As 2006 winds down, we'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the great things that happened this year in AdSense and on the Inside AdSense blog. We had to narrow down a long list to get these 10 highlights, not listed in any particular order. So relax and reminisce with us about the year just ending.

Inside AdSense goes international

The Inside AdSense blog expanded to 4 more languages this year -– a German version in March, then Dutch and Spanish in July, and most recently, Portuguese in September. Now more publishers around the world can stay up to date with AdSense news and get to know some of our team.

Click-to-play video ads

In June, we introduced this new ad type which can help engage visitors and increase potential revenue for publishers. Click-to-play video ads are now available for 4 ad formats, one of which is the new 200x200 Small Square.

Meeting our publishers

Whether it was at San Jose SES, WebmasterWorld PubCon 2006, or another venue, our team was happy to meet publishers like you in person and hear your feedback about AdSense. We look forward to seeing you again and meeting new publishers in 2007.

AdSense Help Forums

The launch of our English Help Forum in March brought publishers together in an online community to discuss all things AdSense. In just 9 months, membership to the English forum has already crossed the 10,000 mark. Publishers are also participating in the Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Portuguese Help Forums, which were also launched this year too.

Ivan the optimiser

In April, our readers met Ivan of the UK Optimisation team. Ivan's profile was the post more of you visited than any other this year, so we've given him the '2006 Reader's Choice Award.' When we informed Ivan of the good news, he said, "I'd like to immediately put an end to any rumours that I paid for traffic to my post to ensure I'd win."

Referrals

2006 saw a number of exciting developments for our referral program, such as the introduction of referral text links in response to publisher feedback. Later, we added Google Pack and Picasa to the list of referral products and expanded the program by making referrals available in a number of additional languages.

Optimization Month

August was action-packed with information from our AdSense optimization specialists. With topics ranging from running A/B tests to selecting ad placements to using webmaster tools, we hope you were able to learn useful tips for improving the performance of your ads (or 'Augtomizing').

AdSense for content availability

Just a few weeks ago, we added Croatian, Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese to our list of AdSense for content supported languages. We hope that publishers with sites in these languages will start seeing revenue increases by taking advantage of our ad inventory.

AdSense for search on your own page

As Product Manager Shirin Oskooi explained in our September video post, we introduced the ability to display AdSense for search results in an IFRAME. Publishers can now embed their search results within their pages and customize the layout of the results page to match their sites.

Landing Page Quality

Our AdWords Team made an improvement by using the quality of a landing page as a factor in determining the price of an ad. For AdSense publishers, this has translated into less ads that lead to low-quality sites, and a better user experience.

We hope this year-end nostalgia has brought you some fond memories. Here's to a prosperous and happy New Year!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

We'd like to wish all of our publishers around the world a safe and happy holiday season. Because we'll be out of the office spending time with friends and family until Wednesday, December 27th, you can expect slightly longer response times to your emails. Of course, you may always feel free to direct questions to our Help Center or consult other publishers in the AdSense Help Forum.

In the meantime, we hope you'll enjoy our holiday 'greeting card' featuring a few members of the AdSense team.



Posted by Arlene Lee on behalf of the AdSense Team

While you're busy gearing up for the holiday season, let us tell you the stories of three new publishers featured on our Success Stories page. Well, maybe not the full stories, as we doubt we can keep you away from your holiday to-do list for very long, but allow us to give you just a taste ...

The Tale of Jeremy Bencken and ApartmentRatings.com

What started as a sideline for Jeremy Bencken has grown into the largest independent apartment-hunting site on the web. Jeremy found the 300 x 250 rectangle and 160 x 600 wide skyscraper formats -- both with colors that blend well with the site -- to be particularly effective. In addition, he placed ads at the end of apartment reviews to give visitors a useful next step once they finished perusing a review. With just these minor ad format and ad placement changes, he was able to improve his CPM by 45% and his clickthrough rate by 91% all the while maintaining a great user experience.

An Account of Scot Hall and Swapalease.com

Swapalease.com is one of the largest car lease assumption marketplaces in the world. Scot Hall found that after signing up, AdSense ads immediately comprised 40% of the site's online revenue without requiring a dedicated ad sales staff. After making only slight adjustments to ad size, format and placement such as ensuring that ads appeared "above the fold," Hall began earning up to 80% of his online revenue from AdSense.

A Walk Down Memory Lane with Chris Davis and Neopets.com

You've met Chris Davis before during Optimization Month on the blog. Chris discovered through channels and A/B testing that bolder colors actually worked better than blended colors for his audience, doubling both clickthrough rate and revenue. Additionally, he found that site targeting drew more brand-name advertisers and more image & video ads that now account for up to 40% of AdSense revenue.

If you're interested in learning more, visit our Success Stories page for a complete gallery of publisher stories.

Posted by Christine Lee - AdSense Product Marketing

We've recently received a number of emails from publishers asking how we feel about the placement of images near Google ad units. There's been some confusion on this issue, and so we turned to our policy team to set the record straight.

Can I place small images next to my Google ads?

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn't actually being offered. That's not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?

No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.

Does this mean I can't place ads on pages with images?

You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images -- just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. For example, if you run a stock photography site with a catalog of thumbnail images, don't line the ads up with the thumbnails in a way that could be misleading. Consider using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example.

What do unacceptable implementations look like?

Here are some examples that wouldn't comply with our policies.





Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

If you've glanced at your Payment History page today, you might've noticed that it's been revamped with a whole new look. Don't worry -- all of your previous payment data is still available and our payment process hasn't changed. We've simply updated the layout to make it easier to keep track of the financial activity in your account, and most importantly, help you determine when you can expect your next payment.



You'll now find your earnings and payments divided into two separate columns so you can better distinguish between them. Clicking on any details link will give you more information about the noted Earnings or Payment event. For example, the details link associated with a payment will show you the payment number, amount, date, and depending on your form of payment, the tracking number.

We've also added a Monthly balance column, which displays the running total of your unpaid earnings and credits at the end of each month. If this column shows an amount greater than $100 and you've removed all holds from your account, you'll be issued a payment at the end of the following month. You can see an example in the screenshot above -- since the publisher's unpaid earnings totaled $58.23 at the end of November, a payment will not be issued during December.

Have questions about our payment process and schedule? The Payments Guide is the place to find answers.

Posted by Suzie Rha - AdSense Publisher Support

We're excited to tell you that AdSense for content is now supported in Croatian, Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If you manage a site in one of these four languages, you can now complement your existing AdSense for search boxes (and revenue) with contextually-targeted AdSense ads!

To get started with generating your AdSense for content code, just visit the AdSense Setup tab in your account. Please keep in mind that after you add the ad code to a new page, it can take up to 48 hours for our crawler to access your site. Once your site has been crawled, our system will automatically detect the primary language of your pages and serve targeted ads in the correct language.

Welcome (or Dobrodošlica / Vítame / 歡迎) to our new AdSense for content publishers!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance this Saturday, December 9th at 10 am PST. Although you won't be able to log in to your account for approximately 4 hours, we'll continue to serve ads to your sites and track your earnings.

By reader request, we've also included the maintenance start time in various cities around the world:

London - Saturday at 6 pm
New Delhi - Saturday at 11:30 pm
Ottawa - Saturday at 1 pm
Sydney - Sunday at 5 am

Have a great weekend!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Parlez-vous français? If so, head over to the new AdSense Help Forum for French-speaking publishers: Forum d'Aide AdSense. In the forum, you can share your AdSense knowledge, ask troubleshooting questions, and discuss a wide range of AdSense topics with other publishers. A Google representative nicknamed 'AdSensePro' will also occasionally read and respond to your posts.

If you don't speak French, don't worry -- the AdSense Help Forum is also available in Chinese, English, German, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support