WebProNews - AdSense

Google Launches AdSense Product Ideas Page

Doug Caverly — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:08:06 +0000

AdSense is an important fixture in a lot of people's lives; it can represent anything from spending money (hey, little splurges do the heart good) to what pays the mortgage. And now, individuals have a chance to shape it more to their liking, as a new Product Ideas for AdSense page has launched.

Try not to get your hopes up; as word spreads and more people contribute ideas, the odds of any one suggestion making it in front of an important Googler will decrease. Also, there's no guarantee that any of the recommendations will be implemented.

Still, a post on the Inside AdSense blog stated, "[W]e 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."

So sign into the Product Ideas for AdSense page with your Google account, make a suggestion, or vote for an existing one that you like before the end of December 15th. Just about everything's fair game, from simple tweaks to entirely new features.

Then just maybe, as a result of participating, you'll be able to upgrade "spending money" to "mortgage payments" or "mortgage payments" to "retirement package."

Related Articles:

> Google Ignoring Its Own Policy On Desktop AdSense?

> YouTube Videos In AdSense Could Drive Clicks

> Google Tests New AdSense Interface

Google Ignoring Its Own Policy on Desktop AdSense?

Chris Crum — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:21:52 +0000

It has been discovered that Google is now showing AdSense ads inside Google Earth. While it is not that surprising to see Google putting ads on another one of its properties, it has raised a few eyebrows, given that Google Earth is a desktop application.

Google actually states in its policy that it doesn't allow developers to use AdSense ads in their desktop apps, but it appears that Google is bending the rules for its own product. The company is certainly free to do so, given that it owns the product, but some are beginning to wonder if this could lead to Google changing that policy.

Currently that section of Google's policy reads:

"Currently, we don't permit Google ads or AdSense for search boxes to be distributed through software applications including, but not limited to toolbars, browser extensions, and desktop applications. In order to comply with AdSense program policies, please note that Google AdSense code may only be implemented on web-based pages."

Blogger Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration appears to be the first to point out the ads in Google Earth, and he provides a couple of screenshots here. In one, you can see AdSense ads when you search for a location or business, and the ads can be found in the search results. In the other screenshot, you can see the ad in the window that pops up when you click a placemark (the red pins on the maps).

The interesting part of this find is not so much that Google is placing ads in Google Earth, but what it could mean if the company were to in fact change its policy.

"If that policy changes, we could see more and more of Office 2010 Starter or FeedDemon like applications that are completely free to the end-user but supported by web advertising," says Agarwal.

Joseph Tartakoff at PaidContent adds that "arch rival" Microsoft has already promised to introduce the ad-supported version of Office to come pre-loaded on PCs.

It is possible that there is being too much read into Google's decision to include AdSense ads in Google Earth. It does make for an interesting conversation though. What do you think?

Related Articles:

> Google Familiarizes AdWords Users with New Interface

> Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

> Google Friend Connect Gets an AdSense Feature

YouTube Videos in AdSense Could Drive Clicks

Chris Crum — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:31:22 +0000

Update: Google has now announced that you can buy Promoted Videos directly in AdWords.

"AdWords advertiser with video content — from a small business looking to promote a product, to a movie studio premiering a new trailer — can use Promoted Videos to make sure their videos find a larger audience," says Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Engineer. "This integration will provide a single destination for your overall Google ad buy, and will give YouTube advertisers access to campaign tools in AdWords."

Original Article: Google has decided to start including promoted YouTube videos in AdSense. This means that these videos are now an available ad unit that can be displayed on AdSense publisher sites.

YouTube promoted videos include a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, they take the user to a video or a channel on YouTube, so it's not like there will be full-sized YouTube videos in AdSense ad spots on publisher sites.

"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," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense team. "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."

The promoted videos are contextually targeted to AdSense publisher pages, and publishers will earn from them on a cost-per-click basis. They are available in the following formats:

- 300x250 Medium Rectangle
- 336x280 Large Rectangle
- 728x90 Leaderboard
- 250x250 Square
- 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," says Lee. "When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats."

Videos of course have to meet YouTube's advertising guidelines and terms of use, as well as community guidelines. Publishers can prevent promoted videos from appearing on their sites by adding "youtube.com" to their competitive ad filter list. This will block all YouTube content.

It should be noted that the addition of promoted YouTube videos to AdSense has nothing to do with Google's video ads offering.

YouTube promoted videos could be a good way to increase AdSense clicks, because the very nature of them draws the user's attention to watch a video, and at the world's most popular online video site. Plus the videos should be relevant to the content of the page. This could be a big money maker for AdSense publishers. It should be big for people promoting their videos as well.

Google Tests New AdSense Interface

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:48:56 +0000

Google announced the beta testing of a new AdSense interface today. It is being tested with a small group of publishers. Google says the new interface was designed based on the top three requests from users:

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

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

3. Help you manage you account more efficiently

With the new interface, AdSense publishers can get more detailed performance reports that let them view daily stats in graphical formats. In addition, it provides metrics like amount you've earned from various ad, targeting, and bid types.

The interface includes some improvements to the Ad Review Center that will give users more options to manage ads that appear on their sites, and offer what Google says is a cleaner interface that will make it easier to find and review them within the Ad Review Center.

"We've streamlined the AdSense interface to simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously," says Google. "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."

The limited beta testing is taking place in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. The test will be rolled out to thousands of publishers over the coming weeks (they will be notified via email notification).

Related Articles:

> Google Familiarizes AdWords Users with New Interface

> Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

> Google Friend Connect Gets an AdSense Feature

Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

Chris Crum — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:00:13 +0000

Google launched AdSense for Feeds all the way back in 2005. Now the company is integrating it right into its Blogger property.

"One of the things our publishers have always asked for are ways to make it even easer to configure their blogs to work with FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds," says Steve Olechowski on behalf of the AdSense for feeds and Blogger teams. We're happy to announce that Blogger users, with just a few clicks, are able to do both at the same time."

Users can can use AdSense for Feeds for Blogger the same way they set up AdSense on their blogs. Just go to the Blogger Dashboard and select "monetize". This gives the user options for configuring ads. If the user's blog is already connected to FeedBurner, you can confirm that the proper feed is being configured. AdSense for Feeds will pick the ad size automatically.

Users can view AdSense reports after setup to view feed revenue right from the Blogger Dashboard. You can of course see the reports in your AdSense account as well.

Google launched AdSense for Feedburner last year. This came just after Google closed down the Feedburner Ad Network.

Related Articles:

> AdSense For RSS Feeds Launched

> Google's New Blogger Features

> Feedburner and Adsense Together at Last

Google to Give People More AdSense Filtering Options

Chris Crum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:08:50 +0000

Back in August, Google gave AdSense publishers more control over what ads appear on their sites by launching an upgrading the category fitlering feature and extending the feature's beta to the US and the UK.

So in essence, if you don't want certain kinds of sites showing up in ads on your site, you could block them. Google shows how the different ad categories contribute to your income, so you can take that into consideration.

Today Google announced that it will be providing users with more ad filtering options. Soon, the option for 3 more filter categories will be added for a total of 8 different categories. These will be coming in 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," says Google's Arlene Lee. "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," she reminds users.

Google says its continuing to work on additional filtering capabilities as well, but does not get into specifics. They are of course encouraging feedback.

More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

Chris Crum — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:33:05 +0000

Google has started adding "Ads by Google" to more of its ads around the web. The reasoning for this is that a lot more advertisers are using Google's rich media ad formats these days, and the fact that they come from Google may not seem so obvious all the time.

"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," explains Dan Friedman from Google's Inside AdWords crew. "This was specially designed for rich media ads. This new message will appear on your AdWords rich media ads, and will show up on standard AdSense ad units."

It will look something like this:

Just as in the past, when users click "Ads by Google," they will be taken to a page where they can learn about Google advertising. Google says tests have shown that this doesn't affect ad performance.

Google also recently started adding YouTube promoted videos into the AdWords/AdSense mix. In addition, they have introduced a new way for local businesses to advertise, and given advertisers more tracking options.

Unemployment and AdSense May Cause Headaches

Chris Crum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:18:48 +0000

Unemployed bloggers are apparently at risk of losing their unemployment checks (or at least having them drastically reduced) if they include ads on their blogs. That is exactly what happened to a woman named Karin, from New York, according to a recent Forbes piece.

A graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law was laid off by a law firm in New York, but was able to receive $405 a week in unemployment benefits from the state. To make a little extra money to help pay the bills, she started a blog and used Google AdSense. To make a long story short, her benefits were cut to $300 a week. It had taken her 3 months to earn $100 with AdSense.

She was sent a form to fill out and send to her "employer," and when she called the Department of Labor to get some answers about that, she was told that she shouldn't have claimed the AdSense payment to begin with because it was considered "residual," which would not make her ineligible for benefits. Fair enough. Unfortunatley for Karin, it only got more complicated from there.

"The call prompted Karin to file another claim with the state and to attach a letter stating she was running a blog and that the Google AdSense revenue it generated was her only source of income," explains David K. Randall of Forbes.com. "A few days later, she received a letter from the DOL informing her that it had launched an investigation of her "business" to determine whether she remained eligible for benefits."

"Karin called the DOL again and says this time she was told that the state considered her self-employed, which would require her to claim earnings each time she received an AdSense check," continues Randall. "She called back to get another opinion, and Karin says this time she was informed by yet another state official that she needed to declare that she was working every time that she updated her blog."

Karin is apparently not getting benefits as long as the investigation is going on, and she hasn't even made $250 from AdSense.

The situation would likely vary from state to state, but at least in New York, unemployment and AdSense blogs seem to equal nothing but headaches for everybody involved. Mike Masnick at TechDirt does a pretty good job of assessing the situation. "It's really stunning how various labor departments are simply ill-equipped to handle a modern labor force," he says.

Masnick has his own horror story about out of state labor departments seeking money for an employee that his company hasn't employed in years. They money sought after is apparently for time that this person wasn't working there.

AdSense Gets Optimized for Smartphones

Chris Crum — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:05:16 +0000

Google has announced a new feature for AdSense mobile publishers, which lets them serve text and image ads on their sites, specifically optimized for high-end smartphones like the iPhone, Android devices, and the Palm Pre.

With the launch of the feature, publishers can run larger AdSense ads on these phones, whereas before, they could only serve smaller ads.

"High-end mobile phones, like iPhone, Android-powered devices and the Palm Pre, continue to grow — Gartner estimates that global sales of smartphones will soar by 27% in 2009, to 177 million units. Naturally, as a result more and more people are browsing the web on the go," says Google software engineer Danielle VanDyke. "Because these devices offer a browsing experience that is similar to desktop computers, advertising on smartphones is a natural extension for any AdWords campaign."

Google says the addition of this feature will help "nurture the smartphone ecosystem," by encouraging users to create more mobile content.

To make the feature work, Google introduced a new JavaScript snippet that's optimized for mobile "to reduce latency" on high-end mobile phones. The snippet also allows 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," says VanDyke. "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."

The new feature certainly opens up new opportunities for AdSense publishers, who have had some additional benefits announced recently. Just the other day Google announced that it would extend YouTube promoted videos to AdSense for example. Google also recently announced the addition of ad networks to the competition pool for AdSense.

Google Unleashes DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Chris Crum — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Google has announced the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which it refers to as a real-time marketplace for helping online publishers and ad networks/agencies buy and sell display ad space. Prices in the marketplace are set in a real-time auction.

Google says it has three principles for its approach to display advertising:

1. Simplify the system for buying and selling display ads: For example, our DoubleClick ad serving products help advertisers and publishers manage campaigns and ad formats across thousands of websites and from thousands of advertisers.

2. Deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure: We're building a host of new features to help advertisers to run display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network (comprising hundreds of thousands of AdSense partner sites) and on YouTube. We're also developing better measurement and reporting technology so they can figure out what's working and what's not.

3. Open up the ecosystem: We want to democratize access to display advertising and make it accessible and open, like search advertising. We recently launched the Display Ad Builder to help businesses easily set up and run display ad campaigns. 80% of advertisers who use that product have never run a display ad campaign before.

AdWords advertisers can run ads with the same AdWords interface through the exchange. Ad Exchange sites are considered part of the Google Content Network. Ad Exchange placements will appear like any other Conent Network Placement in AdWords reports. Users can still use the Placement Performance Report to see where their ads have run, and which ones performed best. Google does note, however, that Ad Exchange sites can choose to remain anonymous, and in cases like that, the site will appear in your reports with an anonymized label like "123456.anonymous.google." You have the power to exclude these placements though.

Google says AdSense publishers will also benefit from more advertisers coming through the exchange. The company recently announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites. This is related to the Ad Exchange announcement. The Google-certified ad network capability is powered by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

"Certified ad networks are Ad Exchange participants who have gone through an additional certification process in order to be able to bid for your ad space through AdSense," Google says. "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."

Publishers using the Ad Exchange can use real-time data and bids to allocate ad space that pays the most at any particular second. They get access to more advertisers, Google manages billing and payments from networks, so publishers get one monthly payment.

Ad networks and agencies get access to more publishers, more ad space, real-time bidding, and a new API, which lets them integrate their own functionality and systems when using the Ad Exchange.

Google's move is largely seen as its way of cutting into Yahoo's share of the display advertising pie. This is one area where Yahoo has been quite successful, as Google has dominated the text ad market.

Google Introduces Web Elements to AdSense Publishers

Chris Crum — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:59:16 +0000

Google has introduced what they call "Web Elements," which let users add their favorite Google products to their website. The company spins it as a way for AdSense publishers to "spice up their site" and help increase their revenue. This was first announced back at the Google Developer Conference.

"Web Elements let you easily add richness and interactivity to your site simply by copying and pasting a snippet of code," explains Christine Tsai of the Google Web Elements Team. "Inspired by the convenience of embeddable YouTube videos, each Web Element is built upon existing Google products."

Users can remind visitors to their site of important dates by adding the Google Calendar element. They can let visitors post comments with the Conversation element. They can add a custom search element, a Google Maps element, a Google News element, a presentations element, a spreadsheet element, or the interesting YouTube News element, which shows news videos from YouTube.

Google has been all about some data portability lately, introducing their Data Liberation Front. That was all about being able to take your data in and out of Google Products. This is a different kind of data portability. This lets you take data from Google products and take it anywhere with you on the web.

Google shows some examples of sites that are already using Web Elements in this blog post. To use them yourself, simply go to google.com/webelements, choose your element, and copy/paste the code into the source code of your own site. It's as simple as that.

All of the web elements are powered by Google's developer APIs, so they can all be customized.

Google Improves AdSense Competitive Ad Filter

Chris Crum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:50:33 +0000

In August, Google announced that it was upgrading its category filtering feature for AdSense, and extending the feature into more countries (like the US and the UK). Today, Google announced that they have added two additional improvements to the Competitive Ad Filter.

These improvements would be faster filtering and increased filter size.

"In the past, the Competitive Ad Filter sometimes took up to several hours to block URLs you'd entered," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense Team. "Knowing you've wanted a faster filtering system, we're excited to let you know that URLs added to your Competitive Ad Filter are now usually blocked within 30 minutes. We hope that this will help you quickly make changes to maintain a positive user experience on your sites."

Users have complained that they have been running out of space in their Competitive Ad filter, so Google has addressed this issue. Users can now add up to 500 sites to their filter list. That is more than twice what was previously allowed.

"As you add new sites, please continue to keep the possible revenue impact of filtering in mind," says Lee. "You might also find it helpful to review our tips for using your Competitive Ad Filter."

Google will remain open to feedback with regards to the Competitive Ad Filter, so if you have further concerns, be sure to voice them. Today's announcement shows that they do listen.

AdWords More Competitive, AdSense Publishers Could Earn More

Chris Crum — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:28:23 +0000

Google announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites. This means that AdWords advertisers may end up having to pay more competitively, while AdSense publishers could reap the benefits.

What do you think of this idea? Comment here. Google explains the concept in the following video:

"You may remember that we began to accept display ads served from qualified third-party vendors over a year ago, which helped increase the number of display ads competing on AdSense publisher sites," says Google Business Product Manager Sean Harvey. "With this new change, participating ad networks can also bid in our auction to appear on AdSense sites. This new capability will help you generate the most profit for every ad that appears on your site, whether the ads come from AdWords advertisers or Google-certified ad networks."

The networks themselves are ad agencies and companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don't own. AdSense publishers will now be able to allow advertisers from these networks to compete directly with AdWords advertisers for their ad space. The ad networks:

- Connect advertisers with publishers

- Provide access to additional inventory not currently available with AdWords

- Adhere to Google's standards for user privacy, ad quality and speed

Reporting and payments will still run through AdSense as always, and available ad formats will remain the same as they have been for AdWords. Publishers will still have control over which networks can show ads on their pages, and they can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks.

Right now, the feature is only available to publishers in North America and Europe, but Google plans to rolling out to more places in the future.

What do you think about Google increasing competition by allowing ad networks in AdWords? Share your thoughts.

Google Expands AdSense Euro Reporting

Chris Crum — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:22:23 +0000

Google has expanded the number of European places where Euro reporting is available for AdSense. Users who are in the following locations can now switch to local currency reports to view their earnings in Euros:

- Cyprus
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Monaco
- San Marino
- Slovenia
- Vatican City

"Once you make this change, any earnings generated from advertisers paying on other currencies will be converted to Euros each day," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense Team. "This also means that if you're receiving payments in Euros, there won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month when payments are issued."

Google recommends that users download and save copies of their past reports in US dollars for their own records, before they switch to local currency reports. After that, the company says to look for the green prompt in the upper right-hand corner of the Reports Overview page, and click the link in the prompt, where you'll be asked to agree to a new set of terms and conditions.

Google says that it is a good idea to switch to local currency soon, because in the future, it will be a required update. More information about the new reports can be found in the help center. Google also suggests contacting your lawyer if you have questions about the new terms.

Google Rolling Out AdSense Relevancy Improvements

Chris Crum — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:35:06 +0000

Google announced (subtly) that it is rolling out a series of enhancements to AdSense's contextual targeting capabilities to more accurately match relevant ads to AdSense publishers' pages.

Unfortunately, not many details about these enhancements were given away, but Google says AdSense publishers will not have to update their AdSense accounts or ad code. Changes will be applied automatically.

"Our machines are very good at the matching process, but there are still a few cases where their definition of relevance differs from our human definition of relevance," says AdSense Product Manager Woojin Kim. "In these few cases, the system might end up serving ads that don't seem immediately relevant to users. We understand that increased ad relevance contributes to a positive experience for users, publishers, and advertisers, so we're continuously working on ways to improve the relevance and quality of ads that appear on your sites."

The changes will not affect how other types of ads are matched to your sites. Placement-targeted ads that advertisers bid on to appear specifically on your page, for example, will continue to appear.

These relevancy-determining changes are not the only thing the AdSense team has been up to. This week, they announced that they have tweaked the default fonts for different ad formats, in order to trigger better performance. Category filtering was also announced for AdSense for Feeds.

Google Tweaks AdSense Fonts for Better Performance

Chris Crum — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:47:10 +0000

Google is updating the default font faces associated with specific AdSense ad formats. The decision to do so is based on findings that different fonts perform better with different formats.

"In the same way that you regularly try out changes to your AdSense ads to increase your earnings, we're also constantly looking for new ways to help you earn more," explains Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense Team. "We've been analyzing the performance of the three available font faces (Arial, Verdana, and Times New Roman), and have found that each font performs best in different ad formats due to factors like character width."

The changes will only apply to ad units that have "AdSense Default" selected as the font face, and are in languages that have Latin-based characters like:

- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English (US and UK)
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Slovak
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Turkish

AdSense ad units are mostly set to Arial as the default, but a few are in the Verdana font. The new defaults Google is launching include the following:

Arial: 728x90, 336x280, 120x600, 120x240

Verdana: 300x250, 160x600, 468x60, 250x250, 234x60, 125x125, 180x150

Times New Roman: 200x200

While Google is changing the defaults, the company still encourages users to experiment with fonts on their own. There is no reason why other fonts might work better for your own ads.

Category Filtering Announced for AdSense for Feeds

Chris Crum — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:05:39 +0000

Google recently announced an extension of its category filtering beta to Engligh-language ads on the AdSense network. Now Google is pointing out that this applies to AdSense for feeds as well.

"This feature allows to you filter ads in up to five categories such as Dating, Drugs and Supplements, Weight Loss, and Get Rich Quick," says AdSense for Feeds Product Manager Steve Olechowski. "Your filters will be applied to English-language ads, no matter how they were targeted."

When a user wants these settings to take effect, they should go to the Ad Review Center, and select a Client-ID that starts with ca-feed-pub. This allows the user to select different categories for their feed than for their site. Users must also select filters for both their feed and their site for the filters to be applied to both.

Categories than can be blocked include:

- Cosmetic procedures and surgery
- Dating
- Drugs and supplements
- Get rich quick
- Politics
- Religion
- Ringtones and downloadables
- Sexual and reproductive health
- Sexually suggestive
- Video games
- Weight loss

Only up to five categories can be blocked. Google says its technology will make its "best attempt" to filter ads from the categories above, but it doesn't guarantee that some won't slip through.

Google Affiliate Network Publishers Get Paid Through AdSense

Chris Crum — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:49:54 +0000

Google announced that Google Affiliate Network publisher payments will now be made through AdSense starting today. Google says this will offer publishers a wider range of payment options.

"Publishers can also manage their payment information in new ways and enjoy consolidated payments from Google if they use other Google products," says Product Manager Sheila Parker.

The primary user of a Google Affiliate Network publisher account will see an account notification asking them to create an AdSense account or link to an existing account.

If an account is linked before midnight (eastern time) on September 21, the account will receive payments through AdSense for July and August earnings. This depends on relevant advertiser payment terms. Publishers should create or link their AdSense account as soon as possible to prevent delays in Affiliate Network payments, the company says.

Earnings from before July will still be made through the existing Google Affiliate Network payment system. Updates for the

Google Affiliate Network can be founder on the blog and the Twitter account.

Google's Latest Facebook Page is for AdSense

Chris Crum — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:08:42 +0000

Google recently launched its Facebook Page. Now they have launched one specifically for AdSense.

Google refers to this as one-stop shop for up-to-date info. It will be synched with the AdSense blog and Twitter account, and will also contain optimization photos and videos that are found on the AdSense YouTube channel.

"To date, we've been sharing AdSense information with you through this blog, Twitter, the AdSense Help Center, and the AdSense Help Forum," Simone Davis of the Inside AdSense Team tells users. "You also expressed your interest in Facebook by creating a number of AdSense groups, and we listened."

Fans of the Facebook page will be able to respond to poll questions and complete surveys so that the AdSense Team can better understand the needs of users. Google says they will use this information to keep improving upon products.

Fans will also be able to find out about upcoming events. They will post updates about new features, webinars, and other events on the wall.

"Our team will be contributing to the page, so be sure to check the page often for different opportunities to provide us with your input and learn more about AdSense," says Davis.

Google does say that they won't be responding to questions on Facebook if they are about individual AdSense Accounts. I doubt that this warning will stop them from receiving the questions, but it's good to know at least that they are being up front about this. It's better than waiting on a response indefinitely anyway.

Google Offers AdSense Publishers New Filtering Options

Doug Caverly — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:41:42 +0000

AdSense publishers who want more control over what ads appear on their sites are in luck; today, Google announced that it's upgraded a category filtering feature, and is extending the feature's beta to countries including the U.K. and the U.S.

Do you have something against dating sites? Drugs and supplements? Politics? No problem. By just checking a few boxes, you can block related ads. In fact, you can block ads from up to five categories, which shows quite a bit of flexibility on Google's part.

Google will also show you how the different ad categories contribute to your income, which should prevent people from shooting themselves in the foot (and/or checkbook).

Otherwise, Arlene Lee of the Inside AdSense Team stated on the Inside AdSense blog, "To give you a better sense of how many ads you'd be filtering, we've now added an extra column to show you the percentage of ad impressions on your pages which fall into each category."

And all of the numbers are now calculated based on stats dating back 30 days, not just 3, to increase their accuracy.

Visit the Ad Review Center if you feel like tinkering with these ad filters. Publishers in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S. should all have access to the beta.

Google Wants to Pay AdSense Publishers Faster

Chris Crum — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:43:13 +0000

Google has taken an opportunity to remind North American AdSense publishers that the fastest way to receive payments is through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

"We want to get you paid by the fastest means possible," says Elizabeth Ferdon of the AdSense Payments Team.

"EFT is quick and easy to set up. When payments are issued, there's no need to wait for the delivery in the mail -- the funds appear in your bank account shortly after they're issued," she adds. "That means if we processed a payment for you this month, your earnings would be in your bank account already."

Signing up for ETF through Google is a three-step process:

1. Enter your bank account info

2. Find your test deposit

3. Enter the test deposit amount in your AdSense account.

To enter your bank account info, just go to "my account" and click the "edit link next to the "payment details" header. Then in the Electronic Funds Transfer section, select the "add new bank account" radio button, and click continue. Enter the requested info and save the changes.

Test deposits can take a few days, and on your bank statement, they will be labeled as one of the following:

- AFS RE GOOGLE
- AFS RE GOOGLE ADSENSE
- ARVATO FINANCE SERVICES LIMITED
- BFS FINANCE LTD
- CITIBANK IRELAND FINANCIAL SERVICES
- Google AdSense Payment

Once you have your test deposit amount, click the "my account" tab, and in the "payment details" section, click "verify this account." Enter the test deposit amount that you received in your bank account in the box, and click "next." Your bank account will be approved and you can select it as your default payment method.

Currently, Google offers Western Union in 23 countries and courier service in a number of others as payment options. Other regions where EFT isn't offered are reminded that Google is continuously working on expanding payment options in more places.

Google Expands Local Currency Reports for AdSense

Chris Crum — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:45:32 +0000

Google announced today that it is expanding availability of local currency reports to AdSense publishers in Denmark and Norway. Switching to these new reports means that all earnings generated from advertisers paying in other currencies will be converted to the publisher's local currency each day.

"If you receive payments in your local currency, there won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month, but you can still update your payment method and currency at any time," explains Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense team.

To download reports in comma separated values (CSV) format:

1. From your reports page, generate the report that you would like to download

2. When your report has been created, click CSV from the header bar of your report

3. A download prompt will appear - enter a filename and location, and click Save.

Google notes that CSV files can be easily imported into common spreadsheet applications, and downloadable reports make it easy to chart the results of your channels, as well as historical data from your account.

Lee suggests saving copies of past reports in US dollars for you own records. "Once you're ready to switch to local currency reports, sign in to your account and look for the green prompt in the upper right hand corner of your Reports Overview page," she says. "Click on the link, and you'll then be asked to agree to a new set of Terms and Conditions. If you have questions or need legal advice on interpreting the new Terms, please don't hesitate to contact your attorney."

Google encourages users to switch to their local currency reports soon, because the change will soon be required. More information about the reports can be found at the help center here.

Google Announces AdSense For Mobile Applications Beta

Doug Caverly — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:23:16 +0000

In many ways, Google is the company that AdSense built. It makes sense for Google to extend the advertising solution into new markets, then, and the company's doing exactly that with its fresh AdSense for Mobile Applications beta.

On the Official Google Blog, Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management, explained, "After all, advertisers are looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engaged with mobile content, and application developers are looking for ways to show the best ads to their users."

Wojcicki also detailed how the beta will work by continuing, "AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to earn revenue by displaying text and image ads in their iPhone and Android applications. . . . [W]e've created a site where developers can learn more about the AdSense for Mobile Applications program, see answers to frequently asked questions and sign up to participate in our beta."

Given the reputation of the regular version of AdSense, along with how popular smartphones are becoming, this release is likely to cause quite a stir. It may not be long before applications' users start seeing a lot more ads, which they might or might not appreciate, but a lot more apps are also likely to come into existence.

The existence of more popular apps could then make smartphones seem even niftier, driving their adoption and feeding into a growth cycle.

Anyway, AdSense for Mobile Applications has already earned the approval of Howard Steinberg, Urbanspoon's Director of Business Development. You can view his testimonial below.

Google Makes AdSense Cash More Accessible In Seven Countries

Doug Caverly — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:53:45 +0000

Leave it to Google to not forget about the little guys. By introducing the Western Union Quick Cash payment option in seven countries, the search giant is trying to make it easier for people in more rural settings to receive AdSense payments.

Barbados, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nepal, Uruguay, and Vietnam are the nations that have been affected by the expansion. As a post on the Inside AdSense blog points out, the Western Union option might be especially useful in these areas "since you won't have to wait for checks to arrive in the mail or clear at the bank."

Existing bloggers in these countries are liable to become more fond of Google thanks to this new arrangement, then. And a key point is that individuals who don't yet blog may also find the idea appealing.

Parts of these countries might, in the best sense of the word, be classified as "developing," after all, and it would be smart of any company to become popular in them now and then just hang on for the ride.

Several comments following the Inside AdSense post made it clear that Vietnamese bloggers are already grateful. There aren't any fees associated with the Western Union option, so it's sure to get some use in other nations, too.

5 AdSense Videos You Should Watch

Chris Crum — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:41:24 +0000

All AdSense publishers should keep up with Google's official AdSense Channel on YouTube, as well as the Inside AdSense Blog (also official). There are helpful tips and other useful information posted to both periodically.

As I noticed that the Inside AdSense crew just posted a webinar to the YouTube channel, I thought it might be prudent to point out that they have posted a few other useful videos over the past couple months.

1. AdSense Channels and Reporting Webinar

2. AdSense Payments Webinar

3. AdSense Orientation Webinar

4. AdSense Optimization Webinar

5. Meet an AdSense Publisher: Darren Rowse

On another AdSense-related note, they have a planned maintenance period scheduled for Saturday, June 6th between 10am and 2:30pm (Pacific). You might see delays in reports during that time. All valid clicks, impressions, and earnings will still be credited. You'll also still be able to sign in and manager your accounts. Ad serving and targeting will not be affected.

Google Adds Image Ads to AdSense Link Units

Chris Crum — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:59:31 +0000

Google has added an image ad to the bottom of the page users see after clicking a link unit topic in AdSense. The company says testing has shown that this leads to improved revenues for many AdSense publishers.

Link Units are an alternative to the standard text ads. "Using the same contextual targeting algorithm that targets Google ads to your content pages, link units display a list of topics that are relevant to your page. Each topic, when clicked, brings the user to a page of related advertisements," the company explains.

The image ads are contextually targeted, based on the link unit topic users clicked to get to the ads. In cases where no image ads are available for a topic, Google shows the original text ads.

Advertisers can bid on image ads on a cost-per-click and a cost-per-impression basis. Performance for the image ads can be reviewed with a link unit report on the Advanced Reports page.

Google encourages users who don't use link unites on their pages to try them out. "They don't take up much space and can help add to your AdSense revenue," says Arlene Lee of the Inside AdSense Team.

Looking at the State of Google

Chris Crum — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:18:47 +0000

Google held its annual stockholders' meeting yesterday evening and to accompany that Co-founder Sergey Brin decided to re-share the 2008 Founders' Letter, which was originally published on Google's Investor Relations site. Brin says they wanted to make this more widely available so they posted it on the Official Google Blog.

"Since 2004, when Google began to have annual reports, Larry and I have taken turns writing an annual letter," the letter begins. "I never imagined I would be writing one in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in decades. As I write this, search queries are reflecting economic hardship, the major market indexes are one half of what they were less than 18 months ago, and unemployment is at record levels."

The letter discusses the company's past as well as the future. It specifically discusses search, YouTube, Books, Geo, Ads, Apps, Chrome, Android, and AI. Here are just a few interesting nuggets to pull away from it:

- In the past year alone we have made 359 changes to our web search — nearly one per day.

- Integrating images into search remains a challenge, primarily because we are so reliant on the surrounding text to gauge a picture's relevance. In the future, using enhanced computer vision technology, we hope to be able to understand what's depicted in the image itself.

- Every minute, 15 hours worth of video are uploaded to YouTube — the equivalent of 86,000 new full-length movies every week.

Today, we are able to search the full text of almost 10 million books.

- After the launch of Google Map Maker in Pakistan, users mapped 25,000 kilometers of uncharted road in just two months.

- Last year, AdSense (our publisher-facing program) generated more than $5 billion dollars of revenue for our many publishing partners.

- Today some Googlers have more than 25 gigabytes of email going back nearly 10 years that they can search through in seconds.

- Today, almost a third of all Google searches in Japan are coming from mobile devices — a leading indicator of where the rest of the world will soon be.

Within each category, the letter talks about ways that Google aims to improve, and that is perhaps the most intriguing part. The letter is a lengthy document, but if you've got some time to kill, it's very interesting and worth reading. It's pretty much a look at the state of Google on its many technological fronts.

New Google Tool Benefits Both AdWords and AdSense Users

Chris Crum — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:05:45 +0000

Google has launched the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center. This is a new feature of the Google Ad Planner that is designed to improve the quality and accuracy of site data.

"The Publisher Center enables publishers to contribute directly to the site data provided in Google Ad Planner," explains Emel Mutlu at Google's Inside AdWords Blog. "Website owners can specify their site descriptions, content categories, supported ad formats and sizes, and share their Google Analytics traffic data in Google Ad Planner. With shared Google Analytics data, we can supplement our traffic estimates with actual, site-measured data from the publishers themselves. In turn, you'll have access to more robust and accurate information in Google Ad Planner to make better-informed decisions about which sites to include in your media plans."

For AdSense publishers, the tool means that they can increase the visibility of their sites to potential advertisers. "As more advertisers become aware of your sites and bid to show ads on them, the competition among your ads will increase and so should your earnings potential," says Google Ad Planner Product Manager Wayne Lin.

Google Analytics users who wish to manage their site profile in Google Ad Planner and opt in their traffic metrics need to enable "Share my Google Analytics data with Google products only" from the Google Analytics data sharing settings page.

After that, they should go to their Google Ad Planner account, log in, and select the Google Analytics metrics they would like to share publicly. These metrics will then replace Ad Planner's estimates.

For info is available at this help center. You can also watch the videos above.

Google Links AdSense Accounts with Google Analytics

Chris Crum — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:09:44 +0000

Google is now offering wide availability of Google Analytics and AdSense integration. AdSense publishers who wish to make their site more profitable are going to want to link their AdSense accounts with a Google Analytics account.

To do so, you simply need to log in to AdSense, click the link that says "Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics" on the Reports > Overview tab, and follow the on-screen instructions as illustrated in this clip:

The video you'll really want to pay attention to however is the following one, which provides a nice walkthrough explaining how to read reports for your AdSense account in Google Analytics:

When the accounts are linked, users will find an AdSense menu under the "content" section in Analytics. Here you can find the "Top AdSense Content" report, which lets you view details about specific pages and analyze ad performance. You will also find the "Top AdSense Referrers" report, which shows you how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue, and the "AdSense Trading" report, which lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day or days of the week.

The linking of AdSense and Analytics accounts should be a big step in the direction of convenience for analyzing important data regarding the profitability of AdSense publishers' sites. There is plenty of potential for increasing said profitability if publishers choose to act on their findings.

Google Updates AdSense Policies

Chris Crum — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:59:24 +0000

Google has made some adjustments to its AdSense program policies page. It includes a change in placement of a certain policy, clarification of others, and a new one altogether.

The new policy deals with other Google products' policies. Publishers are not allowed to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the terms of that other service.

For example, you couldn't place ads on a site that allows users to download YouTube videos. This is not permitted by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google explains other policy changes:

- Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we've now brought it directly to the 'Ad Placement' section of the program policies page so that it's easier to find. According to this policy, we don't allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.

- Deceptive implementations: We've clarified this policy a bit in the 'Encouraging Clicks' section of the program policies - ads may not be formatted in a way that makes them indistinguishable from other content on the page where they appear.

- Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.

The policy page itself has been somewhat redesigned. The layout has been updated in a way that lends to easier reading and navigation. Sections have been given expandable "learn more" features so users can obtain more details when needed.

In addition, Google has added more information to the " Webmaster Guidelines " section and created a new "Traffic Sources" section.