Adsense tricks: January 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Login message clarification

Are you seeing the following error message when trying to log in?

"Welcome! You're signed in to Google Accounts under the email [your email address] and your Google Account password, but this is not a valid AdSense login."

We've heard that there's been confusion among publishers about this login error message -- especially if you're absolutely positive that you've used the correct email address when logging in. (And 99.9% of the time, this is the case.) To help you access your account, we'd like to provide you with some clarification and tips for troubleshooting.

If you're seeing this error message, this means your AdSense account shares the same login and password as a Google Account, but the two accounts are not linked. As a result, when you try logging in at www.google.com/adsense, our system will only grant you access to your Google Account -- not your AdSense account. To resolve this issue, you'll need to maintain two separate passwords.

The easiest way to proceed is to first ensure that you're logged out of Google Accounts for any other products you use, such as Gmail or AdWords. Then, change your AdSense password at https://www.google.com/adsense/assistlogin. You'll be asked to submit your login email address to us, and we'll then send a reset link to that address. When changing your AdSense password, please be sure to select a unique password that you're not using with any other Google product. After you've changed your AdSense password, please try logging in again at www.google.com/adsense.

We understand that this is inconvenient, and we apologize for the confusing situation. We're working on migrating all AdSense accounts over to Google Accounts, and in the meantime, we appreciate your patience.

Posted by Arlene Lee – AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/31/2008 02:49:00 A
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Pinning it down (to $10)

As part of our efforts to make sure that the AdSense account details publishers provide are valid and correct, we do a couple types of validation that you may be aware of: the Personal Identification Number (PIN) program and, in some locations, phone number verification. One or both of these verification methods is required in order to ensure the security and accuracy of your information so you can receive payments from AdSense.

In the past, our system would ask you to verify your information when your earnings reached $50. However, we've recently changed the threshold to $10. This lowered amount means many of you may see a PIN arrive in your mailbox soon, as well as a prompt in your account to verify your phone number. For more information about these holds, visit the links in the 'Required Actions' box on your Payment History page.

(Psst: If your all-time earnings are between $10 and $50, this might be a good time to learn all about PINs so you'll know what to expect. Or, if you prefer surprises, you can remain blissfully ignorant till a PIN mailer pops up in your mailbox. Just be sure you don't pitch it in the trash!)

Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/29/2008 03:24:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, January 24, 2008

[Inside AdSense] AdSense in fashion for those who wear many hats

Here's another AdSense Story Contest submission, this time from
internet entrepreneur Shawn Collins of New Jersey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OkN0Szx1uc

Shawn has been an affiliate marketer since 1997, and joined AdSense in
2003 after he found it to be a natural extension for monetizing his
websites. He wears a lot of different hats as an Internet marketer --
not only is Shawn the co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference,
but he also runs the Affiliate Buyer's Guide and is an affiliate
himself.

Before AdSense, Shawn relied on running affiliate ads and selling
space on a CPM basis. This could be hit or miss, as he would manually
try to place ads that were the best fit. As his sites grew, he would
sometimes forget about a time-sensitive ad, and that ad slot would
become wasted space. "With the contextually served ads from AdSense,"
Shawn says, "my advertising is always fresh and spot on."

Shawn also blogs daily about affiliate marketing and maintains an
affiliate manager resource site. His audience is savvy, since they're
internet marketers as well, so he considers it essential that
targeted, relevant advertising is served up to his visitors. According
to Shawn, "AdSense is an ideal solution for my varied web properties,
and I work with AdSense for content, AdSense for search, referrals,
and video units."

As Shawn mentions in his video, one of the highlights of his day
(sometimes many times a day) is when he logs in to his AdSense
account. He likens it to holding a lottery ticket as he waits for his
daily earnings to be revealed. "I try to guess the daily total, based
on my past performance, which makes the whole process a little more
fun. When I experiment with new placements or have a particularly good
day with my traffic, it's always a thrill to see my milestones
measured in AdSense commission spikes."

Posted by Ryan Hayward - AdSense Product Marketing
Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 2:11:00 PM

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

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Hebrew AdSense Help Forum launched

We're all about numbers and international launches this week, so we're excited to tell you that we've recently launched our (sweet) 16th AdSense Help Forum, this time in Hebrew. If you're a Hebrew-speaking publisher, visit the new forum to ask your questions about the AdSense program or share your advice with other publishers. You may also see occasional posts from a Google representative nicknamed AdSensePro.

With the ever-growing number of forums in a wide variety of languages, now's a great time to join the AdSense community in your language! Our forums are also available in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/23/2008 01:12:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Inside AdSense, now in Russian

We've just brought the number of AdSense blogs to an even dozen with the launch of our latest one -- Inside AdSense: Официальный блог Google AdSense. If you're a Russian-speaking publisher, you can rely on this blog for information about the latest AdSense news and feature releases in your own language. We also hope you'll find it to be a useful resource for optimizing your sites and making the most out of your AdSense account. Our Russian support team will address frequently-asked questions among Russian-speaking publishers, and share local case studies with you.

Не забудьте подписаться на рассылку, чтобы получать последние новости на ваш email!

Posted by Pavels Kilivniks - Russian AdSense blog team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/22/2008 12:11:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, January 18, 2008

[Inside AdSense] A follow-up to our referrals announcement

You may have seen our recent post about the upcoming changes to referrals promoting AdSense. Since we made this announcement, we've received a number of responses about the program being dependent on the location of the referring publisher. We've carefully considered your feedback, and have decided to modify the original plan.

The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You'll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You'll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January.

The option to add a referral unit for AdSense will reappear in your account when you target any referral unit to Japan and/or any countries in North America and Latin America. To ensure payment for valid conversions, we recommend that you check the targeting settings on your current AdSense referral units.

We've also heard from a number of you that you're no longer seeing recent AdSense referral earnings in your account. Please be assured that this is a display error -- past conversions have not been removed from your account. Our engineers are working hard to resolve this issue quickly.

Finally, we'd like to let you know about upcoming changes to the referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox:

Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.
Firefox: We'll also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. Again, this is independent of your location as a publisher.

We understand that these changes may decrease revenue for some of you currently participating in these referrals programs. While it's our goal to help publishers earn as much as possible with the AdSense program, like any other referrals advertiser, we're constantly evaluating our campaigns to make them effective and sustainable.

Again, thank you for your feedback and support of the referrals program.

Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/18/2008 06:50:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Engaging users with policy-compliant images and video

As it's becoming easier and easier to embed videos and pictures on websites, many publishers are now enhancing their current text content with relevant videos and photos. We wholeheartedly support adding these different forms of content to improve the user experience on your site -- hey, we like watching entertaining YouTube videos too! But here's a friendly reminder about keeping our program policies in mind when you choose video and image content for your site.

Before posting videos or pictures on a page with Google ads, put yourself in an advertiser's position and consider whether you would want to have your ad displayed on the page. If your content might potentially be seen as offensive or disturbing, an advertiser may not be comfortable running their ads on that page. Here are a few specific types of content that you can check for:

Adult or mature: Includes, but is not limited to, images and videos containing sexual activity, full nudity, and lewd poses. Please review this recent post to determine whether your content might fall into this category.
Violent or gory: Can include images and videos of street-fighting, people hurting each other, or gruesome accidents and their victims.
Culturally insensitive or hate speech: Includes content promoting racial intolerance or advocating against a specific individual, group, or organization.

Also, keep in mind that publishers may not place AdSense ads on pages involved in the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials. Unauthorized copyrighted materials include music, movies, images, or any other copyrighted material that the publisher does not own or license from the copyright owner.

The list above is by no means exhaustive, since there are always some borderline cases which will feature content that may be tame to one person but offensive to another. If you're uncertain about specific pictures or videos, we recommend that you err on the side of caution and refrain from placing this content on pages containing Google ads. In addition, if you host a site with user-generated content, we ask that you continually monitor your network to ensure that ads don't appear alongside the types of content described here.

Posted by Dan Zilic - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/16/2008 11:03:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Monday, January 14, 2008

[Inside AdSense] In good (tax) form

With tax season looming, we'll begin sending eligible publishers a Form 1099-MISC on January 31st. If you're eligible to receive one, you can expect it to arrive in the mail by the second week of February.

We'll send you this tax form if:

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

If you happen to have your earnings reported on this form, keep in mind that payments dated in 2007 will be reported in 2007. This means that unpaid earnings from 2007 that are rolled over to 2008 won't be included. For example, December earnings which are paid in January won't be included as earnings for 2007.

Whether you're new to AdSense or just find it hard to keep tax details straight, please remember that all publishers are responsible for paying any taxes resulting from participating in the AdSense program. We recommend checking your account to ensure your tax information is up to date.

Posted by Korey Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/14/2008 09:53:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, January 11, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Maintenance on Saturday, January 12 at 10am PST

Tomorrow, from 10am to 2pm, our engineers will be performing routine system maintenance. You know the drill: you won't be able to log in to your account during these 4 hours, but rest assured that we'll keep serving ads to your pages and tracking all clicks and impressions in your account.

To help you plan around the maintenance, we've converted the start time to the local time in a number of cities around the world:

London - 6 pm Saturday
Moscow - 9 pm Saturday
Bangalore - 11:30 pm Saturday
Jakarta - 1 am Sunday
Sydney - 5 am Sunday

Thanks for your patience, and have a great weekend!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/11/2008 02:15:00 PM
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Thursday, January 10, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Sounds of success for Buenamusica

In just three years, Manuel Treto's Buenamusica.com has become quite a successful enterprise. A U.S. based Spanish-language site dedicated to everything associated with music, Buenamusica.com now receives around 100,000 unique visitors per day from users around the world.

When Manuel first started, he knew he needed an ad network that would deliver both English and Spanish ads relevant to his U.S. Hispanic and Latin American visitors -- a one-stop shop with domestic and international inventory. "This was one of our biggest hurdles for monetizing the website," Manuel says. "Several of the networks I tried billed themselves as 'Hispanic networks', but after testing fifteen different ad networks on our site, we were happiest with AdSense. AdSense is better for Hispanic publishers because it usually outperforms all other ad networks by at least 50 percent in earnings, even those ad networks that are specifically targeted toward Hispanic sites."

With a staff of only five people, Manuel and his colleagues wanted a product that could adapt to their needs without requiring significant development resources. "The product's flexibility in terms of customization options is its most impressive feature," says Manuel. "What has worked the best for me is incorporating colors that are already associated with the site. We try to customize everything so that it matches the look and feel of the site, and users have commented on how nicely the ads fit into the page."

Manuel now employs AdSense ads on 100 percent of his pages. He also offers his users the ability to navigate through his site with the Google Custom Search Engine, which he has linked to his AdSense account. This has allowed him to monetize his search results and to generate additional revenue for the site. "The more exposure you give to Google the more money you are going to make, and every little bit adds up. I strongly recommend using other Google products. Using the Custom Search Engine feature is bringing a little bit of Google technology to your website, and you can't beat that."

If you'd like to share your own success story with us, please fill out our questionnaire. If you're not yet an AdSense publisher and would like to get started with Manuel's suggestions, you can submit an application today.

Posted by Meridith Major - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/10/2008 02:19:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Upcoming referrals changes

Are you currently displaying a referral unit for AdSense on your website? Then read on, because there are some upcoming changes to the referral program that you should be aware of. But first let me clarify that only referral units promoting AdSense will be affected by this change; referrals to other products and services remain unaffected at this time. This change to referrals promoting AdSense will differ depending on your location, regardless of where your users are located.

- If you're in North America, Latin America, or Japan, the pricing structure for AdSense referrals is changing.

About a year ago, as an experiment, we changed the pricing structure for AdSense referrals so that when a user you referred to the program earned $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you would also earn $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days and removed all payment holds, you'd receive $250. We have decided to conclude this experiment and return to the original pricing structure. As a result, we'll soon no longer be offering the $5 bonus or $2000 bonus, and the payout for referring a user who generates $100 with AdSense in the first 180 days will return to $100.

These pricing changes will take place during the last week of January. A referred user who reaches $100 within 180 days of signing up and who removes all payments holds before the change occurs will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publisher. Any referred user who meets this conversion criteria after the change occurs will only generate $100 in earnings for the referring publisher. In addition, the $5 bonus will be removed at that time. Please note that the date a user was referred will only affect where the 180-day window is set but not necessarily the payout the referring publisher receives. For example, it's possible that a user referred in early January will meet the conversion criteria before a user referred in early November, and so the resulting payout may differ.

- If you're outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we'll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We've found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. Again, please keep in mind that you can still generate referrals for the other products listed under the 'Referrals' section of your AdSense Setup tab.

Soon, you'll no longer see the option to create a referral button for AdSense in your account, although existing buttons will display as normal. This specific referral type will then be retired during the last week of January - any users who meet the conversion criteria (reaching $100 in earnings within 180 days of sign-up and removing all payment holds) before the change will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publishers. Any conversions which occur after this change is made will not be recorded in your account. You may wish to begin replacing any existing referrals promoting AdSense with referrals for another product or an AdSense for content unit.

We appreciate your support of this referral product, and hope it won't cause you any inconvenience.

Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/08/2008 12:43:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, January 4, 2008

[Inside AdSense] 8 AdSense resolutions for 2008

We're a few days into the new year, so hopefully you've been making good progress on your resolutions so far. If you've only gotten as far as "don't procrastinate" on your list, here are 8 AdSense-related resolutions you might want to try:

Turn my custom channels into ad placements, complete with descriptive details to attract placement-targeting advertisers.
Regularly check my sites for compliance with the AdSense program policies.
Keep my address and tax info up to date so that my payments are accurate and timely. (And sign up for EFT if it's available to me!)
Place more of my ad units above the fold and on my homepage for increased visibility -- and advertiser appeal.
Share my AdSense expertise with other publishers in the AdSense Help Forum.
Opt in to text and image ads to make the most of the available ad inventory for my content.
Use the Manage Ads feature to experiment with removing the borders from my ad units.
View the Payments Demo and payments schedule with rapt attention so I'll always know when to expect my next payment.

And just as some resolutions always manage to make an appearance every year, why not also take a look at our oldie-but-goodie AdSense resolutions from 2006 for further inspiration? (We still like #10 a lot.) As for us here at Inside AdSense, we resolve to keep listening to your feedback and bringing you the latest AdSense updates -- complete with the occasional cheesy title, of course.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/04/2008 11:24:00 A
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

[Inside AdSense] Ring in the new year with Newbie Central

We're excited to introduce you to Newbie Central, our complete resource for new publishers, now live in our Help Center.

We know there's a lot to learn when you're just starting out with AdSense, so we boiled the program down to the basics for our beginners. In Newbie Central, you'll find a walk-through of the initial steps getting started, from familiarizing yourself with your account to placing ads on your site to receiving your very first payment. We've also included some brief guides to help you get acquainted with our various features, policies, and tools.

One highlight is the Earnings and Expectations pages, which provide insight into how much you can expect to earn and you can do to influence your earnings. Whether you're considering applying and curious about potential revenue, or you're an existing publisher and want to boost your current earnings, the Earnings and Expectations section can help.

For you AdSense veterans out there, feel free to point your friends who've been on the fence about joining to Newbie Central, or even use it as a way to brush up on the basics for yourself!

Posted by Vineesha Malkani - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 1/02/2008 12:50:00 P
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Having trouble viewing the links or images in the message above? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

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