Ghoulish greetings
Posted:
Friday, October 30, 2009
Happy Halloween from the AdSense, DoubleClick, and Ad Manager teams!
A more customized search experience for your website
Posted:
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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!
Coming soon: Filter more categories
Posted:
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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.
A learning opportunity for education sites
Posted:
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
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.
Spotlight on the Custom Search Element
Posted:
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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.
Wishing all our publishers a Happy Diwali
Posted:
Friday, October 16, 2009
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!
Extending the "Ads by Google" label to more ads
Posted:
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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.
Register for upcoming webinars to make the most out of your account
Posted:
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
We're pleased to announce that our Dublin-based AdSense team has just released a new webinar schedule. Over the coming months, we look forward to helping you discover how to take advantage of the full potential of your site. Choose from a range of topics, including optimisation, AdSense for search, Analytics, and Google Ad Manager, and see how you can make the most out of AdSense.During each of these webinars, an AdSense specialist will guide you through a presentation and will be available afterward to take questions related to the topic. We've heard from previous attendees that they found our webinars worthwhile, particularly for the chance to ask questions and learn more about solutions suited to their sites. We encourage you to join us, and to let us know which webinars would interest you in the future.
The first webinar will take place tomorrow, October 14th, and will cover the essentials of optimisation. To find out more or to register today, visit our Help Center.
Site maintenance on Saturday, October 10
Posted:
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance this Saturday, October 10th, from 10am to 2pm PDT. Although you'll be unable to log in to your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts during this time, we'll continue to track your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad serving and targeting won't be affected.
Here's the maintenance start time, converted for a few cities around the world:
London - 6pm Saturday
Bucharest - 8pm Saturday
Mumbai - 10:30pm Saturday
Taipei - 1am Sunday
Sydney - 4am Sunday
Thanks for your patience, and in the meantime, you might be interested in reading more about what our engineers are working on during these maintenance periods.
Here's the maintenance start time, converted for a few cities around the world:
London - 6pm Saturday
Bucharest - 8pm Saturday
Mumbai - 10:30pm Saturday
Taipei - 1am Sunday
Sydney - 4am Sunday
Thanks for your patience, and in the meantime, you might be interested in reading more about what our engineers are working on during these maintenance periods.
Meet the AdSense Team in New York City
Posted:
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Start spreading the news: the Content Revenue Strategies (CRS) conference and expo is coming to New York City on November 5th. Formerly known as ADSPACE, CRS will take place alongside ad:tech New York and offer sessions tailored to small and medium sized publishers. You'll have the opportunity to meet other AdSense publishers during the event, and a variety of speakers will share their experiences and techniques to help you increase your AdSense revenue. You'll also hear from a number of Google representatives at CRS, and we especially hope you'll join us for the two keynote sessions. During the first keynote, Group Product Manager Jonathan Bellack will share insights into our team's product vision and discuss how recent product enhancements can help you grow your business. The second keynote will feature the return of the AdSense Publisher Forum, an open Q&A session where attendees can ask questions directly to a panel of AdSense team members. The panel will be moderated by Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.com, and feature Head of Publisher Solutions Gavin Bishop, Online Sales and Operations Manager Christian Ashlock, and Product Manager Tim Evans.
Lastly, a team of AdSense optimizers will be present at the conference to meet you and answer your questions. Stop by our Optimization Lounge to receive customized performance tips for your websites, and share your product feedback and suggestions.
Register today using our Google promotional code CRSGoogle, and you'll receive $100 off the price of a conference pass. (And if you register by this Friday, October 9th, you can take advantage of the Early Bird price.) Your CRS conference pass will grant you access to all of the sessions and keynotes, a CRS attendee lunch, and the ad:tech New York Expo Hall. For more information about the conference, including the full schedule and confirmed speakers, visit the official CRS website.
We look forward to seeing you in NYC in November!
AdSense for mobile goes high-end
Posted:
Monday, October 05, 2009
With the growth in popularity of high-end mobile phones with full (HTML) Internet browsers, like the iPhone and phones running Android, advertisers are increasingly extending their campaigns to mobile devices. Because these devices offer a rich content experience similar to desktop, advertising on them is a natural extension for many advertisers.
Today we're launching a new feature for AdSense mobile publishers that will allow you to take advantage of the high-end mobile phone browsing experience. This feature offers publishers the ability to run larger AdSense ads visible on high-end phones. Before this launch, AdSense mobile publishers were only eligible to serve smaller text and image ads on their website content.
We've done this by introducing a new JavaScript snippet that is easy to implement and specifically optimized for mobile to reduce latency on high-end mobile phones. Furthermore, this new snippet will allow publishers to select additional ad unit sizes from common AdSense formats.
However, if you're targeting all mobile devices, or if you're unable to make changes to your website, you don't have to update your AdSense code in order to enable larger AdSense ads to show on high-end devices. We'll automatically detect if the user is browsing with a high-end phone, and instead of serving a smaller mobile WAP ad, we'll return a larger ad optimized for high-end mobile devices.
For more information on earning money from your mobile content or to get started with mobile AdSense, visit the Help Center or check out past posts on the Google Mobile Blog.
Today we're launching a new feature for AdSense mobile publishers that will allow you to take advantage of the high-end mobile phone browsing experience. This feature offers publishers the ability to run larger AdSense ads visible on high-end phones. Before this launch, AdSense mobile publishers were only eligible to serve smaller text and image ads on their website content.
We've done this by introducing a new JavaScript snippet that is easy to implement and specifically optimized for mobile to reduce latency on high-end mobile phones. Furthermore, this new snippet will allow publishers to select additional ad unit sizes from common AdSense formats.
However, if you're targeting all mobile devices, or if you're unable to make changes to your website, you don't have to update your AdSense code in order to enable larger AdSense ads to show on high-end devices. We'll automatically detect if the user is browsing with a high-end phone, and instead of serving a smaller mobile WAP ad, we'll return a larger ad optimized for high-end mobile devices.
For more information on earning money from your mobile content or to get started with mobile AdSense, visit the Help Center or check out past posts on the Google Mobile Blog.
YouTube Promoted Videos to appear on AdSense sites
Posted:
Friday, October 02, 2009
As the number of YouTube content producers continues to grow, many are looking for new ways to reach new audiences. That's why we're happy to announce the launch of YouTube Promoted Videos in AdSense ad units.
Promoted Videos are YouTube videos -- from movie trailers to product demos to really almost any kind of video on YouTube -- promoted by their creators so they can reach a wider audience. (You may have already noticed Promoted Videos on YouTube.com, as they appear on partner watch pages and alongside YouTube search results.) Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space. At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future.
Promoted Videos feature a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, will bring the user to watch a video or view a channel on YouTube. They're contextually targeted to your pages, and you'll earn from these ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. In addition, they can appear in the following ad formats, as long as you've opted these formats in to displaying both text and image ads: 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 728x90 Leaderboard, 250x250 Square, and 200x200 Small Square. Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they'll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages. When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats.
All Promoted Videos are required to comply with the YouTube Advertising Policies, and the advertised videos with our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. You can prevent Promoted Videos from appearing on your pages by adding 'youtube.com' to your Competitive Ad Filter list. Please note that currently, this method will block all Promoted Videos from your sites.
Finally, we'd like to mention that these new Promoted Videos are separate from our video ads offering, which stream ads in video format and are classified as image ads.
We're continuing to look for additional revenue opportunities for publishers, and we hope these new ads will help you earn more.
Promoted Videos are YouTube videos -- from movie trailers to product demos to really almost any kind of video on YouTube -- promoted by their creators so they can reach a wider audience. (You may have already noticed Promoted Videos on YouTube.com, as they appear on partner watch pages and alongside YouTube search results.) Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space. At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future.
Promoted Videos feature a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, will bring the user to watch a video or view a channel on YouTube. They're contextually targeted to your pages, and you'll earn from these ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. In addition, they can appear in the following ad formats, as long as you've opted these formats in to displaying both text and image ads: 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 728x90 Leaderboard, 250x250 Square, and 200x200 Small Square. Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they'll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages. When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats.
All Promoted Videos are required to comply with the YouTube Advertising Policies, and the advertised videos with our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. You can prevent Promoted Videos from appearing on your pages by adding 'youtube.com' to your Competitive Ad Filter list. Please note that currently, this method will block all Promoted Videos from your sites.
Finally, we'd like to mention that these new Promoted Videos are separate from our video ads offering, which stream ads in video format and are classified as image ads.
We're continuing to look for additional revenue opportunities for publishers, and we hope these new ads will help you earn more.
