand's capital city, is "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit". The city's full name is listed as the world's longest place name in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The Thai greeting is known as the "wai", which involves bringing the palms together and raising them to a level between the chest and forehead. The higher the hands are held, the more respect is being shown by the greeter.
The island of Ko Samui is known for producing the most types of coconut palm in the world. In addition, it was mentioned in the 2000 comedy Meet the Parents.

Posted by Patcharin Areewong - AdSense Thai Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/29/2007 09:51:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, November 26, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Play it safe, family-safe

Many of our publishers regularly ask what is exactly considered adult or mature content by AdSense policies. It's a lot easier to understand when we speak about family-safe content. As you may already know, only ads classified as family-safe will be displayed on AdSense publisher websites.

Our policy regarding adult or mature content may include any material that is not appropriate for all audiences. While this obviously includes full nudity or sexual activity, it may also include textually explicit sexual content, image or video content containing lewd or provocative poses, strategically covered nudity, see-through or sheer clothing, and close-ups of anatomy that would be inappropriate if shown nude. Additionally, topics such as sexual health and sex tips may be held to a higher standard of professionalism than content that isn't bordering on mature.

While it's not a sure test, we sometimes suggest that publishers ask themselves the following questions to determine if content is family-safe: Would I be comfortable viewing this content with my parents or children in the same room? Would I feel comfortable viewing this content if my boss walked up behind me while I had this content on my screen? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then it is likely that some advertisers would not be comfortable showing their ads on such content and we might consider it mature.

Posted by Guillermo Bracciaforte - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/26/2007 10:53:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, November 23, 2007

[Inside AdSense] A taxing day of holiday shopping

It's Black Friday, so a number of our U.S. publishers are probably burning off last night's turkey right now by running around the mall looking for deals.

If you find time to log in to your AdSense account between holiday shopping trips, please be sure to check that your address and tax information are up-to-date and accurate. This way, we can properly prepare any tax form you're eligible to receive.

You can resubmit or update your tax information by following these steps:

Log in to your AdSense account
Click the My Account tab
Click the Tax information link
Follow the instructions on the Tax information page to update your current form, or to submit a new form.

In the meantime, if you'd like to avoid the crowds at the mall, why not try shopping on Google Checkout?

Posted by Korey Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/23/2007 03:26:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, November 22, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our U.S. publishers! We'd like to give thanks to all of our blog readers for your continued support, and we hope you have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

We'll be out of the office enjoying turkey (and then cold turkey sandwiches) until Monday the 26th. While it may take us longer to reply to your emails, feel free to visit the AdSense Help Center or consult other publishers in the AdSense Help Forum for answers to your questions.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/22/2007 09:05:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Searching your account for AdSense for content and referrals?

Since the launch of AdSense for search in Indonesian and Vietnamese, many publishers have requested that AdSense for content and referrals be added to their accounts. Unfortunately, we can't do that, since we're not yet able to support these options in Indonesian or Vietnamese. Please rest assured that we're working to offer them in the future.

In light of this, some publishers with AdSense for search accounts have contacted us requesting additional accounts in languages that support AdSense for content and referrals. However, according to our Terms and Conditions, publishers aren't permitted to maintain multiple accounts under the same payee name.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime -- we'll be sure to announce any additional product offerings right here on the blog.

Posted by Thiena Dao - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/21/2007 10:46:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, November 19, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Video units coming to the UK, Ireland and Canada

Following their success in the U.S., we're rolling out video units over the next several days to English-language publishers in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. If you're not already familiar with video units, they're embedded, customizable video players that can enrich your site with relevant video content while enabling you to earn extra revenue from the relevant, non-intrusive ads that accompany the videos.

With this new launch, publishers in the UK, Ireland and Canada will be able to show videos from our YouTube content partners and choose those videos by category, individual YouTube partner, or have video automatically targeted to their site. Based on publisher feedback, we've also just added a feature which lets you choose individual videos to be displayed in your video units.

To set up video units on your site, log in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup page. For more information about video units, please feel free to revisit our original post about the launch and our recent follow-up answering some of your most common questions. In addition, you might find the information in our Help Center useful.

If you don't yet see video units in your account, please check back over the next few days. We're staggering the roll-out to ensure a smooth launch in the new countries where video units are available.

Posted by Terrence Rohan and Ryan Hayward - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/19/2007 11:21:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, November 15, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Accidental clicks fade into the background

Earlier this year we stepped back to examine the value users, advertisers, and publishers derive from clicks on content ads. As you integrate ads with your site's content and navigation, we want to ensure a positive user experience. We identified a few areas for improvement and began implementing changes, starting with our new ad formats in April.

Continuing these improvements, we've just changed our text ads slightly to help reduce accidental clicks. In the past, users could click on both the background and full text of an ad, but now they can click only on the title and URL of a text ad. By allowing users to click only on the ad title and URL, we aim to decrease accidental clicks, better aligning visitor behavior with their intent. Overall, the decrease in accidental clicks will keep users on your website, interacting your content, until they intend to click on an ad.

In addition, this new clickable format better aligns with the text ad formats shown on Google.com. We hope this format change contributes to a better, more consistent user experience.

Finally, this change won't just improve user experience on your site; it benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization for all publishers.

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/15/2007 08:28:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, November 12, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Say hello to placement targeting

We wanted to let you know about two recent changes to our site targeting feature. As you may know, site targeting allows advertisers to select specific publisher sites on which to run their ads. Advertisers can target your site if they've determined a match between their offerings and the interests of visitors to your site.

The first change is that we've renamed 'site targeting' to 'placement targeting' to better reflect the variety of targeting options we offer. Advertisers can still target their ads to an entire site, but they can now also target your individual ad units or groups of pages based on how you've set up ad placements using custom channels. Over the next few weeks, we'll be updating references to 'site targeting' in your account and in our Help Center.

The second change is that advertisers can bid on placement-targeted ads (formerly known as site-targeted ads) on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Previously, advertisers could only bid on these targeted ads on a cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Just as with contextually targeted CPC ads, you'll generate earnings for valid clicks on placement-targeted CPC ads.

While you can also add the URLs of specific CPC placement-targeted ads to your filter list, please keep in mind that all placement-targeted ads will participate in the ad auction with contextually targeted ads. Allowing more ads into the auction will help increase competition and ultimately your revenue.

Finally, we'd like to leave you with a few reminders to help you maximize your revenue potential with placement targeting:

Turn your custom channels into ad placements. These ad placements will allow you to highlight specific sections of your site that may appeal to advertisers.
Enable text and image ads for your ad units. By opting in to different ad types on your site, you'll increase the competition in the ad auction, which can lead to additional revenue for your account over time.
Use the 300x250 Medium Rectangle. This ad format is one of our best-performing ad units, and many advertisers use it when creating rich media (image and video) campaigns. Again, you'll benefit from the increased competition for your ad space.

Posted by Arlene Lee and Katie Mandel - AdSense Publisher Support/Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/12/2007 05:40:00 P
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Friday, November 9, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on November 10th at 10 am

Tomorrow, November 10th, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance. Although you won't be able to log in to your account between 10 am and 2 pm PST, we'll continue to serve ads to your pages and track all earnings in your account as usual.

Our international readers can expect the maintenance to start at the following times:

London - 6 pm Saturday
Kiev - 8 pm Saturday
Chennai - 11:30 pm Saturday
Manila - 2 am Sunday
Melbourne - 5 am Sunday

Some of you have been curious about what our engineers are up to during these maintenance periods. As you can imagine, running the system reliably requires constant nurturing. Some maintenance tasks are more fundamental to the way the system operates and are not easily done on the fly -- as a result, it's most efficient and helpful for us to take the system offline for a few hours. With that in mind, our engineers line up these tasks in advance and implement them during our regularly scheduled downtimes. We hope that these maintenance periods aren't too much of an inconvenience, and we appreciate your understanding.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/09/2007 01:31:00 P
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Thursday, November 8, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Quick update on the Manage Ads feature

Thanks for all of the immediate feedback on our new Manage Ads feature. Your comments have helped us identify a technical issue causing delays in some publisher accounts. This is not directly related to the capabilities of the new feature, but it has been preventing new ad units from immediately appearing on some publisher sites. We dislike delays as much as you do, so our trusty operations folks are working on fixing the problem and we expect to have things back to normal by next week. We appreciate your patience.

We know you have a lot more to say about this feature and we want to hear your feedback, so please send us your comments and we'll continue to keep you updated on future enhancements.

Posted by Traci Hailpern - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/08/2007 04:21:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Answers to your video units questions

Since launching video units to U.S. publishers with English-language websites, we've received quite a few emails about this new product. Here are the top 4 questions we'd like to address:

1. I selected "Automated Content" but the videos aren't relevant to my site. What can I do?

Thanks to your feedback, we've implemented a feature to improve content relevance. Before, if you typed in [cars planes taxis], for example, only videos which matched all of these keywords would be returned. If there were no videos which matched all of these keywords, we delivered a default set of videos from the most popular YouTube partner content. We've modified this so that now [cars planes taxis] will deliver videos which have to do with cars or planes or taxis. This will greatly reduce the likelihood of default popular content being delivered to your units. In general, to refine video targeting with the "Automated Content" setting, you should try different keyword combinations to see what works best.

2. Can I select the individual videos that appear in my video unit?

It isn't currently possible to select individual videos for your video units. If you're choosing "Automated Content" for your video unit, you can further refine video targeting by testing different combinations of keywords.

3. I followed your instructions to link my AdSense and YouTube accounts, but my account still shows as "pending". I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet.

You might have to manually link your AdSense Account to your YouTube account. To do so please follow the steps below.

Log in to your AdSense account.
Click the "Account Access" link located under the "My Account" tab.
Under "sites", find "www.youtube.com" and click the "grant access" link.

Your AdSense account should now successfully be linked to your YouTube account.

4. Do you offer any other sizes for the video units?

Right now, we only offer the three sizes listed in your account when you generate the ad code -- note that the 'mini' size is larger than what appears on your code generation page. We'll be sure to announce any new sizes and styles as they become available.

Please keep in mind that video units are different from click-to-play video ads; while video units contain YouTube partner videos complemented by standard AdSense ads, click-to-play video ads are ads created by AdWords advertisers in video format. At this time, no in-stream video ads will show in your video units.

To make changes to your video units or try them out for the first time, visit your AdSense Setup page. Thanks again for your feedback, and stay tuned for more updates on video units.

Posted by Ryan Hayward - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/07/2007 01:42:00 P
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Monday, November 5, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Simplified ad management is rolling out now

Two weeks ago, we gave you a sneak peek of what was in store for November. Now, we're happy to let you know that we've started rolling out our new ad management feature to publishers! As a reminder, this feature will save the settings of your ad units within your AdSense account. That means, each time you want to change the colors, channels, or even the corner styles for your ad units, you can make the changes directly in your account rather than generating and pasting new code. Again, we're still working on rolling this feature out to all publishers, so don't worry if you don't see it in your account yet -- it'll be there soon.

Below are a few answers to questions you might have about this new feature:

How has the process of generating new ad code changed?
On the 'Get Ads' page of the 'AdSense Setup' tab, you'll find the same code generation wizard you've used before. At the end of the wizard, you'll now be prompted to provide a name for the ad unit you've just created. We recommend using a descriptive name so that you'll remember where you pasted this ad unit. For instance, use names like "Homepage Leaderboard, example.com" or "Top 300x250, Sports pages." You can find more detailed instructions in our Help Center.

Why do I need to name my new ad units now?
With this new feature, all your new ad code will have a name and an unique ad slot ID. This will help you remember them so you can make changes to them later directly on the 'Manage Ads' page. As noted above, please be as specific as possible when naming your ad units and include information such as location, ad size, and domain.

Will the old ad code on my sites still work?
Any ad code you've generated in the past will continue to work as normal. However, please note that the old ad code will not automatically be updated to include this feature. If you'd like to apply this new feature to your old ad units, you can import the code and save the new settings.

Why don't I see anything after adding a new ad unit to my site?
If you're implementing a newly created ad unit on your site, the ad unit may not appear for up to 10 minutes while our servers are informed about the settings for the new unit. Don't feel like waiting? Simply use the Preview function on the 'Manage Ads' page to check out your updated pages immediately.

I made some changes to my ads, but nothing changed on my site. What happened?
Just as noted above, any changes to the ad unit may take up to 10 minutes to be visible. Feel free to use the Preview function to see your changes immediately.

How do I change the size of my ad units on the 'Manage Ads' page?
Unfortunately, size is one of the few things you can't change with this new feature. To change the size of your ads, you'll need to visit the 'Get Ads' page to generate a new ad unit.

How do I delete some of the ad units I created?
Right now, it isn't possible to delete ad units from within your account. This is designed to help avoid instances where an active ad units might be accidentally deleted. However, ad units that have not generated impressions for 7 days will become 'inactive' and will automatically be hidden. You can check the 'Show inactive AdSense units' box to unhide them.

One last reminder - please keep in mind that this feature only applies to ad code generated from your account at https://www.google.com/adsense. If you create your ad code through one of our partners, such as Blogger, Dada.net, or Apple iWeb, you'll continue to use the standard ad code.

Want to learn more about this feature? Feel free to check out our complete guide. You might also find our videos on generating ad code and managing your ads useful.

Finally, we'd like to hear what you think about this feature.

Posted by Cathleen Jia - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/05/2007 06:14:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, November 2, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Right from the resource

We know it can be tough to keep track of all the official AdSense-related documentation we've put online; that's why we're happy to introduce you to the new Resources tab in your account.

We've compiled links to a number of resources under this tab, including the Help Center, Program Policies, and Help Forum. If you're looking to improve the performance of your ads, you can now easily navigate to our Optimization Tips page or to publisher tools like Analytics.

Need help with implementing your ad code or viewing your ads? Try our Demos & Guides or Troubleshooting Wizards, all available under the Resources tab.

Oh, and if you happen to forget the URL of the Inside AdSense blog, you can always find a link to us under this new tab as well. :)

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/02/2007 10:08:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, November 1, 2007

[Inside AdSense] An update on channel reports

We'd like to provide you with an update on the recent channels issue -- our engineers have been working to provide publishers with their missing data, and you should see this data in your account by early next week. Thanks again for your patience!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/01/2007 10:08:00 AM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, October 29, 2007

[Inside AdSense] The story must go on...

We're excited about the enthusiasm we're seeing for the AdSense Story contest, so we've decided to extend the deadline until November 14th. We've received some great submissions, and we're still looking for more. It doesn't need to be a big Hollywood production, just a simple story from the heart about your own AdSense Story -- how has AdSense helped you? Feel free to review our announcement for more details on what to include in your video.

Oh, and did we mention that winning submissions will get some cool Google schwag? Send us your story today!

Posted by Sunil Subhedar - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/29/2007 12:29:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, October 26, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Custom channels up and running again

Over the past few days, some publishers let us know that they were unable to view any data for their custom channels. Our engineers have now resolved the issue, and they're currently working on including the missing data from the past few days. Your custom channels should now be tracking data as normal. Please be assured that your aggregate reports, which are used to calculate payments, have not been affected.

Thanks for your patience, and for bringing this issue to our attention!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/26/2007 04:59:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

[Inside AdSense] Webinar transcript now posted

In case you weren't able to attend our latest webinar, What's New with AdSense, you can now find a recording on our Help Center. Our support specialists cover the latest features such as Referrals 2.0 and Blogger inline ads and provide a refresher on the top AdSense support issues. You can also find recordings and transcripts of our previous webinars.

Posted by Laura Chen - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/26/2007 10:08:00 AM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Coming soon: Make ad changes without replacing code

We're very excited to let you know about an upcoming feature that lets you easily manage your ad units from within your AdSense account. It isn't live yet, but here's a sneak peek so you'll know what to expect in the coming weeks. (We know many of you have been eagerly anticipating its arrival.)

This new ad management feature means that your ad unit settings (such as colors and channels) for new AdSense for content ad units will be saved in your AdSense account every time you generate ad code. Then, if you'd like to change any of these settings in the future, all you do is make the update within your account -- you'll no longer need to manually replace the ad code on all of your pages. For instance, you can quickly change the borders of all your 300x250 medium rectangles from red to blue with just a few mouse clicks. Fancy! We hope that this new feature will help you save time and will simplify the process of optimizing your ad units.

As we noted above, please keep in mind that the ad management feature isn't yet available in any publisher accounts. We'll be rolling it out in phases in the next few weeks, and we'll follow up with another post at that time to help you better understand how to use the feature. When you see the "Manage Ads" page appear under your AdSense Setup tab, you'll know the feature is available for you to use. Here's what it will look like:

Stay tuned to read more about this new feature!

Posted by Traci Hailpern - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/23/2007 09:40:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, October 22, 2007

[Inside AdSense] AdSense Forum now in Arabic

We've recently opened an AdSense Help Forum in Arabic. Drop by the new forum today to post your questions and share your AdSense expertise with other Arabic-speaking publishers. As with our other forums, a Google representative will participate in the discussions and occasionally contribute posts.

This launch brings the number of AdSense Help Forums up to 15. If you aren't yet one of the 54,000 publishers worldwide participating in the forums, we'd like to let you know that they're available in: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Join a forum today to meet and learn from other AdSense publishers!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/22/2007 09:29:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, October 19, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on Saturday, October 20th

This Saturday, October 20th, we'll be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You won't be able to sign in to your account during this time period, but rest assured that your ads will still appear and your earnings will continue to be tracked in your account. Here's the start time converted for various cities around the world:

London -- 6 pm Saturday
Athens -- 8 pm Saturday
New Delhi -- 10:30 pm Saturday
Kuala Lumpur -- 1 am Sunday
Sydney -- 3 am Sunday

We hope the down time gives you more time to work on your Halloween costume. If you're all out of costume ideas, how about dressing up as an ad unit? We suggest the medium rectangle for maximum visibility :)

Have a great weekend!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/19/2007 02:44:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

[Inside AdSense] AdSense Publisher Stories: Askthebuilder.com

Askthebuilder.com's Tim Carter is one publisher who's been able to do
great things with AdSense. Here's his story on moving from building
houses to building websites and how AdSense has helped him along the
way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve-6yFHvZ6M

Now that you've heard Tim's story, we want to hear about your
experience with AdSense. We've heard from publishers who've been able
to keep their site free to users, quit their jobs, and even pay for
their wedding! What have your AdSense earnings enabled you to do?
Whether you have a blog, a small website, or an entire company, we
want to hear your story. There's no need for a production crew or
studio; you can create the video at home with a webcam.

Here's how it works:

1. Shoot a video (2 minutes or shorter) about your story with AdSense.
2. Fill out the submission form at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=youtube
and submit your video as a video response to Tim's video on YouTube.
3. We will review your submissions and pick a few videos to be
featured on the AdSense blog in the coming weeks.

In your video, you may want to answer some of the questions below, but
feel free to include others.

* Where you are from and what you do for a living?
* Why did you create your site, blog, or forum?
* Who is your intended audience?
* How did you hear about AdSense?
* How has AdSense helped you?
* What are some useful AdSense tips you would give to other publishers
so that they can see the same success?

When creating and submitting your video, here are a few important
things to remember:

1. You need to have a YouTube account to participate -- you can sign
up for one at http://www.youtube.com/signup .
2. Be creative! Use props, backgrounds, and sets; however, please do
not use any trademarked logos, images, or copyrighted material for
which you don't have permission to display in your videos.
3. You can disclose gross earnings, but not any specific AdSense
statistics such as clickthrough rate or eCPM.
4. Feel free to talk about your site, but don't advertise or encourage
users to visit your site and click on your ads.
5. By posting your video you give Google the rights to display,
reproduce, and distribute your content.
6. Your video must adhere to both YouTube and AdSense Terms and
Conditions. These can be found at http://www.youtube.com/t/terms and
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/Terms.html . Google has
the right to remove any video submission that does not comply with
these terms.

Submission deadline is October 31st, so what are you waiting for?
Create and submit your video at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=youtube
today!

Posted by Sunil Subhedar - AdSense Publisher Support

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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, October 15, 2007

[Inside AdSense] Celebrating Blog Action Day with Mongabay

It's Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers around the world take time to write about the environment. So, we thought it would be fitting to feature an AdSense publisher who has focused their site on increasing awareness and appreciation of the environment -- specifically, wild lands and wildlife.

Mongabay.com, run by Rhett Butler, originally focused on providing information about tropical rainforests, a topic Rhett is personally familiar with through his travels to a Borneo rainforest that has since been destroyed. In recent years, however, the site has expanded to include environmental news on numerous topics ranging from climate change to green business. He's also added a kids' version of the site aimed to spark interest in youngsters to learn about and appreciate rainforests. Rhett hopes through his work with Mongabay that more people will become aware of the beauty and importance of the environment so they'll be motivated to preserve our remaining biodiversity for the future.

On Mongabay.com, Rhett describes the concept of TREES, which are five basic steps we can take to saving rainforests:

Teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.
Restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.
Encourage people to live in a way that doesn't hurt the environment.
Establish parks to protect rainforests and wildlife.
Support companies that operate in ways that minimize damage to the environment.

The revenue Rhett's sites generate through AdSense has allowed him to quit his 9-5 job and focus on growing his environmental effort: traveling around the world to gain a connection to the efforts he is passionate about, garnering hands-on experiences, and looking for conservation opportunities. This travel also enables him to take these experiences and add valuable content to his website and further educate his readers.

Thanks, Rhett, for raising awareness about the importance of rainforests both to the global ecosystem and to people everywhere.

Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/15/2007 11:09:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

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