[Inside AdSense] Promote your feeds and gadgets with iGoogle

Have you heard of iGoogle, Google's personalized homepage? Well, tens of millions of users have, and with a just a little bit of effort you can share that traffic.

iGoogle allows users to bring together their favorite content and services from around the web by adding feeds and gadgets to their Google homepage. Let's start with the basics of what feeds and gadgets are, and how you can create them for your own site:

• A feed is a format that allows your content to be delivered (and subscribed to) on the Web. This allows users to preview your content wherever they go, making it easier for them to find out whats new on your site and reminding them to come back. To learn more about feeds, check out Feedburner for everything you need from basic set-up to advanced performance tracking and monetization tools.
  
  
• Gadgets are mini-applications created using simple HTML and JavaScript. You can present more complex information in a gadget, such as a calendar, and also help users interact with your content, for example through search. To find out more about gadgets, check out the Google Gadget Center.
  
  

Once you have a feed or gadget -- and for those of you who already do -- you can start promoting it. As a first step, make sure to submit your feed or gadget to the iGoogle directory. Promotion can help new readers find your content and deepen engagement with your existing readers every time they visit their iGoogle page -- all of which can lead to more traffic for you site.

Don't stop there, though. Gadgets and feeds are ranked in the directory according to popularity, so make sure to feature your gadget or feed prominently on your site. One easy way to do so is with the 'Add to Google' button. Simply fill out some basic information, insert a small snippet of HTML into your site, and you'll be ready to go.

Want to find out more about how to raise awareness of your feed or gadget? Take a look at our step-by-step guide.

Posted by Matt Ghering - iGoogle Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/28/2008 01:52:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Image ads for your mobile content

Our mobile ads team is pleased to announce that mobile image ads are now available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and the UK, as well as the US. With this mobile ad type, you now have a new way to monetize mobile content while still providing the same benefits as our standard text ads.

Mobile image ads enable you to take advantage of the large and growing group of Google mobile advertisers. Ads are matched to your site content and the size of a viewer's screen, and are paid on a cost-per-click basis. You can view example ads and sizes in the AdWords Help Center.

For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility and profitability. Publishers choose whether they want to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will then dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time a user is looking at their site.

If you're a current AdSense for mobile content publisher, you'll need to update your AdSense code in order to enable image ads for your site. Directions on how to do this can be found in our Help Center. We recommend selecting "Text and image ads" as your ad type, in order to take advantage of all available ads for your content. Once you have your code, paste it into the source code of your mobile website where you'd like to show image ads. If you're new to showing mobile ads, you can follow the same directions to generate code that allows for mobile image ads.

For more information on AdSense for mobile content, check out our microsite or our September post on the AdSense for mobile content product launch. You can also take a look at our posting on the Google Mobile Blog for news on this launch and for information on other mobile and mobile-advertising related topics.



Posted by Alexandra Kenin - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/24/2008 02:23:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Ad Review Center available to all publishers

Many of you have been eagerly waiting for the Ad Review Center to arrive in your accounts, and we're happy to tell you that this feature is now available for all publishers. By enabling you to review all ads placement-targeted to your site, the Ad Review Center gives you more transparency and control, and ensures that ads are relevant to your site's content and users.

We wanted to share a publisher's thoughts about the Ad Review Center, so we chatted with Jennifer McDonald, Account Manager at RealNetworks for sites such as rollingstone.com and film.com. Before using it, Jennifer says that "the concerns Real had... were mainly concerns about running competitive ads on our sites." But she says that by using the Ad Review Center, her team has been able to keep competitive ads from running. As she notes, "We are able to quickly review the ads before they run on our sites and block any ads that are considered competitive to our services."

The Ad Review Center is now available for all publishers utilizing placement targeting. You can get started with this feature by visiting your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab.

Before getting started, we strongly recommend keeping your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately.' This will let you allow or block ads after they have run. If you choose the other option of 'Hold ads,' the ads will await review for 24 hours before being allowed to run automatically. Using the 'Hold ads' setting will keep ads from participating in the auction while they await review, potentially lowering winning bids and your AdSense earnings. Ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either, so we ask that you keep in mind the revenue impact of blocking ads or switching from the 'Run ads immediately' setting.

For more information about using the Ad Review Center, please visit our Help Center, and to start using it, please log in to your account.

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/23/2008 11:10:00 A
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[Inside AdSense] Promoting your referrals -- properly

Some of our publishers have asked us about the policies surrounding promotion for referral units, and so we'd like to address two of the most frequent areas of confusion. While the policies are generally the same for referrals as for standard AdSense for content ad units, there are a few minor differences.

Recommending products vs. encouraging clicks

We previously addressed this topic, but we'd like to remind you of the policy and provide some additional clarification. You can endorse or recommend products you've chosen to refer on your sites, but we ask that you only make recommendations when you're familiar with the specific product and you've decided not to use the 'Pick best performing ads' feature for that ad unit. For example, if you're familiar with a specific travel agency you're referring, you may use language such as "I use this agency and recommend it to book your next vacation." By being honest with product recommendations, you can help build user loyalty and trust, which will benefit your site in the long run.

You may be wondering why we allow publishers to call attention to referral units but not standard ad units. This is because there are significant differences between these two types of ads, the most important being that advertisers only pay for traffic from referral units if the user performs a specific action the advertiser has designated (such as making a purchase from the site or signing up for a newsletter). Please keep in mind that there is a fine line between recommending a product and encouraging your users to click on a referral button for personal profit. Publishers may not ask users to click on the referrals to help them earn money, and may not refer themselves to their own referral products. In addition, publishers may not draw unnatural attention to their referral units with arrows pointing to the units or other similar methods.

Using online advertising

As is true for all sites displaying AdSense ad units, referral units, or search boxes, your site must comply with Google's Landing Page Quality Guidelines (LPQ) if you'd like to use online advertising of any kind as a traffic source. The term 'online advertising' refers to a range of methods, from advertising programs such as AdWords to posting your site within a link exchange or in a forum. However, if the primary purpose of your site is to generate conversions from referral ads, you'll need to go one step further before advertising your site. You'll need to first receive permission from the advertisers whose products you're referring before advertising your site or their products. Please note that Google has made the decision to not allow publishers to use online advertising for any of the Google products or those of our Google Pack partners.

Posted by Uladzimir Hrapelman - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/17/2008 10:44:00 A
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[Inside AdSense] The report of these link units is not exaggerated

I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of data. I look at my own reports frequently and use channels to track the performance of individual pages and ad units so I can optimize my AdSense experience.

I'm also a fan of AdSense for content link units. As we've mentioned before, these units pack a big punch while conserving your screen real estate and can be a great addition to a page that's already using one of our many other products. We've also been doing a lot of work lately to improve the targeting of link units.

This is why I'm happy to announce that my two loves are now coming together. As of today, we've enhanced your reports so that you can view the performance of link units separately from your other AdSense for content units. Even better, the link unit-specific reports contain more information about your link units. A lot of publishers have been asking us for more statistics on their link units, such as the per-link CTR and the number of click-throughs to the link units results page.

To view your new, improved reports, visit the Advanced Reports page under your Reports tab and select AdSense for content. You'll notice a new option to customize your reports -- 'Choose Units'. A 'Combined' report will look just like the data you're used to seeing in your AdSense for content reports, while choosing 'Ad Units' or 'Link Units' will help you look at things with more granularity.


Please note that data is only available dating back to May 2007. Right now, we're having a little issue where, if you generate a report with a date range starting any earlier than May 2007, our report won't show any data, even if there is data after May 2007. Rest assured that our engineers are aware of the issue and are working to display all available data even if the date range starts before May 2007.

Remember, you're allowed to put up to three link units on any given page in addition to your three regular ad units. With better reporting and improved performance, now is the perfect time to start using link units if you aren't already.

Posted by Molly Aplet - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/15/2008 04:23:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on April 12 at 10am PDT

Our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance tomorrow, April 12th from 10am to 2pm PDT. You won't be able to log in to your account, but we'll continue to serve ads to your pages and track your earnings as usual.

Located in a different time zone? Here's the maintenance start time in a number of cities around the world:

Ottawa - 1 pm Saturday
London - 6 pm Saturday
Hyderabad - 10:30 pm Saturday
Hong Kong - 1 am Sunday
Canberra - 3 am Sunday

Happy Friday!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/11/2008 12:24:00 PM
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[Inside AdSense] Sixteen Help Forums, going on seventeen

We've just launched our 17th AdSense Help Forum for Czech and Slovak speakers! If you speak one of these languages, join the new forum today to ask questions and share your AdSense knowledge with other publishers. As with our other forums, an AdSense representative nicknamed 'AdSensePro' will occasionally participate in discussions and collect your feedback.

Looking for an AdSense Help Forum in another language? Try one of these:
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, 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 4/04/2008 10:31:00 A
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[Inside AdSense] Show me the ads

After months of testing, we've just updated our text ad format to include 'next' and 'previous' arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the 'next' button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.


You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/02/2008 10:27:00 A
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