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2007 is drawing to a close, but before you get out the party hats and start practicing the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, we'd like to take a moment to recap some of the biggest developments in AdSense this year.

New feature launches were abundant in 2007, and many were based on your direct feedback and requests. To help improve the performance of your ads, we revamped the look of our ad formats and introduced ad placements to let you promote your site to potential advertisers. The new Manage Ads feature gave you the ability to make changes to your ad units directly in your account and quickly experiment with optimizations. In addition, we launched such features as video units, AdSense for mobile content, and referrals 2.0 to bring in new revenue streams for your site. Still others like the Allowed Sites list and the recently announced Ad Review Center were inspired by your requests for more control over your ads and your account.

With our growing community of publishers around the world, we also continued our international expansion of products and online resources. AdSense for content was launched in languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Bulgarian, while AdSense for search became available in a number of Southeast Asian languages. We added payment options such as Western Union Quick Cash in a few countries and EFT in Mexico. To help publishers connect with one another around the world, we introduced AdSense Help Forums in 9 new languages, including Polish, Arabic, and Russian.

And of course, we can't forget to mention the exciting things that happened right here on our blog. We welcomed 6 new languages into the Inside AdSense family (Italian, Korean, Japanese, French, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese), bringing the total number of AdSense blogs to 11. All 11 blogs combined received 2.6 million pageviews from 1.7 million visits, and global Groups subscriptions to all blogs crossed the 43,000 mark.

Finally, we'd like to close with our second annual Reader's Choice Award, which goes to the post you visited most this year: 'Introducing video units'. Accepting the award on behalf of the post is author Ryan Hayward, who had this to say: "In a world where Hollywood writers are striking and my favorite show, 'The Office,' is off-air, I hope that announcing video units helped to fill the creative void and made each of our lives just a little more entertaining. Cue the orchestra."

Here's to a very happy and prosperous 2008. Cheers!

A few weeks ago we posted the winner of the AdSense Story Contest, and as promised, here are a few more of the stories and video submissions we received. This one comes from AdSense publisher Amit Agarwal of Agra, India.



Amit is a professional blogger and personal technology columnist for the Financial Express and The Hindustan Times. He maintains a technology blog called Digital Inspiration, which draws readers from all over the globe and covers software reviews, web technologies, and social media. His latest venture, India Inc., carries news and analysis about business and finance. Amit also runs a message board where he personally answers reader questions on blogging, online monetization and software.

In the early days, Amit was only making a few cents on Digital Inspiration. After optimizing the site, however, his revenue went through the roof. Now AdSense helps Amit lead a very comfortable life. Amit says, "I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads are always so relevant to the content."

Amit has also found success with several other AdSense products and features. He currently uses referrals to recommend software to his readers, and has implemented link units to efficiently use space on his site. He also uses the Google Custom Search Engine, linked to his AdSense for search account, and so is able to monetize his search results while helping visitors navigate through his site's pages with greater control. As he notes, "Currently 75% of my site revenue comes through the Google AdSense program. And I get more time to focus on writing new content for my readers rather than hunting for advertisers. AdSense has helped change my life forever."

We'd like to send our warmest holiday wishes to all of our publishers around the globe. While you may not be catching snowflakes where you are, we hope you find a winter wonderland (or summer wonderland for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere?) wherever you're located this holiday season.

Our U.S. offices will be closed until Thursday, December 27th, so it may take us some time to respond to your emails. In the meantime, you can consult our Help Center for immediate answers, or spread holiday cheer by discussing your questions with other publishers on the Help Forum.

Happy holidays!

As we mentioned last week, we're constantly working to improve the new ad management feature. There's another wave of minor tweaks to this feature, inspired by your feedback as always.

Hide and seek
We've heard from more than a few of you that you'd like to see a 'delete' function on the Manage Ads page. To avoid deleting any ad unit that's currently serving impressions on your pages, we've now added a 'hide' function so you can avoid displaying ad units you prefer not to see on your Manage Ads page. Just click the 'Hide' link associated with a specific ad unit in the Actions column, and the ad will no longer appear when you view your Manage Ads page. Don't worry, hiding any active ad unit won't prevent it from generating revenue for you, and you can view your hidden ad units at any time by checking the box that says 'Show hidden AdSense units'.


Channel IDs for all
In addition to AdSense for content, you can now view the custom channel ID numbers associated with other AdSense products (e.g. AdSense for search and referrals). Visit the Channels page under the AdSense Setup tab, and select the tab corresponding to the product you'd like to view.

The busy holiday season is upon us, so you may not have the time to sit in front of your computer waiting for your AdSense reports to finish running. That's why we're happy to announce that any advanced reports you generate will soon automatically be saved in your Report Manager once they're completed.

This means that while you can still wait on the Advanced Reports page for your reports to complete if you choose, you no longer need to do so -- instead, you can navigate through the other pages of your account or even log out once you've submitted the request for a report. You can then view or download your requested reports at a later time in the 'Recently Generated Reports' section of your Report Manager, located under the 'Reports' tab of your account. We're gradually adding this feature to all publisher accounts, so feel free to check for it over the next few weeks.


Your Report Manager will save up to 20 of your most recently generated reports, which will be timestamped with the date and time they were created. We hope this new option allows you more flexibility in choosing when and how you access your reports.


To all our US publishers: before you spend the holidays gorging on sugar-coated culinary delicacies and spending quality time pelting your loved ones with snowballs, please take a moment to update your AdSense account tax information so we can issue your tax form for 2007. Verifying that your tax info is up to date now helps ensure that earnings won't be withheld from you later. You'll receive a tax form 1099-MISC if you meet the following requirements:
  • You submitted a Form W-9, are not a corporation, and were paid at least US $600 in 2007 OR
  • You indicated that you are subject to backup withholding and had taxes withheld
For those publishers whose earnings are reported, please note that payments dated in 2007 will be reported in 2007. This means that unpaid earnings from 2007 that are rolled over to 2008 (for example, December 2007 earnings paid in January 2008) will not be included.

To resubmit or update your tax information, please follow these steps:
  1. Log in to your AdSense account
  2. Click the 'My Account' tab
  3. Click the 'Tax information' link
  4. Follow the instructions on the 'Tax information' page to update your current form, or to submit a new form.
Don't forget to add "update AdSense tax information" to your to-do list!

In an effort to provide you with more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your pages, we've developed the Ad Review Center. This new feature, which we'll be rolling out to publishers over the next few months, will allow you to review ads placement-targeted to your site and ensure those ads are relevant to your site's users.

When you first opt into the Ad Review Center, you'll be able to see all placement-targeted ads currently targeted to your site, and a couple of days later you'll be able to review placement-targeted ads that have previously run on your site. If you think an ad is not relevant for your users, you can prevent it from appearing again by blocking it in the Ad Review Center. We recommend you carefully consider the revenue impact of blocking an ad, since blocked ads won't compete in the auction on your site, and advertisers whose ads you block may choose not to target your site again in the future.

In addition to letting publishers weigh in on the relevance of placement-targeted ads, the Ad Review Center will also help advertisers improve their placement-targeted ad campaigns. When you block an ad, you'll be prompted to select a reason. We'll share this constructive feedback with advertisers so they can use it to improve the quality and relevance of future ad campaigns.

As we've done with past features, we're gradually launching the Ad Review Center to all publishers over the next few months. When it has been enabled for your account, you'll see a green notification box at the top of your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. By default, the Ad Review Center will let you review all placement-targeted ads after they have run on your site. However, if you have a strong need to manually review ads before they appear on your site, you may do so by clicking on the 'update settings' link in the Ad Review Center. You'll then have 24 hours to review ads before they are automatically allowed to run on your site. Please note that you can also return to the Ad Review Center and allow a previously blocked ad, or block a previously allowed ad.


We strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to 'auto-allow' and review ads after they have run. Ads don't participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked cannot compete in the auction either. The actual revenue impact will vary in each publisher's situation, but when using the Ad Review Center, please consider the revenue effects of blocking ads or switching from the auto-allow setting.

To learn more about the Ad Review Center, please visit the Help Center. We hope you find this new feature useful and look forward to hearing your feedback.

UPDATED with screenshot

We have high standards for the services we offer, which means we constantly reevaluate existing features to ensure they are effective as the AdSense product continues to expand.

Our recent findings indicate that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature, which allowed advertisers to sign up for AdWords campaigns on your site, hasn't been performing as well as we had hoped. We've elected to gracefully retire this feature and focus our efforts on developing and supporting features that drive better monetization results for you. Call it time management, call it ROI, call it our unwavering commitment to our publishers. We want you to earn more revenue, and sometimes that means "sunsetting" certain features we created.

Please be aware that any links you've created that lead to a customizable Onsite Advertiser Sign-up page will soon re-direct to the main AdWords sign-up page. Of course, AdWords advertisers will still be able to target your individual sites by using placement targeting. Thanks for your support of this feature in the past. We hope its departure won't cause you any inconvenience.

We've been listening to your comments on our new ad management feature, and so we're excited to tell you about a few updates that stem directly from your requests:
  • You can now view the ID number associated with a specific custom channel by visiting the 'Channels' link under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. Many of you told us that you needed these channel ID numbers for ad management programs you're using. We've added this information to your account since it no longer appears in your ad code.


  • Any ad units generated within the last 7 days that haven't yet received any impressions will now be listed as 'New', rather than 'Active', in your status column. This should help avoid confusion about your newest ad units and those already appearing on your pages.

  • You can now view the most recent date when each of your ad units was updated. Please note that these dates aren't retroactive, so any ad units you generated or edited before this display change will show a last-edited date of November 1st, 2007.

  • We're starting to slowly roll out the manage ads feature for your referral units. Just as with AdSense for content units, you'll soon be prompted to enter names for your newly generated referral units. If you'd like to make changes to your referral units at a later time, you can visit the 'Manage Ads' page. In the 'Content' column of this page, your referral units will display 'Referrals:' followed by the products or category of products being referred.


It doesn't end here, though -- we've got a few more enhancements planned for the Manage Ads feature in the next few weeks, so keep checking back for more updates. In the meantime, please continue sending your suggestions our way.

Our engineers have now resolved the phone verification issue we reported on Tuesday. If your account is still on a phone verification hold, please feel free to retry the verification process. For instructions on removing any holds on your account, visit your Payment History page and look for a 'Required Actions' box at the top of the page.

As always, we appreciate your patience.

In September, we introduced AdSense for mobile content to provide a simple solution for increasing revenue from your mobile sites. We recently interviewed Jaehong Lee from Japanese mobile site Mikle to find out more about his experience with using AdSense for mobile content.

Currently, Mikle's bulletin boards attract over a million unique visitors each month. With user-generated content ranging from entertainment to nutrition, Jaehong had been looking for a manageable way to monetize Mikle's mobile pages. He found his answer when he began using AdSense for mobile content this year.

Jaehong highlights the performance and convenience of AdSense for mobile content, stating that "the performance of AdSense has been way better than our expectations. Moreover, the features for managing ad performance are easier and more convenient than other ads services. It saves a lot of effort for us in managing and monitoring ads."

With features such as editorial review and the Competitive Ad Filter, AdSense for mobile content has saved Mikle substantial time. Jaehong explains, "We hire people to check all messages and comments posted on our site. The cost of this work was significant... AdSense for mobile content’s great performance lets us be free of a lot of work from managing ad performance. We now have firm profitability and can concentrate our resources on the efforts of service development and operation improvements."

To learn more, please visit our new AdSense for mobile content page.

UPDATED to fix typo

Recently, we launched the AdSense Story Contest and asked publishers like you to send in video of your experiences with AdSense. We were thrilled by the enthusiasm and creativity you put into these videos. Although we can only award one winner, we'll be sharing some of our favorite submissions with you over the next few weeks.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for...

Congratulations to Don Vandervort from Hometips.com for his winning video submission! Before we show you his video, here's a little bit of background about Don and HomeTips.

Interestingly enough, HomeTips.com started out in a backyard clubhouse. Don converted the bottom floor of his sons' two-story treehouse into a small office, and launched HomeTips from that office in 1997 as an online portfolio to promote his books. In 2003, Don heard about the Google AdSense program and thought it might be helpful in generating revenue for HomeTips.

During the first week, Don remembers that AdSense revenue paid for coffee; in the second week, it paid for lunches. Now, AdSense revenue pays for all salaries, overhead, and business development. "Solid content is the secret to developing a following," says Don. "If you write expert content with your visitor's needs in mind, the rest will follow." We'll let Don tell you more about his site and his story:



You can also read more about Don's story on our Case Studies page.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and stay tuned for other great AdSense stories in the coming weeks.

We'd like to notify you about two issues related to November checks and phone verification.

November checks
If you were issued a check at the end of November, you may have noticed the following message printed on the paystub:

CREDIT NOTE -VAT OVERCHARGE BETW.
1 JAN 2004 & 22/11/07 IF YOU NEED
DETAILS OF THIS VAT PLEASE EMAIL
GOOGLE@BDOSX.IE WITH CUSTOMER REF


However, the paystub should have read:

THIS CHECK IS FOR YOUR EARNINGS AS
PART OF THE GOOGLE ADSENSE PROGRAM.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE
EMAIL ADSENSE-SUPPORT@GOOGLE.COM


Please be assured that the November payment you received is for your AdSense earnings and is not a VAT credit note. In addition, this printing error will not affect your ability to deposit your AdSense earnings as usual.

Phone verification
We're currently experiencing difficulty with our phone verification system, but our engineers are working as quickly as they can to resolve the issue. If you see a prompt in your account asking you to verify your phone number, we ask that you hold off on attempting to do so for the time being. We'll be sure to post a follow-up here on the blog when we have more information for you.

We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused by these two issues. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

If you use AdSense for search on your pages, we'd like to let you know about an upcoming change on December 10th that will affect your top queries reports. To prepare for a few upcoming reporting enhancements, top queries data older than a year old will no longer be available. In other words, you'll only be able to view top queries reports dating back one year from the day you're generating the report.

If you have important top queries data which are older than a year old, please run any appropriate reports and save them before December 10th. You may also wish to generate a report dating from the date you started with AdSense for search to today, as data not within the one year window will be continuously removed.




As always, to learn more about video units, you can check out our regularly updated FAQs or view our instructional videos on YouTube.

If you aren't using video units yet, now is a great time to give them a try. Sign in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup page to get started with video units.

UPDATE: The video units feature has been retired -- however, you may wish to review the other revenue opportunities available for video content owners.

Did you catch the CNN/YouTube Republican debate on Wednesday night? And are you interested in having the debate available on your site for visitors to see? We've set up a channel for your video units to play the night's highlights as well as those from the July Democratic debate. To get the clips for your video units, choose "CNN YouTube Debates" as a content provider on the Edit AdSense Player page. You can also use our new option to choose the specific videos that will appear by typing in the name of the video you want (e.g., "GOP Debate Song") into the Hints box under "Automatic targeting."

The debates are just one example of the compelling content that we plan to bring to your sites with video units. In the coming months, we'll continue to enhance the depth and variety of the content that is available, while making it easier for you to discover and choose what best fits your site.



As always, to learn more about video units, you can check out our regularly updated FAQs or view our instructional videos on YouTube.

If you aren't using video units yet, now is a great time to give them a try. Sign in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup page to get started with video units.

We'd like to welcome Thai as the newest language to join the AdSense for search family. If you manage a site primarily in Thai, you can now offer Google search results directly on your pages and monetize the results pages. Don't have an account yet? Feel free to submit an application today.

Here are some fun facts about Thailand to celebrate this launch:
  • The full given name of Bangkok, Thailand's capital city, is "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit". The city's full name is listed as the world's longest place name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

  • The Thai greeting is known as the "wai", which involves bringing the palms together and raising them to a level between the chest and forehead. The higher the hands are held, the more respect is being shown by the greeter.

  • The island of Ko Samui is known for producing the most types of coconut palm in the world. In addition, it was mentioned in the 2000 comedy Meet the Parents.

Many of our publishers regularly ask what is exactly considered adult or mature content by AdSense policies. It's a lot easier to understand when we speak about family-safe content. As you may already know, only ads classified as family-safe will be displayed on AdSense publisher websites.

Our policy regarding adult or mature content may include any material that is not appropriate for all audiences. While this obviously includes full nudity or sexual activity, it may also include textually explicit sexual content, image or video content containing lewd or provocative poses, strategically covered nudity, see-through or sheer clothing, and close-ups of anatomy that would be inappropriate if shown nude. Additionally, topics such as sexual health and sex tips may be held to a higher standard of professionalism than content that isn't bordering on mature.

While it's not a sure test, we sometimes suggest that publishers ask themselves the following questions to determine if content is family-safe: Would I be comfortable viewing this content with my parents or children in the same room? Would I feel comfortable viewing this content if my boss walked up behind me while I had this content on my screen? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then it is likely that some advertisers would not be comfortable showing their ads on such content and we might consider it mature.

It's Black Friday, so a number of our U.S. publishers are probably burning off last night's turkey right now by running around the mall looking for deals.

If you find time to log in to your AdSense account between holiday shopping trips, please be sure to check that your address and tax information are up-to-date and accurate. This way, we can properly prepare any tax form you're eligible to receive.

You can resubmit or update your tax information by following these steps:
  1. Log in to your AdSense account
  2. Click the My Account tab
  3. Click the Tax information link
  4. Follow the instructions on the Tax information page to update your current form, or to submit a new form.
In the meantime, if you'd like to avoid the crowds at the mall, why not try shopping on Google Checkout?


Happy Thanksgiving to all of our U.S. publishers! We'd like to give thanks to all of our blog readers for your continued support, and we hope you have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

We'll be out of the office enjoying turkey (and then cold turkey sandwiches) until Monday the 26th. While it may take us longer to reply to your emails, feel free to visit the AdSense Help Center or consult other publishers in the AdSense Help Forum for answers to your questions.

Since the launch of AdSense for search in Indonesian and Vietnamese, many publishers have requested that AdSense for content and referrals be added to their accounts. Unfortunately, we can't do that, since we're not yet able to support these options in Indonesian or Vietnamese. Please rest assured that we're working to offer them in the future.

In light of this, some publishers with AdSense for search accounts have contacted us requesting additional accounts in languages that support AdSense for content and referrals. However, according to our Terms and Conditions, publishers aren't permitted to maintain multiple accounts under the same payee name.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime -- we'll be sure to announce any additional product offerings right here on the blog.

UPDATE: The video units feature has been retired -- however, you may wish to review the other revenue opportunities available for video content owners.

Following their success in the U.S., we're rolling out video units over the next several days to English-language publishers in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. If you're not already familiar with video units, they're embedded, customizable video players that can enrich your site with relevant video content while enabling you to earn extra revenue from the relevant, non-intrusive ads that accompany the videos.

With this new launch, publishers in the UK, Ireland and Canada will be able to show videos from our YouTube content partners and choose those videos by category, individual YouTube partner, or have video automatically targeted to their site. Based on publisher feedback, we've also just added a feature which lets you choose individual videos to be displayed in your video units.

To set up video units on your site, log in to your AdSense account and visit the AdSense Setup page. For more information about video units, please feel free to revisit our original post about the launch and our recent follow-up answering some of your most common questions. In addition, you might find the information in our Help Center useful.

If you don't yet see video units in your account, please check back over the next few days. We're staggering the roll-out to ensure a smooth launch in the new countries where video units are available.

Earlier this year we stepped back to examine the value users, advertisers, and publishers derive from clicks on content ads. As you integrate ads with your site's content and navigation, we want to ensure a positive user experience. We identified a few areas for improvement and began implementing changes, starting with our new ad formats in April.

Continuing these improvements, we've just changed our text ads slightly to help reduce accidental clicks. In the past, users could click on both the background and full text of an ad, but now they can click only on the title and URL of a text ad. By allowing users to click only on the ad title and URL, we aim to decrease accidental clicks, better aligning visitor behavior with their intent. Overall, the decrease in accidental clicks will keep users on your website, interacting with your content, until they intend to click on an ad.


In addition, this new clickable format better aligns with the text ad formats shown on Google.com. We hope this format change contributes to a better, more consistent user experience.

Finally, this change won't just improve user experience on your site; it benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization for all publishers.

UPDATED to fix typo

We wanted to let you know about two recent changes to our site targeting feature. As you may know, site targeting allows advertisers to select specific publisher sites on which to run their ads. Advertisers can target your site if they've determined a match between their offerings and the interests of visitors to your site.

The first change is that we’ve renamed 'site targeting' to 'placement targeting' to better reflect the variety of targeting options we offer. Advertisers can still target their ads to an entire site, but they can now also target your individual ad units or groups of pages based on how you’ve set up ad placements using custom channels. Over the next few weeks, we'll be updating references to 'site targeting' in your account and in our Help Center.

The second change is that advertisers can bid on placement-targeted ads (formerly known as site-targeted ads) on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Previously, advertisers could only bid on these targeted ads on a cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Just as with contextually targeted CPC ads, you’ll generate earnings for valid clicks on placement-targeted CPC ads.

While you can also add the URLs of specific CPC placement-targeted ads to your filter list, please keep in mind that all placement-targeted ads will participate in the ad auction with contextually targeted ads. Allowing more ads into the auction will help increase competition and ultimately your revenue.

Finally, we'd like to leave you with a few reminders to help you maximize your revenue potential with placement targeting:
  • Turn your custom channels into ad placements. These ad placements will allow you to highlight specific sections of your site that may appeal to advertisers.
  • Enable text and image ads for your ad units. By opting in to different ad types on your site, you'll increase the competition in the ad auction, which can lead to additional revenue for your account over time.
  • Use the 300x250 Medium Rectangle. This ad format is one of our best-performing ad units, and many advertisers use it when creating rich media (image and video) campaigns. Again, you'll benefit from the increased competition for your ad space.

Tomorrow, November 10th, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance. Although you won't be able to log in to your account between 10 am and 2 pm PST, we'll continue to serve ads to your pages and track all earnings in your account as usual.

Our international readers can expect the maintenance to start at the following times:

London - 6 pm Saturday
Kiev - 8 pm Saturday
Chennai - 11:30 pm Saturday
Manila - 2 am Sunday
Melbourne - 5 am Sunday

Some of you have been curious about what our engineers are up to during these maintenance periods. As you can imagine, running the system reliably requires constant nurturing. Some maintenance tasks are more fundamental to the way the system operates and are not easily done on the fly -- as a result, it's most efficient and helpful for us to take the system offline for a few hours. With that in mind, our engineers line up these tasks in advance and implement them during our regularly scheduled downtimes. We hope that these maintenance periods aren't too much of an inconvenience, and we appreciate your understanding.

Thanks for all of the immediate feedback on our new Manage Ads feature. Your comments have helped us identify a technical issue causing delays in some publisher accounts. This is not directly related to the capabilities of the new feature, but it has been preventing new ad units from immediately appearing on some publisher sites. We dislike delays as much as you do, so our trusty operations folks are working on fixing the problem and we expect to have things back to normal by next week. We appreciate your patience.

We know you have a lot more to say about this feature and we want to hear your feedback, so please send us your comments and we'll continue to keep you updated on future enhancements.

UPDATE: This issue has now been fully resolved -- thanks for your patience!

UPDATE: The video units feature has been retired -- however, you may wish to review the other revenue opportunities available for video content owners.

Since launching video units to U.S. publishers with English-language websites, we've received quite a few emails about this new product. Here are the top 4 questions we'd like to address:

1. I selected "Automated Content" but the videos aren't relevant to my site. What can I do?

Thanks to your feedback, we've implemented a feature to improve content relevance. Before, if you typed in [cars planes taxis], for example, only videos which matched all of these keywords would be returned. If there were no videos which matched all of these keywords, we delivered a default set of videos from the most popular YouTube partner content. We've modified this so that now [cars planes taxis] will deliver videos which have to do with cars or planes or taxis. This will greatly reduce the likelihood of default popular content being delivered to your units. In general, to refine video targeting with the "Automated Content" setting, you should try different keyword combinations to see what works best.

2. Can I select the individual videos that appear in my video unit?

It isn't currently possible to select individual videos for your video units. If you're choosing "Automated Content" for your video unit, you can further refine video targeting by testing different combinations of keywords.

3. I followed your instructions to link my AdSense and YouTube accounts, but my account still shows as "pending". I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet.

You might have to manually link your AdSense Account to your YouTube account. To do so please follow the steps below.
  1. Log in to your AdSense account.
  2. Click the "Account Access" link located under the "My Account" tab.
  3. Under "sites", find "www.youtube.com" and click the "grant access" link.
Your AdSense account should now successfully be linked to your YouTube account.



4. Do you offer any other sizes for the video units?

Right now, we only offer the three sizes listed in your account when you generate the ad code -- note that the 'mini' size is larger than what appears on your code generation page. We'll be sure to announce any new sizes and styles as they become available.

Please keep in mind that video units are different from click-to-play video ads; while video units contain YouTube partner videos complemented by standard AdSense ads, click-to-play video ads are ads created by AdWords advertisers in video format. At this time, no in-stream video ads will show in your video units.

To make changes to your video units or try them out for the first time, visit your AdSense Setup page. Thanks again for your feedback, and stay tuned for more updates on video units.

Two weeks ago, we gave you a sneak peek of what was in store for November. Now, we're happy to let you know that we've started rolling out our new ad management feature to publishers! As a reminder, this feature will save the settings of your ad units within your AdSense account. That means, each time you want to change the colors, channels, or even the corner styles for your ad units, you can make the changes directly in your account rather than generating and pasting new code. Again, we're still working on rolling this feature out to all publishers, so don't worry if you don't see it in your account yet -- it'll be there soon.

Below are a few answers to questions you might have about this new feature:

How has the process of generating new ad code changed?
On the 'Get Ads' page of the 'AdSense Setup' tab, you'll find the same code generation wizard you've used before. At the end of the wizard, you'll now be prompted to provide a name for the ad unit you've just created. We recommend using a descriptive name so that you'll remember where you pasted this ad unit. For instance, use names like "Homepage Leaderboard, example.com" or "Top 300x250, Sports pages." You can find more detailed instructions in our Help Center.

Why do I need to name my new ad units now?
With this new feature, all your new ad code will have a name and an unique ad slot ID. This will help you remember them so you can make changes to them later directly on the 'Manage Ads' page. As noted above, please be as specific as possible when naming your ad units and include information such as location, ad size, and domain.



Will the old ad code on my sites still work?
Any ad code you've generated in the past will continue to work as normal. However, please note that the old ad code will not automatically be updated to include this feature. If you'd like to apply this new feature to your old ad units, you can import the code and save the new settings.

Why don't I see anything after adding a new ad unit to my site?
If you're implementing a newly created ad unit on your site, the ad unit may not appear for up to 10 minutes while our servers are informed about the settings for the new unit. Don't feel like waiting? Simply use the Preview function on the 'Manage Ads' page to check out your updated pages immediately.

I made some changes to my ads, but nothing changed on my site. What happened?
Just as noted above, any changes to the ad unit may take up to 10 minutes to be visible. Feel free to use the Preview function to see your changes immediately.

How do I change the size of my ad units on the 'Manage Ads' page?
Unfortunately, size is one of the few things you can't change with this new feature. To change the size of your ads, you'll need to visit the 'Get Ads' page to generate a new ad unit.

How do I delete some of the ad units I created?
Right now, it isn't possible to delete ad units from within your account. This is designed to help avoid instances where an active ad units might be accidentally deleted. However, ad units that have not generated impressions for 7 days will become 'inactive' and will automatically be hidden. You can check the 'Show inactive AdSense units' box to unhide them.

One last reminder - please keep in mind that this feature only applies to ad code generated from your account at https://www.google.com/adsense. If you create your ad code through one of our partners, such as Blogger, Dada.net, or Apple iWeb, you'll continue to use the standard ad code.

Want to learn more about this feature? Feel free to check out our complete guide. You might also find our videos on generating ad code and managing your ads useful.

Finally, we'd like to hear what you think about this feature.

We know it can be tough to keep track of all the official AdSense-related documentation we've put online; that's why we're happy to introduce you to the new Resources tab in your account.



We've compiled links to a number of resources under this tab, including the Help Center, Program Policies, and Help Forum. If you're looking to improve the performance of your ads, you can now easily navigate to our Optimization Tips page or to publisher tools like Analytics.

Need help with implementing your ad code or viewing your ads? Try our Demos & Guides or Troubleshooting Wizards, all available under the Resources tab.

Oh, and if you happen to forget the URL of the Inside AdSense blog, you can always find a link to us under this new tab as well. :)

We'd like to provide you with an update on the recent channels issue -- our engineers have been working to provide publishers with their missing data, and you should see this data in your account by early next week. Thanks again for your patience!

Happy Halloween from the AdSense Team!



We're excited about the enthusiasm we're seeing for the AdSense Story contest, so we've decided to extend the deadline until November 14th. We've received some great submissions, and we're still looking for more. It doesn't need to be a big Hollywood production, just a simple story from the heart about your own AdSense Story -- how has AdSense helped you? Feel free to review our announcement for more details on what to include in your video.

Oh, and did we mention that winning submissions will get some cool Google schwag? Send us your story today!

Over the past few days, some publishers let us know that they were unable to view any data for their custom channels. Our engineers have now resolved the issue, and they're currently working on including the missing data from the past few days. Your custom channels should now be tracking data as normal. Please be assured that your aggregate reports, which are used to calculate payments, have not been affected.

Thanks for your patience, and for bringing this issue to our attention!

In case you weren't able to attend our latest webinar, What's New with AdSense, you can now find a recording on our Help Center. Our support specialists cover the latest features such as Referrals 2.0 and Blogger inline ads and provide a refresher on the top AdSense support issues. You can also find recordings and transcripts of our previous webinars.

We're very excited to let you know about an upcoming feature that lets you easily manage your ad units from within your AdSense account. It isn't live yet, but here's a sneak peek so you'll know what to expect in the coming weeks. (We know many of you have been eagerly anticipating its arrival.)

This new ad management feature means that your ad unit settings (such as colors and channels) for new AdSense for content ad units will be saved in your AdSense account every time you generate ad code. Then, if you'd like to change any of these settings in the future, all you do is make the update within your account -- you'll no longer need to manually replace the ad code on all of your pages. For instance, you can quickly change the borders of all your 300x250 medium rectangles from red to blue with just a few mouse clicks. Fancy! We hope that this new feature will help you save time and will simplify the process of optimizing your ad units.

As we noted above, please keep in mind that the ad management feature isn't yet available in any publisher accounts. We'll be rolling it out in phases in the next few weeks, and we'll follow up with another post at that time to help you better understand how to use the feature. When you see the "Manage Ads" page appear under your AdSense Setup tab, you'll know the feature is available for you to use. Here's what it will look like:





Stay tuned to read more about this new feature!

We've recently opened an AdSense Help Forum in Arabic. Drop by the new forum today to post your questions and share your AdSense expertise with other Arabic-speaking publishers. As with our other forums, a Google representative will participate in the discussions and occasionally contribute posts.

This launch brings the number of AdSense Help Forums up to 15. If you aren't yet one of the 54,000 publishers worldwide participating in the forums, we'd like to let you know that they're available in: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Join a forum today to meet and learn from other AdSense publishers!

UPDATED Arabic Forum link

This Saturday, October 20th, we'll be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You won't be able to sign in to your account during this time period, but rest assured that your ads will still appear and your earnings will continue to be tracked in your account. Here's the start time converted for various cities around the world:

London -- 6 pm Saturday
Athens -- 8 pm Saturday
New Delhi -- 10:30 pm Saturday
Kuala Lumpur -- 1 am Sunday
Sydney -- 3 am Sunday

We hope the down time gives you more time to work on your Halloween costume. If you're all out of costume ideas, how about dressing up as an ad unit? We suggest the medium rectangle for maximum visibility :)

Have a great weekend!

Askthebuilder.com's Tim Carter is one publisher who's been able to do great things with AdSense. Here's his story on moving from building houses to building websites and how AdSense has helped him along the way.



The AdSense Story Contest

Now that you've heard Tim’s story, we want to hear about your experience with AdSense. We've heard from publishers who've been able to keep their site free to users, quit their jobs, and even pay for their wedding! What have your AdSense earnings enabled you to do? Whether you have a blog, a small website, or an entire company, we want to hear your story. There's no need for a production crew or studio; you can create the video at home with a webcam.

Here's how it works:
  1. Shoot a video (2 minutes or shorter) about your story with AdSense.
  2. Fill out the submission form and submit your video as a video response to Tim’s video on YouTube.
  3. We will review your submissions and pick a few videos to be featured on the AdSense blog in the coming weeks.
In your video, you may want to answer some of the questions below, but feel free to include others.
  • Where you are from and what you do for a living?
  • Why did you create your site, blog, or forum?
  • Who is your intended audience?
  • How did you hear about AdSense?
  • How has AdSense helped you?
  • What are some useful AdSense tips you would give to other publishers so that they can see the same success?
When creating and submitting your video, here are a few important things to remember:
  1. You need to have a YouTube account to participate.
  2. Be creative! Use props, backgrounds, and sets; however, please do not use any trademarked logos, images, or copyrighted material for which you don't have permission to display in your videos.
  3. You can disclose gross earnings, but not any specific AdSense statistics such as clickthrough rate or eCPM.
  4. Feel free to talk about your site, but don't advertise or encourage users to visit your site and click on your ads.
  5. By posting your video you give Google the rights to display, reproduce, and distribute your content.
  6. Your video must adhere to both YouTube and AdSense Terms and Conditions. Google has the right to remove any video submission that does not comply with these terms.
Submission deadline is November 14th, so what are you waiting for? Create and submit your video today!

UPDATED with new submission deadline

It's Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers around the world take time to write about the environment. So, we thought it would be fitting to feature an AdSense publisher who has focused their site on increasing awareness and appreciation of the environment -- specifically, wild lands and wildlife.

Mongabay.com, run by Rhett Butler, originally focused on providing information about tropical rainforests, a topic Rhett is personally familiar with through his travels to a Borneo rainforest that has since been destroyed. In recent years, however, the site has expanded to include environmental news on numerous topics ranging from climate change to green business. He's also added a kids' version of the site aimed to spark interest in youngsters to learn about and appreciate rainforests. Rhett hopes through his work with Mongabay that more people will become aware of the beauty and importance of the environment so they'll be motivated to preserve our remaining biodiversity for the future.

On Mongabay.com, Rhett describes the concept of TREES, which are five basic steps we can take to saving rainforests:

Teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.
Restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.
Encourage people to live in a way that doesn't hurt the environment.
Establish parks to protect rainforests and wildlife.
Support companies that operate in ways that minimize damage to the environment.

The revenue Rhett's sites generate through AdSense has allowed him to quit his 9-5 job and focus on growing his environmental effort: traveling around the world to gain a connection to the efforts he is passionate about, garnering hands-on experiences, and looking for conservation opportunities. This travel also enables him to take these experiences and add valuable content to his website and further educate his readers.

Thanks, Rhett, for raising awareness about the importance of rainforests both to the global ecosystem and to people everywhere.

We're always working on new ways for you to get quality ad inventory, as well as developing safeguards to ensure that the conversions generated on publisher sites are valid. As you may know, referral ads are paid on a conversion basis; a conversion is considered a specific action defined by the advertiser. That action might be a sale, a clickthrough to a specific page on an advertiser site, or an online sign-up for a promotion.

We've recently made a change to help make sure that the conversions generated by referral ads are valid. For some publishers who display referrals for non-Google products, the earnings you receive for the ad may now be less than the maximum referral value displayed for that ad. This is because our system will initially place a restriction on referral earnings as we monitor click and conversion data to determine that the conversions generated are valid. Once this validation period ends, you'll begin earning the maximum value of the conversions as displayed in your account.

We can't say precisely how long the validation period will last, but will make every effort to ensure that it's as speedy as possible. It will vary by publisher since site activity is different for everyone, and we anticipate that the majority of you will be minimally affected. However, advertisers will only be charged the maximum referral value once a publisher has completed the validation period.

Our goal with this change is to ensure the long-term effectiveness of the referrals program for both publishers and advertisers. By increasing the value and quality of the referral network, we believe we'll attract more advertisers and provide more opportunities for you to earn.

UPDATE: The video units feature has been retired -- however, you may wish to review the other revenue opportunities available for video content owners.

AdSense isn't just for ads anymore; it's also a place to get video content for your site -- and earn extra revenue at the same time.

We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.

If you're looking to build "stickiness" with your visitors, show quality YouTube partner video on your site, and earn extra revenue along the way, and want to know more, then review our common questions about video units.

If you're ready to get started now, sign in to your AdSense account and head for the AdSense Setup tab. Click the video units link and you'll be on your way to setting up your first video unit.

See you later! We've got some videos to watch.

Update: Video units will be live in AdSense accounts later today (10/9). Currently this feature is open only to publishers located in the United States with English-language websites.

Instablogs is a blog network that publishes more than 200 posts a day on 136 blogs spanning 16 niche channels, including luxury gadgets blog Bornrich and technology blog Gizmowatch. With 200+ bloggers blogging from all over the world, Instablogs has around 2 million unique visitors per month.

Instablogs co-founder Ankit Maheshwari tells us that AdSense works well with each blog's unique content. “Since our blogs are very niche-oriented, it’s tough for us to sell our inventory directly to advertisers on blogs with less than 30,000 page views per month,” he says. “AdSense’s high CPC offering and huge advertiser database can help monetize the page views on any site irrespective of its size.”

Recently Ankit began to experiment with AdSense optimization. Although he was doubtful of the results, he tried a few minor tweaks on his site, such as opting in to displaying image ads and adding link units to the top of his pages. He also used information from his custom channels to determine the ad unit with the highest CTR on his pages – he then placed this ad unit first in the HTML source of each page. After a week of testing these changes, Ankit found that revenue nearly doubled. While AdSense revenue used to comprise 15% of the company’s advertising revenue, since optimizing it's increased to 25%.

Despite the success of his first optimization, Ankit has found that there isn’t one standard layout or ad format that is optimal for all of his pages. He says, “We’ve seen in many blogs that a few ad types perform better in different sections. For example, the large rectangle performs 70% better on the permalink pages of our Tattoo blog, while skyscrapers perform best on all other pages. At the same time, banner ads have performed really well on our Parenting blog.”

Today, Ankit continues to make small changes and frequently tests new layouts based on his custom channel data. He feels that “custom channels are not only a useful feature, but also the most important feature in the entire AdSense program for publishers.”

We’re excited to tell you that we're offering a new payment method for some countries. If you're located in Argentina, Chile, China (Mainland), Colombia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, or Romania, you can now sign up for Western Union Quick Cash, a new form of payment that lets you receive your AdSense payments in cash using the worldwide Western Union money transfer service. Payments will be available for pickup at your local Western Union agent the day after they are issued, according to our normal payment schedule.

It's free to receive your AdSense payments by Western Union; you'll no longer need to wait for a check to arrive in the mail. this choice can also cut down on bank fees and long clearing times associated with depositing checks.

Before you sign up, please keep these important points in mind:
  • As mentioned above, Western Union Quick Cash is only available in Argentina, Chile, China (Mainland), Colombia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, and Romania. We'll be sure to let you know if we're able to offer new payment options to additional publishers.

  • This payment method is currently only available to individual payee names; we can’t offer it to businesses.

  • You'll need to bring your government-issued ID to pick up your payment, so please make sure that your AdSense account payee name exactly matches that of your ID. Please contact us if you need to update the payee name in your account.

  • Payments must be picked up within 35 days of issuance or they will expire. If this happens, a payment hold will be placed on your AdSense account and the payment will be credited back to your account.

  • Payments will be made in US dollars, but depending on your local Western Union agent, they may be picked up in your local currency.
If you're ready to begin receiving your AdSense payments by Western Union Quick Cash, just follow these instructions. If you have additional questions before getting started, please review the information in our Help Center.

Getting started with AdSense is easy, but when reviewing the applications we get, we've noticed a few common pitfalls. To help make sure your application is approved the first time around, ask yourself the following questions below before submitting.

Do I have what I need to apply?
  • Website: To display Google ads, you need administrative access to the site you submit for AdSense in order to place our JavaScript ad code on your site. Adding the Google code to your site's source code will enable you to show ads, search boxes, and referral units on your pages.

    If you don't have a website of your own, that doesn't mean you can't participate in AdSense. We offer a couple of options to help you easily create your own site.

    First, there's Blogger, a free tool for setting up and publishing your own blog online. With its easy-to-use and customizable templates, you can create an account and start blogging right away. You can also set up AdSense ads easily through your Blogger account.

    If you prefer more flexibility and control, then our web page tool, Page Creator, may be more suitable. Signing up for a Page Creator account is free as well -- all you need is a Gmail account. The best part is that you don't have to download any software or hire a designer. Once you've created your Page Creator site, you can begin displaying Google ads in minutes.

  • Valid payee name: Payments will be made out to the name on your account, so make sure to include your full and valid name, or that of your business, rather than just initials. If banks won't accept the name you enter in the 'Payee Name' field, neither will we.

  • Valid address: We want to make sure your hard-earned money reaches you, so please also provide a complete valid address where you can receive mail. If you live in a country or territory that doesn't have a standard format for addresses, please be sure that your application includes as much information as a mailman would need to find your residence.
Does my website meet all the necessary requirements?
  • Valid URL: If you manage an entire website, give us the URL of your home page. If you manage a blog or other account within a larger website, you should provide the URL of the specific page that you manage and not the URL of the entire hosting website. Don't forget to double check your URL for typos!

  • Fully launched website: Since we won't be able to review websites that are not fully launched or built, please ensure that your site is live and functioning at the time you submit your application.

  • Unique content: We want visitors to sites in the AdSense network to have a good experience, so please publish content that's interesting and unique. Avoid using "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other cookie cutter approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. If you're participating in an affiliate program, give people a reason to visit your site first.

  • Supported language: We're constantly working to provide targeted, relevant ads in more languages. However, until then, we can only approve your application if the majority of your website is in one of our supported languages.

  • Pay-To Sites: If your site participates in programs that compensate people to perform activities that drive traffic to you, we can't approve your application. Some examples of these "pay-to" programs are sites that encourage users "to click" or "to surf" or "to read email." In addition, you shouldn't encourage others to join these programs in the content, links, or third-party ads on your site.
We also encourage you to read our program policies in detail for further insight on how to create a successful application. Now that you have all the necessary information, now's a good time to apply.

Following our announcement about Indonesian in July, we're happy to let you know that AdSense for search is now available in another southeast Asian language: Vietnamese. Vietnamese publishers can now offer users Google search capabilities while generating revenue from ads on the search results pages.

As we've done in the past, we'd like to celebrate this launch by providing you with a few fun facts about Vietnam:
  • Vietnam is shaped like a narrow 'S'. Even though Vietnam is 1,650 kilometers (1,031 miles) from north to south, the country gets as narrow as 50 kilometers (31 miles) across.

  • Vietnamese is the seventh most spoken language in the United States and sixth in Australia. According to the Ethnologue, Vietnamese is also spoken by substantial numbers of people in Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

  • Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of coffee and rice.
Chào mÆ°̀ng các nhà xuất bản Việt Nam đến vÆ¡́i AdSense!

Today we launched Google Gadget Ads, customized "mini-sites" that run as ads on AdSense publisher websites. These ads are interactive, engaging, and will appeal to your users, simultaneously providing value to advertisers while getting visitors to stick around your site. The end result is that advertisers get more engaged users, users have a richer ad experience, and publishers opted in to image ads may see increased competition for their ad space.

What does a gadget ad look like? We're glad you asked. Below is a gadget ad that we've built to advertise our AdSense program.



Gadget ads can take a number of shapes, sizes, and formats. If you're interested in seeing other cool gadget ads, you can check out our Google Gadget Ad Center. Also, please rest assured that gadget ads must adhere to our editorial policies, so there won't be any distracting "punch the monkey" ads.

Ready to start displaying gadget ads on your website? While there's no guarantee that they'll appear on your site, you can increase the chances that they'll be shown by making sure you're opted in to image ads and using one of the image ad formats. Please note that the most popular sizes for gadget ads are the rectangle, leaderboard, and skyscraper formats.

Also, keep in mind that there are a few things advertisers look for when targeting their ads to specific sites.

Got questions about gadget ads? We've got answers -- check out our Help Center.

If you haven't yet enrolled in tomorrow's webinar, What's New with AdSense, it's not too late. Just visit the link below:

https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=572956326

The webinar will take place online from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm PDT, and members of our team will be discussing the latest AdSense features. We look forward to seeing you there!