The do's and dont's to increase cost per click

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The do's and dont's to increase cost per click

Friday, March 25, 2011 | 9:30:00 AM

Labels: Earnings/Reports , Optimization , Program Policies

In previous blog posts we’ve explained what RPM is and how it's influenced by what users do when they come to your site. We want to take this conversation a step further today, and discuss some strategies that can potentially increase the cost per click (CPC) of your ad units.

Though we can’t quantify a good or bad CPC, there are several things you can do (and a few that you shouldn’t do) if you’re trying to increase the CPC of the ads on your site. Take a look at some of the best practices outlined below:

DOs:

• Enable all of your ad units to show both text and image/rich media ads. By increasing the number of advertisers competing for your ad units, the ad auction will make sure that the highest paying ad will be shown. Learn more from one of our publishers who made this change, and edit all your units in bulk with the new AdSense interface.
• Keep your filter list small so you don’t lower your revenue potential by blocking the highest-paying ads. Watch this video to better understand the ad auction and how to enable the most competition for your ad space.
• Increase the number of ads competing for your site by setting up your custom channels for placement targeting. Read this post for more details and instructions on how to set these up.
• The top-paying ads will be shown in the ad unit that appears first in your HTML code. To take advantage of this, you will need to understand which of your ad units has the highest clickthrough rate (CTR) by using custom channels. Then, you can easily change the code of your website to make sure that your top performing unit is the one with the highest-bidding ads.

DON’Ts:

• Some publishers believe that by writing about high paying keywords they will be able to improve the earnings on their site. This is not a practice that we encourage. In fact, we always recommend to write about subjects that you know well and that you are passionate about so you can continue to create the compelling, original content that attracts visitors to your site.
• Don't use scraped content. It’s a violation of our policies.
• Don’t create multiple accounts. Publishers are not permitted to maintain multiple AdSense accounts under the same payee name, and having the ad code of different accounts on the same website will not affect your CPC in any way.
• Finally, don’t try to manipulate the standard behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google. In case you have any doubt, read the AdSense program policies.

We hope this helps you optimize your AdSense implementation and maximize your CPC. Leave us a comment with the results!

Posted by Marco Viappiani - Inside AdSense team

The ads you’ve been searching for: Introducing AdSense Custom Search Ads

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The ads you’ve been searching for: Introducing AdSense Custom Search Ads

Monday, March 28, 2011 | 8:30:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Here at Google we’ve put a lot of work into displaying the best ads on search results pages, and we want your results pages to benefit too. If your site is search-focused -- for example, if your users are looking for jobs, travel, products, or local businesses -- the ads you display can now be targeted to the same search query you use to return results. This means more relevant ads for users, more revenue for publishers, and better value to advertisers. Today we’re excited to share our latest AdSense for search product: Custom Search Ads.

In addition to great targeting, Custom Search Ads are designed to fit your existing search results’ look and feel. Instead of pre-defined sizes, you can specify the precise width of each ad unit along with the number of individual ads to display, the ad layout, font size, font face, and much more. You can take a look at how some of our first publishers are using these today on LemonFree.com or eCrater.com.

With Custom Search Ads, we can rapidly develop and launch new search ad formats and extensions without requiring you to update your search code. For example, on Google’s results pages we’ve been busy testing new search ad extensions to provide users with information like locations, product images, page links, and merchant information. Two of these new formats are available today in Custom Search Ads: Ad Sitelinks and Seller Ratings. Ad Sitelinks extend the value of ads by showcasing up to 4 additional links to specific, relevant content within an advertiser’s site. Seller ratings add star ratings below a merchant’s ad aggregated from review sites across the web. These help highlight ads for merchants highly recommended by online shoppers. As new formats are developed in the future, we’ll continue to bring them to Custom Search Ads so you benefit automatically.

To get started with Custom Search Ads, sign up today! We’re currently only able to accept and support a limited number of publishers, but we’re excited to review your application and expand this program in the future.

Posted by Ben Lisbakken, Software Engineer and Michael Brandell, Product Specialist

+1 to great web content

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+1 to great web content

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 | 11:11:00 AM

Labels: googlenew , Other Google products

Most successful AdSense publishers have something in common: users who are passionate about their content. Today we’re making it easy for the users who love your content to recommend it to their friends and contacts with the +1 button.

We think sharing on the web can be even better -- that people might share more recommendations, more often, if they knew their advice would be used to help their friends and contacts right when they’re searching for relevant topics on Google. The +1 button is an easy way for users to recommend your content right from the search results pages. The +1 button doesn’t affect the AdSense ad units on your site, but it can improve the way your pages appear in Google search.

+1 is a simple idea. Let’s use Brian as an example. When Brian signs in to his Google Account and sees your site in the organic search results on Google (or search ads if you’re using AdWords), he can +1 it and recommend your page to the world.

The next time Brian’s friend Mary is signed in and searching on Google and your page appears, she might see a personalized annotation letting her know that Brian +1’d it. So Brian’s +1 helps Mary decide that your site is worth checking out.

We expect that personalized annotations will help sites stand out by helping users see when your Google search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1’s could increase both your quality and quantity of Google search traffic.

But the +1 button isn’t just for search results. We’re working on a +1 button that you can put on your pages too, making it easy for people to recommend your content on Google search without leaving your site. If you want to be notified when the +1 button is available for your site, you can sign up for email updates at our +1 webmaster site.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll add +1 buttons to search results and ads on Google.com. We’ll also start to look at +1’s as one of the many signals we use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking. For +1's, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time. At first the +1 button will appear for English searches only on Google.com, but we’re working to add more languages in the future.

We’re excited about using +1’s to make search more personal, relevant and compelling. We hope you’re excited too! If you have questions about the +1 button and how it affects search on Google.com, you can check the Google Webmaster Central Help Center.

Posted by David Byttow - Software Engineer, +1 Button

Donate your ad cents (and dollars) to help Japan

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Donate your ad cents (and dollars) to help Japan

Friday, April 01, 2011 | 8:16:00 AM

Labels: googlenew , International , Payments

A few weeks ago, we posted about how you can help Japan by donating via our crisis response page. We’ve been working to enable you to directly donate your AdSense earnings, and are happy to announce that you can donate a portion or all of your entire unpaid balance as of March 31, 2011 to the Japanese Red Cross via the Tides Foundation by filling out this donation form. If you have at least $10 in your account, we invite you to donate your earnings between April 1 and April 12.

Please keep in mind that all our normal policies still apply -- so please don't ask others to click on your ads in order to increase your earnings.

Due to technical limitations, we can only provide the opportunity for you to donate your earnings directly from your AdSense account if your reporting currency is in U.S. Dollars. If your reporting currency isn't in USD, and you'd still like to donate your AdSense earnings, please use the crisis response page instead.

We know that you may be interested in donating your earnings to additional charities and causes, and we're working to enable this functionality soon for all publishers. Stay tuned to the Inside AdSense blog for future opportunities to donate in other ways!

Posted by Julia Peppiatt - AdSense Payments Specialist

New Interface Wednesdays: CrowdGather gets more efficient with the new AdSense interface

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New Interface Wednesdays: CrowdGather gets more efficient with the new AdSense interface

Wednesday, April 06, 2011 | 8:25:00 AM

Labels: Case studies , New AdSense Interface

CrowdGather uses the new AdSense interface to efficiently track and improve performance across its large network of forums.

CrowdGather.com is a leading, publicly traded network of online forums, consisting of tens of thousands of online communities. Sanjay Sabnani, CEO of Crowdgather, recently sat down with us to share his site’s story as well as some tips on using the new AdSense interface to track and improve performance.

Inside AdSense: Tell us about the origin of your site.
Sanjay Sabnani: In 2002 I acquired my first forum, GenMay.com (short for General Mayhem), a place for off-topic humor, where gamers hang out. General Mayhem grew pretty rapidly and I started acquiring more forums, which ultimately led to the creation of CrowdGather one year later. CrowdGather now receives 5 million unique visitors a month and 90 million monthly page views across its tens of thousands of communities, including hosted forum sites Lefora and FreeForums.org.

IA: What role does AdSense play in your business?
SS: I used Google AdSense from the get-go on GenMay.com, and began using it across the entire CrowdGather network once it was established. AdSense was the first ad network I had found that I actually understood and could implement and it became a very easy way to begin to monetize. These days, AdSense is a key component for us, and we’ve worked on optimizing it across our network. We’ve found that AdSense displays the most relevant ads out of any contextual partner we’ve worked with. Since forums are very text-rich and the ads are so relevant, AdSense converts very well.

IA: I understand you’ve recently started using the new AdSense interface. What do you like about it?
SS: The new interface is like a monitoring system to ensure that all goes well across the CrowdGather network. For a network like CrowdGather comprising tens of thousands of online communities, the detailed performance reports are important tools for tracking individual site performance. We’re always looking to see if any one particular site is acting differently than the rest of the network. With the new interface, we’re able to track traffic down to that individual subdomain level which is valuable for us, since before it was all lumped together as a blanket effective CPM.

Based on the quicker feedback, we’ve been able to adjust the overall positioning and placement of the AdSense units across our network more rapidly. Before, we’d look at aggregate data for a few weeks to decide if a certain location was performing better on a certain community. Now we’re able to play around a lot more quickly, and get that feedback much quicker, in terms of testing.

IA: If you had to sum it up, what would you tell other publishers about the new interface?
SS: We can see all this data more rapidly, and get an overview of the week to see the revenue direction. The new interface has made AdSense a bigger part of our analytics routine.

If you’d like to see how the new AdSense interface can help reduce time spent managing and monitoring your account, sign in to your account and switch to the new interface (you can get there from the link in the upper corner that says “Try the new AdSense interface”). To learn more about the new reporting functionality, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Meredith Blackwell - Inside AdSense team

New Interface Wednesdays: Bulk edit

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New Interface Wednesdays: Bulk edit

Wednesday, March 09, 2011 | 8:10:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features , New AdSense Interface , Optimization

You might have read in a previous AdSense blog post that opting in to both text and image ads increases the pool of advertisers bidding for your site inventory -- which can in turn increase the amount of revenue you make from AdSense. In the past, changing all your ad units to accept both text and image ads might have taken a lot of time. But now, the new interface allows you to easily find and edit all or some of your ad units with just a few clicks.

Simply go to the 'My ads' tab in the new interface and under 'Content,' choose the 'Ad units' page. Using the checkboxes, select the ad units you’d like to edit, or simply select the checkbox at the top of the list to select all of your ad units. Using the 'Actions' dropdown, select 'Edit ad type.' Choose 'Text & image/rich media ads' and then click 'apply ad type.' Now any ad units that can be opted into both text and image will have this set as their ad type.

We recommend opting your ad units into both text and image to increase auction pressure, ensuring you will get the highest RPM possible. Keep in mind that some units such as link units and certain ad sizes cannot contain image ads, so you will not be able to modify these ad types.


Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the My ads tab, and then 'Content,' followed by 'Ad units.'

Posted by Alex Benton - AdSense Engineer

Making the web faster for all AdSense for content publishers

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Making the web faster for all AdSense for content publishers

Labels: AdSense features , googlenew

At Google, we spend a lot of time working to make the web faster. Your site is no exception. And today, as part of this vision, we’re pleased to announce a major boost in speed for AdSense publishers worldwide.

AdSense ads, like any element on a webpage, usually contribute to the time the page takes to load. Last year, we ran tests that showed AdSense adding 12% on average to the time it took to load various pages from top web sites, so we set out to make this better. We’ve now developed a new ads delivery technique to improve the speed of websites that display AdSense ads, so that it doesn’t slow down your page content. We’re very happy to announce that we’ve eliminated this slowdown for the majority of websites and for a number of browsers, and are seeing pages load as much as a second faster than before.

The best part is, you don’t need to make any changes to your code or account — the faster load time has kicked into gear for everyone automatically, so your visitors will experience a noticeable improvement in the speed of your webpages!

At this time, we're deploying globally for users of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and will be expanding the list of browsers that benefit from this speed-up soon.

And it doesn’t stop here, as we’ll keep working to make things even faster. Continue to grow your site and AdSense inventory. We’ll be sure to keep up.

Posted by Richard Rabbat - Product Manager

New in-ads notice label and icon

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New in-ads notice label and icon

Monday, March 21, 2011 | 2:32:00 PM

Labels: AdSense features , googlenew

You've probably noticed that AdWords ads appearing on your site have a special "i" icon that expands to an "Ads by Google" label in the bottom corner of the ad. Users who click this label are taken to a page where they learn more about online advertising and the ads they've seen. Giving users clear notice about the ads they see is a high priority for Google and for many in the online advertising industry at large.

We'll soon start to change our in-ads notice icon to a new icon that expands to an "AdChoices" label. These notifications were developed by the online advertising industry’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising to more proactively give users notice and choice about the ads they see. With the change from our "i" icon and "Ads by Google" label to these new notifications, we hope to show our support for this cross-industry initiative, and to increase our users' understanding about ad choices through adoption of an icon they'll see on ads across the web.



In a few weeks, we'll begin to show the new icon and label on most ad formats across the majority of English-language sites. Over time, we’ll expand the notice to ensure that all English-language publisher sites in the Google Display Network come within the Self-Regulatory Program (until then, these sites will show the existing “i” icon and “Ads by Google” label). This will be the single most widespread rollout of the "AdChoices" label to date, and we're encouraged that others in the industry are similarly adopting it. We’re also looking at ways to increase transparency and control in other languages and countries. In the meantime, those languages and countries will continue to see the “i” and “Ads by Google” notice.

Just like before, users who click on the "AdChoices" label will be taken to a page where they can learn more about online advertising and the ads they've just seen. This page will also provide a link to the Ads Preferences Manager, where users can control the types of interest-based ads they see. Our tests of this new icon and label showed that they should not have any effect on ad performance. We think this rollout will help users better understand the ads they're seeing, and we look forward to seeing widespread adoption of this label throughout the industry.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

The ads you’ve been searching for: Introducing AdSense Custom Search Ads

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Here at Google we’ve put a lot of work into displaying the best ads on search results pages, and we want your results pages to benefit too. If your site is search-focused -- for example, if your users are looking for jobs, travel, products, or local businesses -- the ads you display can now be targeted to the same search query you use to return results. This means more relevant ads for users, more revenue for publishers, and better value to advertisers. Today we’re excited to share our latest AdSense for search product: Custom Search Ads.

In addition to great targeting, Custom Search Ads are designed to fit your existing search results’ look and feel. Instead of pre-defined sizes, you can specify the precise width of each ad unit along with the number of individual ads to display, the ad layout, font size, font face, and much more. You can take a look at how some of our first publishers are using these today on LemonFree.com or eCrater.com.

With Custom Search Ads, we can rapidly develop and launch new search ad formats and extensions without requiring you to update your search code. For example, on Google’s results pages we’ve been busy testing new search ad extensions to provide users with information like locations, product images, page links, and merchant information. Two of these new formats are available today in Custom Search Ads: Ad Sitelinks and Seller Ratings. Ad Sitelinks extend the value of ads by showcasing up to 4 additional links to specific, relevant content within an advertiser’s site. Seller ratings add star ratings below a merchant’s ad aggregated from review sites across the web. These help highlight ads for merchants highly recommended by online shoppers. As new formats are developed in the future, we’ll continue to bring them to Custom Search Ads so you benefit automatically.

To get started with Custom Search Ads, sign up today! We’re currently only able to accept and support a limited number of publishers, but we’re excited to review your application and expand this program in the future.

Posted by Ben Lisbakken, Software Engineer and Michael Brandell, Product Specialist

New home page for the new AdSense interface

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New home page for the new AdSense interface

We’ll now be showing you earnings for today, yesterday, this month so far, and last month as well as any unpaid finalized earnings and most recent payment information. Important alerts will appear in a bar at the top to make sure you don’t miss anything critical.

We’re still working toward more improvements based on comments we’ve heard, including the ability to view your top channels from the home page. Stay tuned for many more features that you've been asking for! Please continue to send us your feedback on the new interface by joining the conversation in our forum or through the ‘Report issue’ link in the upper corner of your account.


Posted by Dan Banfield & Madhuwati Lagu - AdSense Engineers

Happy St. Patrick's Day

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

Friday, March 18, 2011 | 8:55:00 AM

Labels: AdSense Team , International

A big St Patty's cheers from everyone on the Dublin AdSense team!

Posted by Nathaniel Kolenberg - Inside AdSense Team

Site maintenance on Sunday, March 20

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Site maintenance on Sunday, March 20

Friday, March 18, 2011 | 11:02:00 AM

Labels: Other

This Sunday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 3am to 7am PDT. You may be unable to log in to your AdSense account during this time and some features may be temporarily unavailable during the maintenance. We'll continue serving ads to your pages and tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. Your ad targeting won't be affected.



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



London - 10am GMT Sunday
Alexandria - 12pm EET Sunday
Hyderabad - 3:30pm IST Sunday

Jakarta - 5pm WIT Sunday

Perth - 6pm WST Sunday

To learn more about what goes on during these maintenance periods, check out this Inside AdSense post.



Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSenseTeam

New in-ads notice label and icon

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New in-ads notice label and icon

Monday, March 21, 2011 | 2:32:00 PM

Labels: AdSense features , googlenew

You've probably noticed that AdWords ads appearing on your site have a special "i" icon that expands to an "Ads by Google" label in the bottom corner of the ad. Users who click this label are taken to a page where they learn more about online advertising and the ads they've seen. Giving users clear notice about the ads they see is a high priority for Google and for many in the online advertising industry at large.

We'll soon start to change our in-ads notice icon to a new icon that expands to an "AdChoices" label. These notifications were developed by the online advertising industry’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising to more proactively give users notice and choice about the ads they see. With the change from our "i" icon and "Ads by Google" label to these new notifications, we hope to show our support for this cross-industry initiative, and to increase our users' understanding about ad choices through adoption of an icon they'll see on ads across the web.



In a few weeks, we'll begin to show the new icon and label on most ad formats across the majority of English-language sites. Over time, we’ll expand the notice to ensure that all English-language publisher sites in the Google Display Network come within the Self-Regulatory Program (until then, these sites will show the existing “i” icon and “Ads by Google” label). This will be the single most widespread rollout of the "AdChoices" label to date, and we're encouraged that others in the industry are similarly adopting it. We’re also looking at ways to increase transparency and control in other languages and countries. In the meantime, those languages and countries will continue to see the “i” and “Ads by Google” notice.

Just like before, users who click on the "AdChoices" label will be taken to a page where they can learn more about online advertising and the ads they've just seen. This page will also provide a link to the Ads Preferences Manager, where users can control the types of interest-based ads they see. Our tests of this new icon and label showed that they should not have any effect on ad performance. We think this rollout will help users better understand the ads they're seeing, and we look forward to seeing widespread adoption of this label throughout the industry.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

Troubleshooting tips part III: Performance reports & earnings

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Troubleshooting tips part III: Performance reports & earnings

Wednesday, March 03, 2010 | 11:10:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Once ads are displaying fine on your pages, your next concern may be your earnings. To make sure all your impressions and clicks are recorded correctly, check out the following notes and tips.

First, be aware that your AdSense reports are updated every 15 to 30 minutes, but can sometimes take up to 24 hours to update. So at times, if you don't see the numbers you expect in your reports, be sure to check again later once your reports have been updated.

• Do you use the Allowed Sites feature? Allowed sites are websites or URLs on which AdSense publishers allow or wish to have their Google ads displayed. If you use the allowed sites feature in your AdSense account, be sure to add all the websites you're displaying ads on, to the list of allowed sites. If you forget to add a sites where you're displaying ads, then impressions and clicks on the sites will be shown in your reports, but advertisers won't be charged and the clicks won't earn any revenue.

• Do you have channels set up to track your clicks and impressions?
  
  • If your channel reports show more data than your aggregate reports, it might be the case that your domains or ad units are being tracked simultaneously on multiple URL or custom channels. If that's the case, then to see your complete, accurate statistics, visit your Advanced Reports page. When you select the Aggregate Data radio button and click Display Report, you'll see all clicks, page impressions, and earnings from your account with no duplication of data.
    
  • Alternatively, you may see that your aggregate reports show more data than your channel reports, even if all your pages are tracked with channels. This can occur sometimes when your page is displayed within a frame; in this case data won't appear in your channel reports but will display in your aggregate reports.

Channel data can be a bit tricky, so make sure to pick distinctive names to differentiate between URL and custom channels -- that way, you'll know exactly what data you're viewing. We also recommend checking out our optimization tips for channels to help you determine which ad units and placements are performing well, and how you can use this information to earn more revenue.

• If you have ad placements, have you named them accurately? Once you create channels for your ad units or domains, you can turn your custom channels into ad placements that advertisers can specifically target their ads to, using placement targeting. When entering a description for your channels to appear as ad placements, be sure to enter something informative and accurate to represent your site well.

Also, we advise you to be careful when renaming the ad placement as you will lose existing advertiser bids.

Next week, we'll look at publisher controls and how to filter certain ads from appearing on your site.

Posted by Ulrike Jung - Inside AdSense Team

Google-certified ad networks now available to all publishers

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Google-certified ad networks now available to all publishers

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | 3:21:00 PM

Labels: AdSense features

Back in August, we announced plans to give publishers the ability to allow multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on your site. While this feature was initially available only to publishers located in North America and Europe, we're happy to announce that all publishers will now have access to these participating ad networks.

Allowing these ad networks to compete for your display ad space means that more ads will be eligible to appear on your pages, leading to potentially higher earnings in the long run. Our system will show the ads that will generate you the most profit, whether they're from these Google-certified ad networks or the AdWords program. As a reminder, all Google-certified ad networks are required to adhere to our standards for user privacy, ad quality, and speed. In addition, you can use the controls in your Ad Review Center to specify which ad networks can appear on your pages.

Finally, some ad networks use tools similar to Google's interest-based advertising to show more relevant ads to users on the sites they visit. We'll allow certified networks who comply with user privacy guidelines to show ads using these tools, but they won't be permitted to collect data from your site for the purpose of subsequent interest-based advertising. You'll be able to opt out of receiving ads based on user interests from these certified networks, and we have changed our requirements for third-party ad serving to reflect this. We're dedicated to providing users with a positive experience, while helping publishers effectively monetize the ads appearing on their sites. We believe you'll find that more competition translates into better ads and increased revenue in the long run.

We're continuing to certify additional ad networks, so please keep in mind that you won't see immediate changes in your earnings or ads. As we continue to add new ad networks, you'll see them appear in your Ad Review Center. To learn more about managing your account settings and Google-certified ad networks, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Atul Bhandari - AdSense Product Manager

Link units revamped

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Link units revamped

Monday, April 12, 2010 | 11:36:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

If you’re as excited about link units as I am, then you’ll be happy to know that they’re now better than ever! Link units are a different type of ad format which display a list of topics relevant to the content of your page. When a user clicks on a topic, we’ll show a page of related ads and you’ll earn from valid clicks on those ads. Many publishers have found that link units offer monetization similar to that of ad units and provide a more integrated user experience.

In our biggest performance overhaul to date, the link units engineering team recently completed a full rewrite of the link unit matching system. The new system is much smarter: it not only uses more sophisticated topic ranking algorithms but also continuously optimizes by learning which topics have the most appeal to the visitors of your site. The results are overwhelmingly positive -- topic quality, user response rate to topics and ads, and monetization metrics have all improved in significant, measurable ways.

If you aren't already using link units on your pages, I encourage you to give them a try. They’re space-efficient and can help provide additional AdSense revenue. Visit your ‘AdSense Setup’ tab and select 'AdSense for content' to get started, or learn more in our Help Center.


Posted by Jerry Krikheli - Engineering Manager for Link Units

Two new ways to optimize AdSense on your website

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Two new ways to optimize AdSense on your website

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | 9:00:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Publishers frequently ask for new ways to increase the relevancy of the AdSense ads shown on their sites. Today, we're pleased to announce two features to help you display highly targeted ads to your users in new and exciting ways.

AdSense for Search Ads Only

You may remember that last year, we introduced the Custom Search element to help you easily bring Google search results and ads to your site. More recently, we introduced data rendering to give you even more control over how the results are shown to your users.

We understand that some of you may have your own, non-Google search results that you'd like to monetize. In the past, this typically meant that you weren't able to use AdSense for search ads. Now, with AdSense for search ads only, publishers can now include AdSense for search ads on their pages and pair them with their own, homegrown search results.

By adding just a few lines of JavaScript to your page, you can display AdSense for search ads above, beside, or below your own search results. You can pick the size, shape and number of ads displayed in each block, and you can even adjust the style of the ads to better fit the look and feel of your site. For instance, check out how seamlessly MerchantCircle has integrated AdSense for search ads only above and next to their search results.

AdSense for Ajax

Whether your site offers your own search results or not, if you have dynamic content, you may be interested in delivering your AdSense for content ads with AdSense for Ajax. With traditional AdSense for content, ads refresh only when a page is reloaded. This works great -- but isn't optimal when your site relies heavily on Ajax, which allows visitors to navigate a lot of content without actually leaving a single page. Also, sites that generate a lot of dynamic content that isn't crawlable are difficult to target accurately.

Here's where AdSense for Ajax comes in. With AdSense for Ajax, your AdSense for content ads will refresh whenever there's a context change - regardless of whether the page reloads or not. Travel site trip.com has taken advantage of this by showing relevant ads based on the selected tab. Try clicking on the "Hotels" tab. The page doesn't reload, yet the Ads by Google have refreshed to show ads more relevant to hotels than flights.

In addition to the ads refreshing, you might wonder why the subject of the ads changed since the crawlable content on the page didn't change much when the tab changed. The second benefit of AdSense for Ajax is that it allows you to provide hints about your site's uncrawlable content with each refresh.

Both of these AdSense features can be easily added to most sites by just copying and pasting a few lines of JavaScript code, which will help you show highly relevant ads to your visitors.

Sound right for your site? Please sign up to try out AdSense for Ajax or AdSense for search ads only today!

Posted by Adam Feldman, Product Manager and Michael Brandell, Product Specialist

Category filtering available in 13 languages

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Category filtering available in 13 languages

Thursday, May 20, 2010 | 9:12:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

If you're an international publisher who's been waiting for category filtering, we're happy to let you know that we're continuing to expand the feature's availability worldwide. It's currently available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Arabic. In addition, we're beginning to roll this out in beta for Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian -- although we're not able to add additional publishers to the limited beta at this time, we're working to make category filtering more widely available in these languages soon.

With category filtering, you can prevent ads from up to 11 specific categories from appearing on your pages. Ads in these categories will be filtered if they're in any of the supported languages, regardless of how they've been targeted to your pages. To start using 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, you can see the percentage of revenue and ad impressions you've been receiving from each category in the last 30 days; this information can help you understand the impact that applying filters might have.

To learn more about category filtering, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

The AdSense revenue share

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The AdSense revenue share

Monday, May 24, 2010 | 7:00:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Today, in the spirit of greater transparency with AdSense publishers, we’re sharing the revenue shares for our two main AdSense products — AdSense for content and AdSense for search.

As you may already know, AdSense is comprised of several products. The most popular are AdSense for content, which allows publishers to generate revenue from ads placed alongside web content, and AdSense for search, which allows publishers to place a custom Google search engine on their site and generate revenue from ads shown next to search results. Since AdSense for content and AdSense for search offer publishers different services, the revenue shared with publishers differs for each of these products.

AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites. The remaining portion that we keep reflects Google's costs for our continued investment in AdSense — including the development of new technologies, products and features that help maximize the earnings you generate from these ads. It also reflects the costs we incur in building products and features that enable our AdWords advertisers to serve ads on our AdSense partner sites. Since launching AdSense for content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed.

We pay our AdSense for search partners a 51% revenue share, worldwide, for the search ads that appear through their implementations. As with AdSense for content, the proportion of revenue that we keep reflects our costs, including the significant expense, research and development involved in building and enhancing our core search and AdWords technologies. The AdSense for search revenue share has remained the same since 2005, when we increased it.

We also offer additional AdSense products including AdSense for mobile applications, AdSense for feeds, and AdSense for games. We aren’t disclosing the revenue shares for these products at this time because they’re quickly evolving, and we're still learning about the costs associated with supporting them. Revenue shares for these products can vary from product to product since our costs in building and maintaining these products can vary significantly. Additionally, the revenue shares for AdSense for content and AdSense for search also can vary for major online publishers with whom we negotiate individual contracts.

Of course, we can’t guarantee that the revenue share will never change (our costs may change significantly, for example), but we don’t have any current plans to do so for any AdSense product. Over the next few months we’ll begin showing the revenue shares for AdSense for content and AdSense for search right in the AdSense interface.

We hope this additional transparency helps you gain more insight into your business partnership with Google. We believe our revenue share is very competitive, and the vast number of advertisers who compete to appear on AdSense sites helps to ensure that you’re earning the most from every ad impression. Additionally, when considering different monetization options, we encourage you to focus on the total revenue generated from your site, rather than just revenue share, which can be misleading. For example, you would receive $68 with AdSense for content for $100 worth of advertising that appeared on your site. If another ad network offers an 80% revenue share, but is only able to collect $50 from ads served on your site, you would earn $40. In this case, a higher revenue share wouldn’t make up for the lower revenue yield of the other ad network.

We’re continually working on helping you improve the returns from your site while giving you more control and insight into AdSense. For example, we continue to improve our technology so that we can deliver even better matched ads and attract even more advertisers to your websites. Additionally, we recently began providing more granular ways to find and review the ads on your site, as well as the ability to filter more ads by category. We’re also focused on finding other ways to make AdSense better for you. As you may remember, last December, we asked for your ideas and feedback on how we can make AdSense better. We received more than 600 suggestions and 35,000 votes, and we’ve been reviewing them all.

Keep an eye on this blog for updates about the new features we’re building to help you maximize your advertising revenues.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Product Management

Introducing the Google Display Network

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Introducing the Google Display Network

Friday, June 18, 2010 | 10:57:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

We’re always focused on improving AdSense by bringing more advertisers to your sites, giving you more control over the ads that appear on your sites, and giving you more transparency into how much revenue you’re earning. Over the past year, much of our focus has been on attracting more display advertisers and display advertising spend to your sites. We’ve added new advertisers and introduced options that help these advertisers reach your sites. At the same time, advertisers have continued to run ads on YouTube and our own properties. To make our display media offerings clearer to advertisers and agencies so that we can continue to bring more display spend to your sites, we’re creating a new umbrella name for all these properties, the Google Display Network.

The Google Display Network will comprise all of the sites where advertisers can buy ads through Google, including the over one million AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange partners as well as YouTube and Google properties such as Google Finance, Gmail, Google Maps, and Blogger. As an AdSense publisher you’re already part of the Google Display Network. We’re not making any changes to how AdSense works, so no action is required on your part. If you use AdSense for search, your AdSense for search ad space won't be part of the Google Display Network. Advertisers will continue to be able to purchase ads on your search results pages in the same way they always have.

While this new name reflects our significant investment to bring more display advertising to your sites, we want to make sure you know that we are still committed to delivering relevant text ads. If you receive text ads on your sites today, rest assured that you will continue to do so. The Google Display Network offers all ad formats - text, image, rich media, and video ads - enabling advertisers to unleash their creativity and engage visitors on your websites in various ways. If you haven’t opted into receiving image ads, we encourage you to do so in order to benefit from the investments we’ve made.

We’re working hard to offer the best display advertising solutions, and we look forward to continuing to introduce new features on the Google Display Network that help advertisers reach their goals and that help our AdSense publishers earn more revenue.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management

AdSense Facts & Fiction Part III: The stats pipeline

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AdSense Facts & Fiction Part III: The stats pipeline

Thursday, June 24, 2010 | 3:21:00 PM

Labels: AdSense features , Facts and Fiction

Fiction: Site maintenance periods and delays in my AdSense reports mean that data isn’t being recorded properly.

Fact: Although there can sometimes be delays in the stats pipeline, all data is still tracked accurately.

We call the process of tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings the “stats pipeline.” The stats pipeline runs continuously, reviewing the logs of activity written by our ad serving system, aggregating them, and updating the storage system. So that we can generate these statistics quickly and reliably, without losing any information, the process of aggregating your statistics spans several data centers.

Sometimes in rare cases, the process for aggregating stats can be delayed for several hours. This can happen for a few possible reasons:

• We sometimes make updates to our datacenter to make use of the latest technologies. However, these don’t affect how your clicks are tracked or how much you earn. Depending on the time it takes for the updates to complete, you may notice that stats are delayed by several hours.
  
• We have scheduled database down-times, generally on Saturday mornings (Pacific Time). Since the process of aggregating your statistics depends on database data, any such downtime also leads to delay in statistics. I’d recommend reading this Inside AdSense post for more information about these downtimes.
  
• On rare occasions, data centers can have unforeseen problems, causing unplanned delay in updating statistics.

These downtimes only delay your statistics -- they don’t impact the actual tracking of your statistics. We make sure that all events are processed exactly once, and we have implemented a number of internally and externally audited verification procedures to ensure that this is the case. Also, events in the aggregation pipeline are processed in a way that’s not specific to a particular publisher, so all of you should get your stats updates at the same time.

When downtimes occur, we work to notify publishers in advance and as quickly as possible using this blog, the AdSense Help Forum, and our Known Issues page. We understand how important it is for you to have up-to-date statistics, and continue to work towards making sure that the delays are kept to a minimum.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

An update on the AdSense Product Ideas page

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An update on the AdSense Product Ideas page

Monday, June 28, 2010 | 11:30:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

A few months ago, we created a Product Ideas page for AdSense, where you could tell us what product and feature updates you’d like to see. We received over 600 ideas from publishers all around the world, with ideas ranging from ad filtering options to increased transparency, and more detailed reporting to easier account management.

Our product and engineering teams have been hard at work to bring you ideas from the wishlist. We still have more to do, but wanted to share some of the progress so far:

You asked for...More transparency about how much you’re earning from AdSense.
What we’ve delivered...The AdSense for content and AdSense for search revenue shares are now publicly shared.

You asked for...The ability to block certain categories of ads, like religion and dating.
What we’ve delivered...Category blocking (previously known as category filtering) is now available in 13 languages. You can filter up to 11 ad categories, including religion, dating, politics and weight loss.

We’ve also been developing a new version of the AdSense interface. Although the interface is currently in beta, it addresses many of the requests we saw on the Product Ideas page. Take a look at the improvements that the new interface offers:

You asked for...Make it easy to change addresses when we move from one location to a new one.
What we’ve delivered...You can make requests to change the country of your payment address directly in the new AdSense interface. (Due to legal and system constraints, some country updates will still require you to create a new account.)


You asked for...Automatic revenue tracking to quickly and easily compare performance of ads of different sizes and types.
What we’ve delivered...The new AdSense interface offers Ad units, Ad sizes, and Ad types reports in the Performance Reports tab. These detailed reports can help you understand which individual ad units, ad sizes, and ad types perform best on your site.


You asked for...The ability to view data for a custom date range, similar to Google Analytics.
What we’ve delivered...The new AdSense interface includes a date range selector just like Google Analytics. Plus, to see how your earnings have changed over time, we also have a feature that allows you to compare two date ranges. Simply select the date range you want to compare, check “Compare to other dates”, fill in the start date, and we’ll fill in the end date for you!


You asked for...More time frames for analyzing metrics. Specifically we heard the wish to “select the same period of time and say group by week or month to see the trend.”
What we’ve delivered...Reports by week and month, in addition to by day, are available in the Performance Reports page. Along with reports for “Entire account by day” you can choose from weeks and months.

If you’d like the new beta interface enabled in your account, you can make a request.

Thanks for all your ideas and votes. Your ideas and feedback help our teams determine where we should be spending our time, so keep them coming!

Posted by Becky Feren - Product Specialist

Switch to the new version of AdSense for search

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Switch to the new version of AdSense for search

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | 11:50:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Over the last two years, the AdSense team has offered the powerful Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) product as an improvement over the original AdSense for search. After some recent improvements, we're now ready to retire the older version of AdSense for search. If the Google logo on your search results page reads "Powered by Google" instead of the newer "Google Custom Search" then you haven't yet upgraded to the newer version. The new AdSense for search with CSE is available in your account, and we encourage you to make the switch by updating your code as soon as possible.

AdSense for search with CSE gives you more control over your search results without changing how you earn money showing AdSense for search ads. For example, with the new version, you'll have access to advanced features like refinements and promotions. Our team has developed a number of updates and improvements during the past few months, and you can access more advanced features at www.google.com/cse.

Your existing AdSense for search box will continue to work normally for a few more months, and we'll be sure to update you when we retire this version. To take advantage of the benefits offered by the new version of AdSense for search and ensure you don't miss any revenue during the transition, we encourage you to update your code now. You'll just need to regenerate your AdSense for search code by signing in to your account and following these instructions:

1. Visit your "AdSense Setup" tab and select "AdSense for Search."
2. Select the sites you'd like your users to be able to search across (Learn More).
3. Customize the look and feel of your search engine results.
4. Update the code on your website.

For more information about AdSense for search with CSE, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

A new look for AdSense for content ad units

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A new look for AdSense for content ad units

Monday, August 09, 2010 | 11:10:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

We're excited to announce a revamped design of three of our AdSense for content ad units! After analyzing publisher site layouts and reviewing requests around the world, we decided to make our formats more space-efficient and visually pleasing by changing the layout of the text. We spent a lot of time experimenting with different possibilities, and we're starting with changes to the following ad units:

• Leaderboard (728x90): the title, description, and URL are now arranged in rows instead of columns (except in the case when only one ad is showing)
• Medium and large rectangles (300x250, 336x280): the URL is now in the same line as the title

In certain cases, you'll also see a few minor adjustments to the font size. For example, the font size for the leaderboard with four ads is much more readable. Please note that these changes will roll out over the next few weeks.


During testing, the redesigned ads performed extremely well. We'll continue to experiment and innovate on our formats to help you monetize your content, and we encourage you to submit ideas in the comments below.

Posted by Amy Wu - AdSense Product Manager

Update: We've been listening to your feedback and monitoring the performance of the new ad layouts closely as we continue our gradual rollout. After much consideration, we've decided to return to a 3 line layout in the medium rectangle (300x250) so the URLs have more space. Thanks for your input thus far, and we'll continue to investigate ways to improve the performance of your ad units.

Updated on 8/27/2010 by Amy Wu - AdSense Product Manager

Sensitive category blocking now available for Japanese, Chinese, Polish, and Portuguese

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Sensitive category blocking now available for Japanese, Chinese, Polish, and Portuguese

Monday, August 23, 2010 | 11:30:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

In an effort to expand the availability of sensitive category blocking (also known as category filtering) worldwide, we’re happy to announce that sensitive category blocking has now officially launched in Japanese, Chinese, Polish, and Portuguese. As you might know, this feature is also available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Arabic with testing being done for Russian.

With sensitive category blocking, you can prevent ads from up to 11 specific categories from appearing on your pages. Ads in these categories will be blocked if they're in any of the supported languages, regardless of how they've been targeted to your pages.

If you’d like to set up sensitive category blocking, please sign in to your AdSense account and visit the 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 block. In addition, to help you understand the impact of applying these filters, we'll show you the percentage of revenue and ad impressions you've been receiving from each category in the last 30 days.

For more information about sensitive category blocking, we encourage you to visit our Help Center.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

AdSense email preferences: Get the most from your account and from Google

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AdSense email preferences: Get the most from your account and from Google

Monday, August 30, 2010 | 9:10:00 AM

Labels: AdSense features

Have you checked your AdSense email preferences lately? If not, you may be missing out on important information and special offers without realizing. Take a minute to log in and update your email preferences under the ‘My Account’ tab.

Want to be invited to upcoming events like AdSense In Your City? Make sure you check the box next to Special Offers when you edit your email preferences so you can stay up-to-date with giveaways and other special programs in your area.

Want tips from the AdSense team for how to earn more with your AdSense account? Check Customized help and performance suggestions and/or Newsletters so we can offer personalized guidance to improve performance and maximize your revenue.

Want to help us improve AdSense by testing out features like the new AdSense interface? Check Google Market Research and you’ll be able to share your valuable feedback with us through surveys and beta tests.

Want promotions and key updates for other Google products that can help you grow your AdSense business? Check Information about other Google products and services which may be of interest to you so we can send you news and coupons based on your potential needs.

We want to help you earn more with tips and promotions, invite you to in-person events, and gather your feedback so we can continue to improve AdSense. So log in, update your preferences, and take advantage of the opportunities coming your way from the AdSense team!

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

Introducing themed ads in Custom Search

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Introducing themed ads in Custom Search

Monday, September 20, 2010 | 12:50:00 PM

Labels: AdSense features , googlenew

Last year, we took a big step forward in improving customization of the look and feel of results by providing plug-n-play themes in the Custom Search Element. This enabled you to choose from among a palette of predefined styles. You can find a style that matches your website and start using search, or further customize the style if you like.

We’re taking themes one step further. Each theme now has ads displayed with a look and feel that match the overall style used for the search results.

The result is harmony between search results and ads, which we think makes for a great user experience. The following screenshots show search results and ads for three different themes: espresso, minimalist and green sky.



We hope you agree that your visitors will enjoy themed ads. As always, be sure to send us your feedback.

Posted by Rajat Mukherjee - Group Product Manager, Search