Get the most up-to-date data on your account with local time zone reporting

We know that access to the most up-to-date data on your account is important in understanding how it’s performing on a daily basis. Up to now, we’ve reported your daily earnings based on Pacific Standard Time (PST). Over the next couple of weeks however, you’ll be able to view your daily earnings based on your local time zone, giving you the latest information. You can set up your time zone reporting preferences from your account in a few quick steps. From the Account information section on your Account settings page, a field now exists for time zone information where you can select your preferred local time setting. When you update your time zone preferences, you can expect to see some anomalies in your local earnings data for that day. Depending on your local time zone, you’ll either see a reduction or a spike based on whether the change means you are gaining or losing hours - keep an eye out for a notification in your account on this. It’s important to note that this does not affect your payments data which will always remain in PST. When you update your time zone preferences, your existing saved and scheduled reports will be migrated to your preferred time zone automatically while future reports will also be based on your indicated preference. Updating your time zone preference will only affect your earnings data going forward and does not apply retrospectively. Learn more about time zone reporting in our Help Center and make sure you’re getting the most up-to-date earnings data on your account. Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager

The responsive web + AdSense

We know one of the biggest challenges publishers currently face is designing websites that adapt to different screen sizes, resolutions and user experiences. You’ve been asking for responsive ad units to help you deliver the best possible user experience on your pages, and we’ve listened to your feedback. Today, we’re happy to share that responsive ad units are now available as a beta feature alongside our recently released asynchronous tag. The new responsive ad units allow you to support a wide range of devices by working with your responsive design web pages. You can now dynamically specify the size of the ad that will be served, adapting it to fit the way your site renders a page on a particular device. As this is still a beta feature, here are a few pointers to keep in mind: Be sure to specify fixed pixel values when setting the width and height of the ad to be served. Make sure that the specified width and height match one of our supported ad sizes. Please note that link unit sizes aren’t supported at the moment. The new ad code is responsive on initial page load only. Subsequent changes to the ad size, such as a screen orientation change, will not cause a new ad to be displayed. We know that this is an important feature for many of you and we’re currently working to address this. Always set a default ad size in case some media queries aren’t supported. Step 1 - create a responsive ad unit Step 2 - modify the sample CSS media queries in the new ad code More detailed examples and steps to get started can be found in our Help Center. If you’d like to know more about responsive design, have a look at our Google Developers resource. Thanks for all of your feedback on responsive web design to date. Please do continue to share your suggestions so we can keep improving AdSense for you. Watch this space for more news and updates in the near future! Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager

Stay on top of AdSense program policies with new notifications in your account

Our AdSense program policies are defined to ensure we all preserve a healthy ecosystem for users, advertisers and other publishers, and compliance with these policies is an absolute must for every publisher. We’ve heard your requests for more accessible information on policy issues and we’re happy to tell you that we are launching an additional policy notifications feature directly in your AdSense account. This will help you to quickly understand and address any potential policy issues. Going forward, if our system detects a policy violation, you’ll receive both an email and an account notification with a link to view more details. Under the Policy violations section on the home tab, you can quickly access important information including details on each violation, the issue ID and an example of the violation on your site. The page will also include details on the action you need to take to resolve the violation. We’ll be gradually rolling out this new feature over the coming weeks to all publisher accounts. We hope that it helps you quickly identify and resolve any potential issues so you can focus on growing your business with AdSense. Please remember that as before, you'll need to ensure all of your sites comply with our policies. In addition to checking your account for any notifications, be sure to regularly review your sites for compliance with our policies. Thanks for your continued feedback and suggestions on how we can continue improving AdSense for you. Please continue to share them on our AdSense +page and if you’d like more details on this new feature, visit our Help Center. Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager

More control over advanced ad format features

We’re always looking for innovative ways to improve our ad formats, to help you earn more revenue from your content. We’ve been steadily rolling out new features to maximize the performance of your ad units, including a clickable arrow icon on our text ads, serving similar-sized display ads and most recently, the introduction of favicons to our text ads. These enhancements are designed to improve the performance of your ads, but we know that sometimes you may prefer not to include them. Based on your requests for more control over the ways ads are served on your site, we’re happy to let you know that you can opt out of the following advanced ad format features: Similar-sized display ads: Showing smaller but higher performing display ads in larger ad units. Enhanced text ads: Displaying text ads with performance-enhancing features such as product images, favicons, or clickable arrow icons, etc. Expandable ads: Displaying rich media ads that can expand beyond the original size of the ad unit, following a user-initiated action. Enhanced display ads: Showing display ads with performance-enhancing features such as mouseover highlights, etc. Animated display ads: Showing non-static display (e.g., image) ads, such as ad creatives created using Adobe Flash or animated GIF formats. Before opting out of any of these enhancements, remember that they have been created to improve the performance of your ad units and disabling them may have a negative impact on your revenue. It’s also important to note that all opt outs apply on an account level and not just on individual ad units. You can opt out of any of these features in a few short steps. We hope that having more control over these features will be helpful when deciding on the look of your ads. Tell us what you think on our Google+ page. Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager

What’s the best mobile solution for you?

Last week we looked at how to analyze your traffic to get an understanding of which platforms your audience is using to reach you. By comparing the content that your users are accessing via desktop, mobile, and tablet, you'll gain insights into which implementation will best suit your business. In today’s post, we’ll look at the three most common ways of doing this. We’ll explore building a responsively designed site, dynamic serving solutions, and lastly, a separate mobile site. Responsive Web Design (RWD): A responsively built site automatically rearranges and resizes content to fit the screen of any device used to access the site. This allows you to optimize the user experience across different devices - without needing to create redirects or make unique pages that cater to each platform. For the user, this means a smooth user journey, and for a content manager, it means content only needs to be updated once. From a developer viewpoint, RWD may require rebuilding your site framework with flexible templates, grids, style sheets and JavaScript but with very rewarding results. Take a look at this case study to see how TowerGate Insurance adapted RWD to increase mobile and tablet users by over 200%. Dynamic Serving of Content: Another solution is to dynamically serve content. Similar to RWD, with this approach the web server detects the type of device the visitor is using and presents a custom page on the same URL. This allows for a fully customised device experience, but also means that your content will need to be maintained separately for each platform. To ensure your users have a smooth navigational experience, prioritize building dynamic content for the most popular pages that users are accessing through mobile, and similarly apply the same for tablet. Separate Mobile Site: The final implementation you might want to consider is creating a separate mobile site, where smartphone users will be directed to a mobile-optimized version of your site. This implementation allows you fully customise your content for a mobile audience, since it’s often an independently hosted solution. Similar to creating dynamic serving content, this means you need to make separate updates for content or styling pieces to ensure a smooth user experience. Take a look at how Adidas reached a winning formula with their dedicated mobile solution. To read more about what we’ve discussed today or to find a list of recommended vendors that can help you to develop your mobile solution, check out this article by the Google Think Insights team. Also, join us next week when we’re going to take a look at how you can best use AdSense to monetize your mobile sites. Posted by Federico Gomez Kodela - Mobile Specialist

How to monetize your mobile site?

As a part of the multi-device series, we previously looked at the importance of going multi-device as well as three different structures for building multi-screen websites. Regardless of which approach you choose there’s a monetization solution to help you optimize revenues through your digital content. Google AdSense is the main Google product for monetizing mobile sites, while AdMob is the Google product for monetizing mobile apps. Today we will focus on using AdSense for content, (AFC) and Custom Search Ads, (CSA) to fit your mobile solution. Both AFC mobile and CSA mobile can be implemented inside your existing AdSense account. Mobile websites that supports older, feature phones still using WAP will need to use the older solution, AdSense for mobile. However, it’s more likely that your site has been designed for iPhone, Android, or another high-end device, in which case you simply use standard AFC ad units that fit your mobile site. The AFC ad code you use with your desktop site is the same code used for your mobile site, the only difference is that you’ll want to choose ad sizes optimized for mobile. As you can see here, the ad-size we've selected is ‘320 x 50’ Mobile banner: What’s even easier is that most of the same optimization tips used for desktop, also apply with mobile. We’ve found that the 320x50 and 300x250 tend to monetize best on mobile. Here we’ve listed some initial optimization tips to get you started: Try different ad sizes (320x50, 300x250, 200x200, 250x250) and note that you can now also create ad units to fit your responsive site. Try different ad positioning Change the look and feel of the ad (color, font, borders) Implement up to three ad units If your site contains a proprietary search functionality, you’ll be able to monetize with CSA mobile. However, if you use the Google search bar then this won’t be the solution for you. Some verticals that tend to be good candidates for CSA are job search, classifieds, travel, real estate, and e-commerce sites. Along with the monetization benefits, CSA ads are highly customizable so it’s very easy to modify the look and feel of these ads, to align them to your mobile site. Next week we’ll look more at AdMob, our mobile solution for apps. In the meantime, don’t forget to keep an eye on our Google+ page to find out what’s going on as well as staying up to date with product enhancements in our Help Center. If you missed the first posts in the multi-device series, you can find them here: 1. Get your multi-device strategy off the ground, 2. What’s the best mobile solution for you?. Posted by Federico Gomez Kodela - Mobile Specialist

Add Google News to your website

Do you run a site that relates to people or topics often covered in the media? Or are you looking for additional ways to engage your users? If so, we'd like to introduce you to our recently released Google News–based element for webmasters and developers. This element will allow you to easily integrate headlines and previews from Google News into any page to supplement your content and help make it more dynamic. Whether your site's visitors are interested in business, entertainment or fashion, you control the types of stories in your personal news show. You can input keywords like "Obama" or broad topics like "world news" or "politics".

Adding this element to your site or blog is easy using our NewsShow wizard. You can select the size of the frame, the topics, and the number of articles you want to show, and we'll build the code for you. Or, for more customization, take a look at our documentation.

For more information, see our post on the AJAX Search API Blog. To get started now, head straight to our wizard to cut and paste your own NewsShow.

Posted by Adam Feldman - Google AJAX API Product Manager

--Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 3/09/2009 10:04:00 A

Extending AdSense for domains to all publishers

Many publishers have approached us looking for a way to monetize their domains, and today, we're excited to announce the expansion of AdSense for domains. This product allows publishers to earn revenue through ads placed on undeveloped domains.

With AdSense for domains, users can find relevant information rather than see empty pages or "page not found" errors. Today we present ads, links, and search results on the pages, and may add other useful information in the future. To ensure positive user experience and the quality of our network, these sites are monitored for policy compliance and prohibited from using text and images designed to confuse users.

Advertisers also have additional opportunities to find their customers, and ads on these pages convert well. In addition, we regularly receive requests from advertisers who have found domains to be an effective way to reach their users.

The product will be initially rolled out in phases to English-language AdSense publishers located in North America, and we'll expand to additional regions and languages in the future. To check whether AdSense for domains has been enabled for your account, log in and visit your AdSense Setup tab. For more information, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Loren Donelson - Product Manager, AdSense for Domains

--Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/11/2008 09:08:00 A

Now serving overlay ads in embedded YouTube partner videos

Today, to help its video content partners earn more money, YouTube will begin running overlay ads in YouTube partner videos embedded on other websites. To date, YouTube has only run ads against partner videos on YouTube itself, and with people viewing millions of embedded YouTube videos every day, this meant that partners were not generating revenue from their views outside YouTube.com. But now, YouTube partners will be able to capitalize on their popularity across the internet and generate revenue from their content no matter where their video lives.

Although this may sound similar to AdSense video units, this YouTube change is separate from AdSense, and we'd like to discuss the differences between the two offerings.

Let's start with a refresher on AdSense video units, which are available within AdSense accounts in specific languages and regions. Video units help you enrich your website with fresh, dynamic content from our YouTube partners. Each video unit is accompanied by a banner ad and a overlay ad targeted towards the video and the site's content, and is customizable so you can choose categories of video to target to your site. The ad revenue is divided between the AdSense publisher, YouTube, and the YouTube partner providing the video content.

But AdSense video units aren't the only way our YouTube partners can distribute their content -- just as with other YouTube videos, it's possible for anyone with a website to embed partner videos on their sites. Now, following today's announcement, thousands of videos produced by YouTube partners will begin displaying overlay ads when embedded on other websites. (YouTube will gradually roll out these ads to additional YouTube partner videos in the coming weeks.) This feature is external to AdSense, and so no configuration within an AdSense account is needed. Revenue from these ads will be divided between YouTube and the YouTube partner providing the video content.

By helping YouTube partners generate additional revenue no matter where their videos are played, we hope to encourage further content creation among our most popular and prolific video creators. If you create your own video content and are interested in becoming a YouTube partner, submit an application today.



Posted by Arlene Lee
AdSense Publisher Support

Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/13/2008 10:00:00 A

Get in the game with AdSense for Games

Do you develop or publish web-based games? If so, you're contributing to a growing trend - according to comScore, over 25% of Internet users play online games every week, which is over 200 million users worldwide. As a beta user of AdSense for Games, you can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue. You'll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over. Members of our AdWords team will sell your in-game ad placements directly to top brand advertisers, and you'll also see contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information. In addition, you'll be able to control the ads you see on your pages using our filtering options.

Here's a quick video to give you a better idea of what games are part of our network and how advertisers can use this medium to reach their target audience:

And here's another, less flashy video, to show actual game play and how an ad could appear within the game:

We've built ad technology for games played within a user's browser, and now we're looking to expand our publisher network. At this time, eligible publishers must have a minimum of 500,000 game plays and have 80% of their traffic from the U.S. or the U.K. If you're interested in becoming a AdSense for games beta publisher, feel free to review our complete list of requirements and submit an application. You can also find more information on our games site.

Posted by Ryan Hayward - Ads Product Marketing
--Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/07/2008 09:01:00 P