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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.
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.
Date Published: Nov 18, 2009 - 4:38 pm
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. In addition, don't forget to register for our upcoming Ad Planner webinar on November 24th, where you'll learn more about how to use the tool and how it can benefit your site.
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. In addition, don't forget to register for our upcoming Ad Planner webinar on November 24th, where you'll learn more about how to use the tool and how it can benefit your site.
Date Published: Nov 17, 2009 - 12:14 pm
This Saturday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PST. 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
Buenos Aires - 3pm Saturday
Cape Town - 8pm Saturday
Moscow - 9pm Saturday
New Delhi -11:30pm 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.
We've converted the maintenance start time for a few cities around the world:
Toronto - 1pm Saturday
Buenos Aires - 3pm Saturday
Cape Town - 8pm Saturday
Moscow - 9pm Saturday
New Delhi -11:30pm 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.
Date Published: Nov 12, 2009 - 2:47 pm
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.
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.
Date Published: Nov 11, 2009 - 11:05 am
Following up on our recent webinar geared towards education sites, we're starting to roll out more webinars geared towards specific types of sites. Webinars are free web seminars where one of our AdSense team members will deliver a presentation on a certain topic, after which you can ask the specialists questions about AdSense on your site. Below, we've listed the other verticals we're going to discuss in upcoming weeks, so be sure to sign up!- Why AdSense is right for Retail
November 11th, 9am PST/5pm GMT
Maximize your AdSense revenue on your Home and Garden site
November 18th, 9.00am PST/5pm GMT
Make the most of your forum with AdSense
November 19th, 5pm GMT/9am PST
Optimizing AdSense on your Business and Finance site
November 25th, 9.00am PST
You may also be interested in checking out the main webinar page in our Help Center for information on other products we'll be talking about such as AdSense for Search, Google Ad Manager, and Google Analytics.
If you have any feedback for us on any of these webinars, or topics that you'd like to see covered in future webinars, please leave us a comment.
Date Published: Nov 10, 2009 - 5:00 pm
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:
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.
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:
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.
Date Published: Nov 09, 2009 - 3:46 pm
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.
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.
Date Published: Nov 05, 2009 - 10:41 am
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.
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.
Date Published: Nov 04, 2009 - 11:54 am
Happy Halloween from the AdSense, DoubleClick, and Ad Manager teams!
Date Published: Oct 30, 2009 - 6:46 pm
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!
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!
Date Published: Oct 29, 2009 - 2:32 pm
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.
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.
Date Published: Oct 28, 2009 - 1:39 pm
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.
Date Published: Oct 21, 2009 - 4:00 pm
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.
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.
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:Q: Do I need to create a Custom Search Engine in order to use the Custom Search Element?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.
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.
Date Published: Oct 20, 2009 - 12:01 pm
Tomorrow marks Diwali, a festival of lights in India, and so we'd like to wish all our publishers a happy and safe Diwali. We hope this festival brings you good luck and prosperity!
Date Published: Oct 16, 2009 - 2:44 pm
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.
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.
Date Published: Oct 15, 2009 - 10:21 am
