Adsense tricks: 2009

Thursday, December 17, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Keeping your account secure

We understand how important your AdSense account is to you. You need to sign into your account to generate ad code, manage the appearance of your ads, view your reports and check the status of your payments. However, keep in mind that your AdSense account is actually part of your Google Account. This means that you may have several Google products, such as AdSense, Gmail, AdWords, Blogger, etc, all tied to a single sign-in.

We take account access issues very seriously and would like to take some time to provide a few simple tips to help you protect your Google Account.

If you're having trouble signing in to your Google Account, usually resetting your password will do the trick. To add additional security to your account, you should update your alternate address, choose a strong security question (if you have Gmail), and add a mobile number to your account so Google can text you a recovery code if you ever forget your password. Also, if you have a Gmail address, we recommend providing a current secondary email address where you can receive our password-assistance email. If you don't have any of these set up, it will be difficult for us to verify your identify and reset your password, so please take some time to update your security options.

If resetting your password doesn't work, you can try filling out our account recovery form. We can usually restore access in a few hours if you're able to provide the necessary information to prove ownership.

Here are some additional tips to ensure that only you have access to your account:

Create a strong password and security question. Your password shouldn't be something that someone else can easily guess. The same goes for your security question. If someone that knows you can answer your security question, then it's probably not a good question. Review these tips for suggestions.
Don't share your account password with anyone. It may be tempting to share your password with your friends or family, but don't do it, especially if it's your personal account. If you need to create an account that is accessed my several people, make sure that the account is not tied to any products that contain personal information.
Don't respond to messages asking for your username or password. Google will never send you an email, IM, or any other communication asking for your sign-in information, so don't respond to any messages asking for it.
Be cautious of fake sign-in pages. Always look for www.google.com/adsense in the URL. If the URL is different, don't sign in on the page. If you think you may have signed in using a fake sign-in page for AdSense or any other Google product, please reset your password as soon as possible to prevent abuse of your Google services by a third party.

You can find more tips in the Google Accounts Help Center.

Posted by Diane Velasco - AdSense Policy Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/17/2009 06:41:00 AM

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Thursday, December 10, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A note about a messaging change in your AdSense account

Today we're changing some messaging in the AdSense interface concerning your earnings, and we wanted to give you some more information on why we're making this change.

In order to be more transparent about how our system calculates earnings, we've added the words "Estimated" and "Finalized" next to "Earnings" throughout your account. Rest assured these terminology changes don't reflect a change to the way your finalized earnings are calculated. It's simply intended to give you a clearer idea of what's our estimation of your earnings and what's finalized.

As you may have noticed in the past, the earnings on the Overview and Advanced Reports pages may sometimes differ from the earnings listed on your Payment History page. This is because earnings on your Overview and Advanced Reports pages reflect initial estimations based on our records. We aren't able to provide finalized earnings on these pages because they still need to be verified for accuracy, a process that takes place a few days after the end of every month. The finalized sum is then posted on your Payment History page by the 10th of the next month.

While we can't say how much these amounts would differ for any one publisher, most publishers will not see a significant difference. Again, please keep in mind that this is only a display change, and that your finalized earnings will continue to be calculated and credited to you in the same way as before.

Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Payments Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/10/2009 01:14:00 PM

Monday, December 7, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Search for Ads in the Ad Review Center

When we announced the new AdSense interface a few weeks ago, we mentioned how we've been working on building more functionality into the Ad Review Center to make it easier for you to find and manage your ads. Today, we'd like to let you know that we're introducing the ability to search for ads in the Ad Review Center. This option is currently available to a limited number of publishers using the new AdSense interface, but we're working on rolling this out more widely as we invite more publishers to test the new interface.

The search feature has been designed to improve your efficiency when finding ads to review. You'll be able to search for ads by keyword, display URL, or destination URL. For example, you can now search for all ads that have been placement targeted to your site with the destination URL of one of your competitors' websites. In addition, you can search across multiple AdSense products, like AdSense for mobile content and AdSense for feeds, and also specify whether you'd like to view allowed, blocked, or new ads.

Although we aren't able to add more publishers to the test at this time, we wanted to give you a glimpse into one of the ways we're working to make the Ad Review Center easier to use. We'll be collecting feedback from the first group of publishers testing this feature, and plan to improve it and then expand to additional publishers in the coming months.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/07/2009 10:07:00 AM

Thursday, December 3, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A deeper look at channels: Targetable channels (Part III of ...

During the past 2 weeks, we walked you through the basics of URL and custom channels. In the final episode, Laurence Moore talks about the two ways in which advertisers can target your website: contextual and placement targeting. You'll also learn how to make your channels targetable by advertisers and label them with information such as size, location, and audience so the advertiser can easily find your channels and make an informed decision when choosing to target your site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8liKWj1k0&feature=channel

Thank you for watching the videos in our channels series, we hope you found them useful. If you'd like to watch more videos from the AdSense team, visit our official channel on YouTube.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/03/2009 01:43:00 PM

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Category filtering for French, German, and Spanish ads

We recently expanded category filtering to publishers in additional English-speaking countries, and we're happy to announce that the feature is now available for ads in French, German, and Spanish. With category filtering, you can prevent ads from up to 8 specific categories from appearing on your pages. Ads in these categories will be filtered if they're in any of the four supported languages, regardless of how they've been targeted to your pages.

To set up category filtering, sign in to your AdSense account and visit your Ad Review Center, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. Once you click 'change', you'll be able to view the full list of categories you can filter. In addition, we'll show you the percentage of revenue and ad impressions you've been receiving from each category in the last 30 days, which can help you understand the impact that applying filters might have.

For more information about category filtering, feel free to visit our Help Center. We're still working towards making this feature available in more languages, and we'll be sure to let you know about any updates.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/02/2009 10:53:00 AM

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

[Inside AdSense] The AdSense Product Ideas page: Now accepting your submissio...

This past year, we've been working on building features based on your feedback, and we'd like to offer you the opportunity to tell us what's on your AdSense wishlist for 2010. What features or product updates would you like to see? Whether it's an idea for a brand new feature or just a small tweak that would simplify your workflow, we'd like to hear it.

With that in mind, we've created a Product Ideas page just for AdSense, and invite you to sign in with your Google Account and submit your suggestions during the next two weeks. You can also look through all submitted ideas and vote on the ones you like.

While we aren't able to guarantee that all the ideas on this page will be implemented, we can guarantee that we'll take the top ideas (as voted by you), and bring them to the AdSense Product Management team for review. By submitting an idea, you agree that Google may use the idea to develop and enhance Google's products and services.

This Ideas page will be open until December 15th, so be sure to add your ideas and vote soon!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/01/2009 11:54:00 AM

Friday, November 27, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Update your tax forms this holiday weekend

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Here in the U.S., we on the AdSense Team are spending the Friday after Thanksgiving enjoying holiday shopping, American football, and leftovers.

On this vacation day, we'd like you to remind you that tax season is approaching quickly, so you may wish to take a moment to review your address information and even re-submit your tax information to make sure it reflects your most current tax standing.

If you haven't entered tax information before, you can choose a form directly or follow our handy tax wizard within your account. If you're updating your tax information, feel free to click the 'change your tax information' link.

In addition, now would be the perfect time for our publishers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to verify their bank accounts for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) payments. If you're eligible for a payment at the end of December, you have until December 15, 2009 to select your bank account for payment, so we hope you give it a try!

Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Payments Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/27/2009 08:04:00 AM

Monday, November 23, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A deeper look at channels: Custom channels (Part II of III)

In the second part of our channels series, we'll focus on custom channels. Boyar Naito will walk you through how to set up custom channels to track the performance of specific ad units. You'll learn about the three pieces of information that are most important to us: ad size, ad location, and page content, and how to analyze this information to figure out what ad formats work best for your website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWgYKjz6Cjo

You can find more information about custom channels in our Help Center. Catch the last part of this series next week, when we'll cover targetable channels.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSenseTeam

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/23/2009 02:42:00 PM

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A deeper look at channels: URL channels (Part I of III)

As many of you know, channels are a great tool for tracking the clicks and impressions on your ad units, as well as figuring out which ad placements, sizes, and colors generate the most revenue. With that in mind, three of our very own Mountain View-based AdSense optimization specialists have created videos showcasing best practices for setting up channels within your AdSense account.

In the first episode, Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo talks about URL channels which can help you track revenue on a specific URL or domain. You'll learn how to set up a channel within your AdSense account, what metrics you can track using channels, and how to use that data to increase your earnings by generating more clicks on your ads.

You can find more information about URL channels in our Help Center. Check back next week, when we'll cover custom channels.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/18/2009 03:38:00 PM

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Google Ad Planner Publisher Center: Take advantage of new wa...

Earlier this year, we introduced the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center to help you showcase your site to advertisers. Now we've enhanced the Publisher Center to give you even more ways to promote and manage your Ad Planner site profile. As a reminder, any publisher can use the Publisher Center, but the user interface is currently only available in English.

Claim your subdomains
You can now claim subdomains, such as myblog.blogspot.com, in Google Ad Planner. Your site's subdomains can also appear in Google Ad Planner to give advertisers a more detailed view of your site for their media planning. Learn how to claim your sites in Google Ad Planner.

Share more Google Analytics metrics
We've expanded the type of Google Analytics data you can share with Google Ad Planner. You can opt-in your page views, unique visitors (cookies), total visits, average visits per visitor, and average time on site, which ensures potential advertisers see the most accurate information for your site. Learn how to share your Google Analytics data.

Delegate site ownership
Managing your website profile in Ad Planner has just gotten easier. You can now invite additional users to edit and maintain your Google Ad Planner site profile.

Display an Ad Planner badge
Highlight your Google Ad Planner profile by displaying our new badge on your site. Advertisers who click your badge will be brought directly to your Google Ad Planner site profile, where they'll find your traffic, demographics, and advertising information.

Choose from four Ad Planner badges:

Tell us what you think
We invite you to sign in to Google Ad Planner now to try these new features, then send us your feedback and ideas so we can continue improving Google Ad Planner for you.

Posted by Wayne Lin - Product Manger, Google Ad Planner

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/17/2009 11:13:00 AM

Thursday, November 12, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on Saturday, November 14

This Saturday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You'll be unable to log in to your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts during this time, but we'll continue serving ads to your pages and tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad targeting won't be affected.

We've converted the maintenance start time for a few cities around the world:

Toronto - 1pm Saturday
New Delhi -11:30pm Saturday
Cape Town - 8:00pm Saturday
Buenos Aires - 3pm Saturday
Moscow - 9pm Saturday
Melbourne - 5am Sunday

If you'd like to learn more about what goes on during these maintenance periods, check out this Inside AdSense post.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/12/2009 01:42:00 PM

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Western Union launched in new countries

We're excited to announce the launch of Western Union payments in the following new countries:

Puerto Rico
Jamaica
Virgin Islands (British)
Ecuador
Costa Rica
Paraguay

Western Union Quick Cash payments will reach you much faster than checks, and they're free of charge. A couple things to note: we can only send Western Union payments to publishers that have an Individual account at this time, and the payee name on your account must exactly match the government issued ID card that you'll use while picking up your payments.

For more information on how to sign up to receive Western Union payments, and instructions on how to pick up your payments please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/11/2009 10:05:00 AM

Monday, November 9, 2009

[Inside AdSense] EFT available in Greece

We're excited to announce that publishers based in Greece can now receive their AdSense payments via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). You'll need to ensure that you're opted into local currency reporting in order to sign up for this payment method.

Selecting EFT as your payment method will allow you to receive your payments more quickly. Rather than waiting for checks to arrive in the mail and clear in your bank account, your earnings will be deposited directly into your bank account. We're fans of EFT, and so our teammates Vijay and Elizabeth have created a video about it. Have a peek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAaO_4pI7-Q

Finally, if you're located in a country where EFT isn't yet available, rest assured we're working hard to offer additional payment options. Stay tuned to Inside AdSense, where we'll be sure to announce any new payment methods.

Posted by Jagoda Sobolewska - AdSense Payments Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/09/2009 02:46:00 P
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Thursday, November 5, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A new AdSense interface: now in beta

Today, at the Content Revenue Strategies conference in New York City, we announced that a small group of publishers will begin testing a new AdSense interface in limited beta. Inspired by the feedback we've heard directly from you, the new interface includes features designed around your top three requests:

Provide insights to help you make more informed decisions about your sites.

The new AdSense interface includes more detailed performance reports and enables you to view daily stats in graphical formats. It also will provide you with additional metrics such as the amount you've earned from various ad, targeting and bid types. Here's a glimpse at what the new reports currently look like in our beta:

Offer you more control over the ads that appear on your sites.

We're also continuing to make improvements to the Ad Review Center. Upcoming enhancements will give you more options to manage the ads that appear on your site, as well as a cleaner interface that makes it easier to find and review them within the Ad Review Center.

Help you manage your account more efficiently.

We've streamlined the AdSense interface to simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously. Additionally, to help you get the most out of AdSense, we've added more relevant help on every page, a message inbox for tips from our team, and alerts with important account related notices.

In order to collect feedback on these enhancements from publishers in multiple countries, we're rolling out the beta test of the new interface today in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. Although we aren't able to extend invitations to additional publishers yet, we're planning to roll this test out to thousands of publishers over the coming weeks. We'll be sending email notifications to the beta test participants to let them know.

Thanks again for all of your feedback so far, and we'll be sure to let you know when we're able to offer the new interface more widely.

Posted by Jonathan Bellack, Group Product Manager, and Tim Evans, Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/05/2009 09:41:00 A
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Show enhanced ads with Google Friend Connect

Today, we're excited to announce a set of new features in Google Friend Connect that let website owners get to know their users, encourage users to get to know each other and personalize their site content, including Google ads. We've just integrated AdSense with Google Friend Connect, giving publishers the option to show ads that match visitors' interests.

When you log in to your Google Friend Connect account, you'll notice a new "Interests" section where you can create a list of questions for users to answer, either as part of your website's registration process or via a poll gadget on the site itself. For instance, if you have a website for guitar enthusiasts, you might ask users to share their preferred brand of guitar, the last concert they attended, their favorite guitar artist, and so on. The details users share are added to their Friend Connect profiles and made publicly available, enabling users to learn more about each other.

These details also allow you to display more relevant ads that match the interests users share. From the "AdSense" section of your Friend Connect account, you can either create new ad units that take users' interests into account or choose to enhance existing ad units on your website.

Please keep in mind that this new integration of AdSense and Friend Connect is separate from interest-based advertising -- the ads in Friend Connect will be matched to your content and the information users have chosen to share publicly with each other.

You can learn more about all the new features on our announcement on the Google Social Web Blog.

Posted by Mussie Shore - Product Manager, Google Friend Connect

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/04/2009 10:35:00 A
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Thursday, October 29, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A more customized search experience for your website

We've posted a couple times about how the Custom Search Element can help provide a more customized search experience for your users while enabling you to earn money. Today we're excited to announce two new features for the Custom Search Element that will enable you to further customize your website search to the look and feel of your site: themes and rich snippets.

Themes
You can now customize the layout and styles of your Custom Search Element. To select a theme for your Custom Search Element, just go to your Custom Search Engine account at http://www.google.com/cse/manage/all and click Control panel. On the Control panel page, in the left-hand menu, click Look and feel.

You can now choose from a number of layouts and color styles for your Custom Search Element. You can also preview your selected theme. Here's an example of the 'Shiny' theme:

If you'd like to tinker further with the look and feel of your Custom Search Element and you're familiar with CSS and JavaScript, take a look at this Custom Search Control documentation.

Rich snippets
Rich snippets are another new feature that allow you to customize the actual Custom Search Element search results with additional relevant content, like thumbnail images and actions. We like to think of rich snippets as a way to add more flair to your Custom Search Element search results.

Here's an example of search results from a Custom Search Element which uses both themes and rich snippets. The thumbnail image next to each search result shows rich snippets in action.

Rich snippets require you to mark up the page with metadata. For more information, check out the Custom Search Developer's Guide.

If you have any feedback for us on either of these new features or on the Custom Search Element itself, please leave a comment. We love hearing what publishers have to say about Custom Search!

Posted by Christine Tsai, Google Web Elements team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/29/2009 11:07:00 A
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Coming soon: Filter more categories

A few months ago, we launched category filtering in a number of English-speaking countries to help you control the ads that appear on your pages. To provide you with more ad filtering options, you'll soon be able to filter 3 more categories from your pages, for a total of up to 8 categories. You should notice this change within the next few weeks.

To get started with category filtering, sign in to AdSense and visit the Ad Review Center, located under the AdSense Setup tab. You can choose from the listed categories, which include religion, politics, and dating, and your selections will be applied to ads in English no matter how they're targeted. Please keep in mind that filtering ad categories may affect your AdSense revenue -- we recommend first reviewing the percentages displayed in your account to understand the amount of revenue you may be blocking.

We're continuing to work on additional filtering capabilities, and we appreciate all the feedback you've provided so far. Feel free to leave us a comment, and visit our Help Center to learn more about category filtering.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/28/2009 12:39:00 P
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

[Inside AdSense] A learning opportunity for education sites

This Thursday, October 22nd, our Dublin-based AdSense team will host a webinar geared towards publishers with sites related to education. We welcome you to join us for an hour, starting at 9am PST/5pm GMT, and learn how you can improve your ad performance. We'll talk you through our top tips and show you sample implementations, and you'll be able to put your questions live to an AdSense specialist. Please be sure to sign up via our Help Center if you're planning to attend.

Posted by Siobhan McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/21/2009 03:00:00 P
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Spotlight on the Custom Search Element

Recently, we introduced Google Web Elements as a new way to easily add dynamic content to your site. In this post, we'd like to focus on one of the Web Elements which you can use to earn more revenue: the Custom Search Element.

As our optimization tips point out, adding search functionality to your site can improve the user experience on your pages and overall make your site "sticky". Here are some commonly asked questions about the Custom Search Element to help you get started:

Q: What do I need to do in order to start earning revenue with the Custom Search Element?

The first thing you should do is activate AdSense for search in your AdSense account. Sign in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup tab. Then, choose 'AdSense for search'. Once you click the "Get started" button, your account will be activated.

After you've activated AdSense for search, the next steps depend on whether you're creating a Custom Search Element that searches your own site or one that uses an existing Custom Search Engine to search across multiple sites of your choice.

If you're creating a Custom Search Element that searches your own site:
You can create your Custom Search Element from the Web Elements site at www.google.com/webelements/customsearch/.
Under "Configure", be sure to select "Search my site and use AdSense for search."

In the AdSense Publisher ID field, be sure to enter your unique publisher ID properly (should start with "pub-"). You can learn how to find your publisher ID in our Help Center.

If you're creating a Custom Search Element that uses an existing Custom Search Engine:

Link your AdSense account to your Custom Search account from the Custom Search control panel as follows:

First, go to your search engines at www.google.com/cse/manage/all.

Click the "control panel" link for the corresponding Custom Search Engine.

In the left-hand navigation bar under "Control panel", click "Make Money".

You'll be taken to a page like below where you can link your Custom Search Engine account to your AdSense account. All you need to do is input your AdSense account information.

Q: Do I need to create a Custom Search Engine in order to use the Custom Search Element?

No. By default, the Custom Search Element wizard gives you the option of searching only your own website. However, if you wish to have your element search websites other than your own, you'll need to first create a Custom Search Engine at www.google.com/cse/manage/create.

Here are a few examples of publishers who've implemented the Custom Search Element:

Yin Yang House

On the Yin Yang House site, search results using the Custom Search Element appear inline on the page, allowing users to search without leaving the current page context.

Digital Inspiration

Villiard.com

For publishers who like to tinker with code, you might find this post useful - it outlines how to further customize your Custom Search Element with CSS and JavaScript.

If you'd like to share your use of the Custom Search Element, leave us a comment! We'd love to see what you've done.

Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Web Elements Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/20/2009 11:01:00 A
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Thursday, October 15, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Extending the "Ads by Google" label to more ads

You've probably noticed the "Ads by Google" label that appears with ads on your site -- we display this label because we want users to have an awareness and understanding of the ads they see online and where they come from.

As more and more advertisers use rich media ad formats, such as Flash and interactive ads, we want to provide the same benefit to users for those ad formats. So today we're starting to add the "Ads by Google" message to rich media ads in a way that's unobtrusive to the ad creative and your site, but as user-friendly as our current "Ads by Google" notices on other ad formats.

You'll soon notice a small "i" (for "information") icon overlay in the bottom right-hand corner of these ads, which will expand when the user hovers over it. This was specially designed for rich media ads. This new message will appear on ads created by AdWords advertisers, and will show up on your website's standard AdSense ad units.

Just like before, users who click on the "Ads by Google" label will be taken to a page where they can learn more about online advertising and the ads they've just seen. Our tests of this new message format on rich media ads showed that they provided information to users without affecting ad performance.

Posted by Robby Stein - AdSense Product Marketing

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/15/2009 09:21:00 A
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Register for upcoming webinars to make the most out of your ...

We're pleased to announce that our Dublin-based AdSense team has just released a new webinar schedule. Over the coming months, we look forward to helping you discover how to take advantage of the full potential of your site. Choose from a range of topics, including optimisation, AdSense for search, Analytics, and Google Ad Manager, and see how you can make the most out of AdSense.

During each of these webinars, an AdSense specialist will guide you through a presentation and will be available afterward to take questions related to the topic. We've heard from previous attendees that they found our webinars worthwhile, particularly for the chance to ask questions and learn more about solutions suited to their sites. We encourage you to join us, and to let us know which webinars would interest you in the future.

The first webinar will take place tomorrow, October 14th, and will cover the essentials of optimisation. To find out more or to register today, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Siobhan McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/13/2009 12:02:00 P
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Thursday, October 8, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on Saturday, October 10

Our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance this Saturday, October 10th, from 10am to 2pm PDT. Although you'll be unable to log in to your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts during this time, we'll continue to track your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad serving and targeting won't be affected.

Here's the maintenance start time, converted for a few cities around the world:

London - 6pm Saturday
Bucharest - 8pm Saturday
Mumbai - 10:30pm Saturday
Taipei - 1am Sunday
Sydney - 4am Sunday

Thanks for your patience, and in the meantime, you might be interested in reading more about what our engineers are working on during these maintenance periods.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/08/2009 10:49:00 AM
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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Meet the AdSense Team in New York City

Start spreading the news: the Content Revenue Strategies (CRS) conference and expo is coming to New York City on November 5th. Formerly known as ADSPACE, CRS will take place alongside ad:tech New York and offer sessions tailored to small and medium sized publishers. You'll have the opportunity to meet other AdSense publishers during the event, and a variety of speakers will share their experiences and techniques to help you increase your AdSense revenue.

You'll also hear from a number of Google representatives at CRS, and we especially hope you'll join us for the two keynote sessions. During the first keynote, Group Product Manager Jonathan Bellack will share insights into our team's product vision and discuss how recent product enhancements can help you grow your business. The second keynote will feature the return of the AdSense Publisher Forum, an open Q&A session where attendees can ask questions directly to a panel of AdSense team members. The panel will be moderated by Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.com, and feature Head of Publisher Solutions Gavin Bishop, Online Sales and Operations Manager Christian Ashlock, and Product Manager Tim Evans.

Lastly, a team of AdSense optimizers will be present at the conference to meet you and answer your questions. Stop by our Optimization Lounge to receive customized performance tips for your websites, and share your product feedback and suggestions.

Register today using our Google promotional code CRSGoogle, and you'll receive $100 off the price of a conference pass. (And if you register by this Friday, October 9th, you can take advantage of the Early Bird price.) Your CRS conference pass will grant you access to all of the sessions and keynotes, a CRS attendee lunch, and the ad:tech New York Expo Hall. For more information about the conference, including the full schedule and confirmed speakers, visit the official CRS website.

We look forward to seeing you in NYC in November!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/06/2009 10:31:00 A
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Monday, October 5, 2009

[Inside AdSense] AdSense for mobile goes high-end

With the growth in popularity of high-end mobile phones with full (HTML) Internet browsers, like the iPhone and phones running Android, advertisers are increasingly extending their campaigns to mobile devices. Because these devices offer a rich content experience similar to desktop, advertising on them is a natural extension for many advertisers.

Today we're launching a new feature for AdSense mobile publishers that will allow you to take advantage of the high-end mobile phone browsing experience. This feature offers publishers the ability to run larger AdSense ads visible on high-end phones. Before this launch, AdSense mobile publishers were only eligible to serve smaller text and image ads on their website content.

We've done this by introducing a new JavaScript snippet that is easy to implement and specifically optimized for mobile to reduce latency on high-end mobile phones. Furthermore, this new snippet will allow publishers to select additional ad unit sizes from common AdSense formats.

However, if you're targeting all mobile devices, or if you're unable to make changes to your website, you don't have to update your AdSense code in order to enable larger AdSense ads to show on high-end devices. We'll automatically detect if the user is browsing with a high-end phone, and instead of serving a smaller mobile WAP ad, we'll return a larger ad optimized for high-end mobile devices.

For more information on earning money from your mobile content or to get started with mobile AdSense, visit the Help Center or check out past posts on the Google Mobile Blog.

Posted by Danielle VanDyke - Software Engineer

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/05/2009 06:15:00 A
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Friday, October 2, 2009

[Inside AdSense] YouTube Promoted Videos to appear on AdSense sites

As the number of YouTube content producers continues to grow, many are looking for new ways to reach new audiences. That's why we're happy to announce the launch of YouTube Promoted Videos in AdSense ad units. Promoted Videos are YouTube videos -- from movie trailers to product demos to really almost any kind of video on YouTube -- promoted by their creators so they can reach a wider audience. (You may have already noticed Promoted Videos on YouTube.com, as they appear on partner watch pages and alongside YouTube search results.) Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space. At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future.

Promoted Videos feature a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, will bring the user to watch a video or view a channel on YouTube. They're contextually targeted to your pages, and you'll earn from these ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. In addition, they can appear in the following ad formats, as long as you've opted these formats in to displaying both text and image ads: 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 728x90 Leaderboard, 250x250 Square, and 200x200 Small Square. Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they'll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages. When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats.

All Promoted Videos are required to comply with the YouTube Advertising Policies, and the advertised videos with our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. You can prevent Promoted Videos from appearing on your pages by adding 'youtube.com' to your Competitive Ad Filter list. Please note that currently, this method will block all Promoted Videos from your sites.

Finally, we'd like to mention that these new Promoted Videos are separate from our video ads offering, which stream ads in video format and are classified as image ads.

We're continuing to look for additional revenue opportunities for publishers, and we hope these new ads will help you earn more.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/02/2009 09:46:00 A
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

[Inside AdSense] The medium and large rectangle square off

When talking about optimization here on Inside AdSense, we frequently encourage readers to use the 300x250 medium rectangle. But we've also talked about how bigger ad units tend to perform well, so a few publishers have asked us, "Should we be using the 300x250 medium rectangle or the bigger 336x280 large rectangle?"

We took this question to our Optimization Team, who gave us insight into the strengths of each ad format:

The 300x250 medium rectangle is a widely supported format that advertisers often use when designing their branding and rich media campaigns. Using this ad format and opting in to both text and image ads may generate more placement targeting opportunities, which will help drive up competition for your ad space and should lead to higher earnings over time.
The 336x280 large rectangle tends to have a higher clickthrough rate due to its larger size. It often performs well on text-heavy pages where it's integrated into the content.

Our optimization specialists noted that performance of these two ad formats can vary from site to site, so they can't definitively say that all publishers should always use one format over the other. Just like with all other customization options, they recommend experimenting with each ad format for 3-4 weeks and measuring performance using custom channels.

What's your opinion? Feel free to leave us a comment and let us know how the medium and large rectangles have performed for you.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/30/2009 09:30:00 A
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Thursday, September 24, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Touch-ups for your ad units

You may remember that last year, we added arrows to the bottom of cost-per-click (CPC) ad units. These arrows allow users to browse through additional relevant ads, helping them find exactly they're looking for.

We've been testing slight updates to the look of these arrows, and our experiments have shown improvements in the user experience. As a result, we'll soon be making a few minor aesthetic changes, including darkening the arrows to make them more visible and orienting all arrows to point left and right. In addition, to help users understand what the arrows do, hovering over the arrows will soon show the labels 'previous ads' and 'next ads'. You'll see these changes appear in CPC ad units in all languages gradually over the next few days.

Posted by Amy Wu - AdSense Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/24/2009 09:11:00 AM
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Monetizing with the Google Maps API

With tools like Street View, Google Maps is altering the way people interact with their surroundings, letting you see the facade of the store you're about to visit, plot directions, and find a place to park before you even leave the house. Google Maps has also changed the way information is being presented across the web. Since 2005, web developers from around the world have begun to overlay their content on Google Maps, mashing it all up and presenting it in extremely creative ways.

As this trend evolves, maps are becoming the backdrop or canvas for many webpages. We've been hearing from the over 150,000 Google Maps developers eager to monetize this growing screen real estate, so we've worked to ensure that Google Maps embedded on external websites can be properly monetized. If you're a Maps developer, you now have two options for your embedded Google Maps API implementations to earn revenue using AdSense.

Maps Ad Unit - This new Google Maps API feature overlays AdSense ads on an embedded Google map on your site. The ads are targeted to the map's current view and update as the user moves around the map. For example, if the user is looking at Napa Valley, California, the text ads will likely display ads for wineries, hotels, and/or restaurants. As the user moves the map, ads continue to change by location and you'll generate revenue from every valid ad click.

To see an example of this, take a look at ZipMaps, an external Maps API site that presents U.S. zip code boundaries:

GoogleBar Local Search - The GoogleBar feature within the Google Maps API overlays a search box onto your map which lets the user perform a local search on the map. When results are shown, an ad is displayed that you earn revenue on when clicked. Feedback from sites that have implemented the GoogleBar reveals that users are happy to be able to search Google while on their map, and the site owners are happy to be able to monetize this additional service.

Here's an example of the GoogleBar in action on another Google Maps API site called Google Sightseeing:

If you're a developer with an existing Google Maps API implementation and an AdSense account, take a few minutes to add it to your maps to see how it performs for you. Interested in embedding Google Maps on your site? Take a look at the new Google Maps site to learn about all your options!

Posted by Mike Pegg - Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/22/2009 09:58:00 A
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Thursday, September 17, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Bringing more buyers to AdSense through the DoubleClick Ad E...

We recently announced that AdSense would start allowing Google-certified ad networks to bid for your display ad space in order to help you find new ways to generate revenue. You may have seen today's post by Neal Mohan on the Official Google Blog announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and we'd like to take a moment to let you know how these two announcements fit together.

The Google-certified ad network capability is powered by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange that we announced today. Certified ad networks are Ad Exchange participants who have gone through an additional certification process in order to be able to to bid for your ad space through AdSense. We call this feature "yield management", because it offers you the most revenue for each ad that shows on your site in real time, regardless of whether it's Google or another certified party who can offer you the highest bid.

You don't need to change any of your account settings to start allowing these ads to compete. Also, you can continue to use the Ad Review Center to control which certified ad networks can appear on your site.

Opening AdSense to certified Ad Exchange participants means that more advertisers will be able to bid on your ad space. We believe this will ultimately help you earn more revenue for your sites.

Posted by Sean Harvey, Business Product Manager, and Scott Spencer, Group Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/17/2009 09:03:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Australian and New Zealand publishers: Register for an upcom...

If you've ever argued over where the pavlova was first invented and are currently enjoying the first signs of spring, the Australia and New Zealand AdSense team is holding a webinar specifically for you! We'll be presenting our techniques for improving your AdSense for content performance, as well as handy tips on making your AdSense implementation more user-friendly.

We'll be running two free sessions that you can choose between; both are exactly the same and will run for approximately one hour. Register for the one you'd like to attend by visiting one of the links below -- even if you're not located in Australia or New Zealand, you're still welcome to register!

Webinar Option 1: 12.00pm AEST Monday 21st of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)
Webinar Option 2: 5.30pm AEST Tuesday 22nd of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)

Once you've registered, you'll receive an email from messenger@webex.com to confirm your time and give you instructions on how to attend the webinar. We recommend that you register in advance.

If you're new to webinars (or web seminars), they're online meetings that you can attend using any computer with an internet connection and speakers or a headset. This Help Center entry will provide further details about what you'll need to participate. You'll also have the chance to ask questions based on the presentation through the interactive chat panel. Here are a few more details about next week's webinars.

Presenters:

Victoria, Mel, and Disha from the Sydney-based AdSense Team

Content:

Introduction - The Google Australia & New Zealand AdSense Team

Google AdSense – AdSense for content optimisation

Ad Formats – Opting in to image and text

Placement – Position and size

Design – Colours and borders

Google Custom Search Engine - Best practices

Working with Google - AdSense account essentials

We'll also be showcasing some real-life examples of how other publishers have optimised their AdSense implementation.

We hope you can make one of the sessions, and we look forward to sharing our best AdSense optimisation techniques with you.

Posted by Mel-Ann Chan - AdSense Optimisation Team, Australia & New Zealand

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/17/2009 12:19:00 P
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

[Inside AdSense] Introducing Google Web Elements

Looking for ways to spice up your website with dynamic content? You may know from our optimization tips that you can help increase your AdSense revenue by incorporating other Google products into your site. We're happy to introduce a new, easy way for you to do just that with Google Web Elements.

Web Elements let you easily add richness and interactivity to your site simply by copying and pasting a snippet of code. Inspired by the convenience of embeddable YouTube videos, each Web Element is built upon existing Google products. For example, the Google News element, introduced on this blog earlier this year, dynamically pulls in content from Google News based on news topics you select and displays within an embed on your site. With the official launch of Web Elements, you can choose to include Web Elements from products like Google Custom Search, Calendar, Docs, Friend Connect, and more.

Need more inspiration on how to integrate Web Elements into your site? Here are a few ideas:

If you're using a Custom Search Engine on your site, the Custom Search element can help you integrate search results much more seamlessly with the look and feel of your pages. You can continue to earn revenues from searches while offering a better user experience to your users with better results styling.

Who's using it: The Mayo Clinic uses the Custom Search Element as their main search function. The look and feel of the search results blends in smoothly with the rest of the site.
To enable your visitors to post comments and links on your site, use the Conversation element. The element also lets visitors participate in conversations via Friend Connect.

Who's using it: St. Simons Blog uses the Conversation element to let users in St. Simons Island and Georgia's Golden Isles connect with each other.
The YouTube News element displays the latest YouTube videos from a number of news content partners including the Associated Press, CBS Online, Washington Post, Bloomberg, NY Times, Russia Today, Al-Jazeera English, and more.

Who's using it: CitizenTube is YouTube's official news and politics blog. They display the YouTube News element on the right-hand side of the homepage labeled as "Latest News Videos".
The Spreadsheet element allows you to display a table of information to your users which pulls from any Google Spreadsheet you choose. Whenever you update the Spreadsheet, the element will also update automatically. This is an easy way to keep dynamic content on your site fresh.

Who's using it: Metal Italia is an Italian heavy metal fan site. The site uses the Spreadsheet element to display album information for heavy metal artists.

To get started, all you need to do is go to http://www.google.com/webelements, select the element you want on your site, and copy and paste the resulting code into your website source code. If you're interested in tinkering further with the Web Elements, you can further customize any of the elements as you please, since they're all powered by Google's developer APIs.

Using a Web Element on your site (or two, or seven)? We'd love to hear what you think and how they've been working for you. Just leave a comment on this blog post!

Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Web Elements Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 9/15/2009 03:01:00 P
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