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At AdSense we are proud to be part of your journey. This video is our big thanks to you for everything we have done together in 2017!


Posted by: your AdSense Team

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year for shoppers and, therefore, for advertisers as well. The end of 2016 was a record-breaker for advertiser spend and this year projected to grow even more. Now it is right time to get your website and ads ready so that you can make the most out of this busy season.

Check out our infographic with important stats and tips for you to get ready for this special time of the year:

(to view from mobile download it here)



Find out more about native ads, viewability and test your site speed in PageSpeed Insights.

You can also watch Google AdSense On Air with tips on how to get your site optimized for holidays.

Posted by: the AdSense Team

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

The holiday season is the busiest time of every year, with shoppers out in full force to gather gifts, round up their decorations, and treat themselves to something special. Last year’s Black Friday set a new record with over $3 billion in online sales, representing a huge opportunity for advertisers and publishers. To make the most of this opportunity, now is the time to make sure that you can engage users and advertisers with targeted content and that you’re fully prepared for the busiest time on the consumer calendar.

Check out these stats and tips below which can help get you holiday season-ready:
Tip 1: The holiday season keeps getting bigger and bigger Each year the holiday season is getting bigger and starting earlier. With last year’s consumer spend being the biggest to date, seasonal advertising campaigns are extending from weeks to
months.

So why not take advantage of the holiday ad spending spree by placing ads on your site? A good first step is to choose the right tool to sell and manage ads on your site. Then, make sure your available ad space is optimized and mobile friendly. Finally, let the data inform your strategy: if you’re considering implementing new ad units, run an AdSense experiment to see how they perform. And make sure to test the different formats to see what works best for your users and your page.
Tip 2: Tailor your content to what users are looking for The holiday shopping season creates big opportunities for AdSense publishers. According to Luth Research*, the way people search when shopping becomes more niche as they move closer to buying an item.

For example, individuals may start their shopping journey with search terms like “gadgets for men” or “laptops” but finish a few weeks later with searches for specific models or screen sizes. To capture audience attention and increase your ad impressions, build a content strategy that taps into this insight.

During the holiday season, consumers have limited time and lots of gifts to buy. Find out how they’re shopping and how they’re using mobile to complete their holiday to-do lists. Why not try creating content that taps into each stage of the buyer journey like gift inspiration articles for those early stage “I need ideas” moments, and product comparison content for those “I want to know” moments before users make a purchase decision. To help you make the most of these moments check out our guide to help you draw the crowds to your site.
Tip 3: Go native Why not take your ads to the next level and implement AdSense Native Ads? These new ads give publishers a faster and more efficient way to create and implement native ads across their mobile, tablet and desktop websites. Our Native ads come in three categories: In-Feed, In-Article and Matched Content. They can all be used at once or individually and are designed for: a great user experience, a great look and feel across different screen sizes, and ease of use: easy-to-use editing tools help you make the ads look great on your site.

Additionally increasing the total number of viewable ad impressions has been shown to improve the performance of ads on sites and apps and increase advertiser satisfaction. To help publishers increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable, use the viewability best practices to learn about which areas you should address for better viewability results.

Finally AdSense for Search can help you and your users with the following benefits over the holiday period: provide search feature to your users for a better experience, monetize your search traffic by displaying ads and give you reports to help you understand user behavior.

Hopefully all these tips will help you grow your revenues even further this holiday season.

Happy holidays from the Google AdSense Team!

Source:

* Google/Luth Research, U.S. Google partnered with Luth to analyze the digital activity of its opt-in panel participants. The data was analyzed between April and Aug. 2016.

Today, we’re excited to announce the addition of Bengali (Bangla), a language spoken by millions in Bangladesh, India and many other countries around the world, to the family of AdSense supported languages.
The interest for Bengali language content has been growing steadily over the last few years. AdSense provides an easy way for publishers to monetize the content they create in Bengali, and help advertisers looking to connect with the growing online Bengali audience to reach them with relevant ads.
To start monetizing your Bengali (Bangla) content website with Google AdSense:
  1. Check the AdSense program policies and make sure your website is compliant.
  3. Add the AdSense code to start displaying relevant ads to your users.
Welcome to AdSense! Sign Up now!
Posted by: AdSense Internationalization Team

We know one of the biggest challenges publishers currently face is designing websites that adapt to different screen sizes, resolutions and user needs. Responsive ad units helps you deliver the best possible user experience on your pages: You can dynamically control the presentation of your website according to the properties of the screen/device that it’s being viewed on. Responsive ads automatically adapt to the size of your user's screen, meaning publishers can spend more time creating great content, and less time thinking about the size of their ads.

Today we’re happy to share some product updates to complement and strengthen your strategy, with new features for our responsive ad units and a multi-screen optimization score now available.
The new full width ads on mobile devices

Our experiments show that full-width responsive ads perform better on mobile devices in portrait mode. Previously Responsive ads fitted to standard sizes. The new launch will now  automatically expand ads to the full-width of the user's screen when their device is orientated vertically.
Screen Shot 2017-08-16 at 3.02.57 PM.png
If you are already using responsive ads, your ad unit has been upgraded automatically for mobile users. Otherwise, we recommend that you switch to responsive ad units today.
Best practices to help improve your mobile performance

We are also happy to share with you other best practices to help improve your mobile performance. Check out this video get tips on how to create an excellent mobile experience for your users and potentially increase your mobile revenue. Let’s get started!

More information on Responsive ad units can be found in our Help Center.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on these new features.


Posted by: The AdSense Team

Cross posted from The Keyword

At some point, we’ve all been caught off guard by an annoying ad online—like a video automatically playing at full volume, or a pop-up standing in the way to the one thing we’re trying to find. Thanks to research conducted by the Coalition for Better Ads, we now know which ad experiences rank lowest among consumers and are most likely to drive people to install ad blockers.

Ads, good and bad, help fund the open web. But 69% of people who installed ad blockers said they were motivated by annoying or intrusive ads. When ads are blocked, publishers don’t make money.
In June we launched the Ad Experience Report to help publishers understand if their site has ads that violate the Coalition’s Better Ads Standards. In just two months, 140,000 publishers worldwide have viewed the report.

"This report is great for helping publishers adapt to the Better Ads Standards. The level of transparency and data is incredibly actionable. It literally says here's the issue, here's how to fix it. I think it will be helpful for all publishers." Katya Moukhina, Director of Programmatic Operations, Politico

 We're already starting to see data trends that can give publishers insights into the most common offending ads. Here's a look at what we know so far.


It's official: Popups are the most annoying ads on the web

Pop-up ads are the most common annoying ads found on publisher sites. On desktop they account for 97% of the violations! These experiences can be bad for business: 50% of users surveyed say they would not revisit or recommend a page that had a pop-up ad.

Instead of pop-ups, publishers can use less disruptive alternatives like full-screen inline ads. They offer the same amount of screen real estate as pop-ups—without covering up any content. Publishers can find more tips and alternatives in our best practices guide.


Mobile and desktop have different issues

On mobile the issues are more varied. Pop-ups account for 54% of issues found, while 21% of issues are due to high ad density: A mobile page flooded with ads takes longer to load, and this makes it harder for people to find what they're looking for.



Most issues come from smaller sites with fewer resources

Our early reporting shows that most issues are not coming from mainstream publishers, like daily newspapers or business publications. They come from smaller sites, who often don’t have the same access to quality control resources as larger publishers.

To help these publishers improve their ads experiences, we review sites daily and record videos of the ad experiences that have been found non-compliant with the Better Ads Standards. If a site is in a “failing” or “warning” state, their Ad Experience Report will include these visuals, along with information about the Better Ad Standards and how the issues may impact their site.

We encourage all publishers to take a look at their report. Here’s how.
  1. Gaining access to the report
    The Ad Experience Report is part of Google Search Console, which means you need to be a verified site owner to access it. You can either ask your webmaster to add you as an owner or user, or verify ownership yourself. Learn more.
  2. Understanding the report
    If your site has been reviewed and the status is “Warning" or "Failing," the report will show videos of the ad experiences that are likely to annoy or mislead your visitors. Click on desktop or mobile reports to see the specific experiences identified.
  3. Fixing the issues and requesting a review
    Once you’ve identified the violating experiences, work with your ad ops and site design teams to remove the annoying experiences. After that, describe how you addressed each of the issues in the ‘Request review’ area and click ‘I fixed this’. You’ll receive a confirmation email saying your review is in progress. Learn more.



Looking ahead

Over the next few weeks we’ll begin notifying sites with issues. For even more insights on the types of sites and violations found, publishers can visit The Ad Experience Report API.

The good news is that people don’t hate all ads—just annoying ones. Replacing annoying ads with more acceptable ones will help ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to sustain their work with online advertising. This is why we support the Coalition’s efforts to develop marketplace guidelines for supporting the Better Ads Standards and will continue working with them on the standards as they evolve.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management, Sustainable Ads

At Google, we value users, advertisers and publishers equally. We have policies in place that define where Google ads should appear and how they must be implemented. These policies help ensure a positive user experience, as well as maintain a healthy ads ecosystem that benefits both publishers and advertisers.

To get your attention, some ads pop up in front of your current browser window, obscuring the content you want to see. Pop-under ads can be annoying as well, as they will "pop under" your window, so that you don't see them until you minimize your browser. We do not believe these ads provide a good user experience, and therefore are not suitable for Google ads.

That is why we recently clarified our policies around pop-ups and pop-unders to help remove any ambiguity. To simplify our policies, we are no longer permitting the placement of Google ads on pages that are loaded as a pop-up or pop-under. Additionally, we do not permit Google ads on any site that contains or triggers pop-unders, regardless of whether Google ads are shown in the pop-unders.

We continually review and evaluate our policies to address emerging trends, and in this case we determined that a policy change was necessary.

As with all policies, publishers are ultimately responsible for ensuring that traffic to their site is compliant with Google policies. To assist publishers, we’ve provided guidance on best practices for buying traffic.

Posted by John Brown, Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Today we’re introducing the new AdSense Native ads -- a suite of ad formats designed to match the look and feel of your site, providing a great user experience for your visitors. AdSense Native ads come in three categories: In-feed, In-article, and Matched content*. They can all be used at once or individually and are designed for:

  • A great user experience: they fit naturally on your site and use high quality advertiser elements, such as high resolution images, longer titles and descriptions, to provide a more attractive experience for your visitors. 
  • A great look and feel across different screen sizes: the ads are built to look great on mobile, desktop, and tablet. 
  • Ease of use: easy-to-use editing tools help you make the ads look great on your site.

Native In-feed opens up new revenue opportunity in your feeds
Available to all publishers, In-feed ads slot neatly inside your feeds, e.g. a list of articles or products on your site. These ads are highly customizable to match the look and feel of your feed content and offer new places to show ads.

Native In-article offers a better advertising experience
Available to all publishers, In-article ads are optimized by Google to help you put great-looking ads between the paragraphs of your pages. In-article ads use high-quality advertising elements and offer a great reading experience to your visitors.

Matched Content* drives more users to your content 
Available to publishers that meet the eligibility criteria, Matched content is a content recommendation tool that helps you promote your content to visitors and potentially increase revenue, page views, and time spent on site. Publishers that are eligible for the “Allow ads” feature can also show relevant ads within their Matched content units, creating an additional revenue opportunity in this placement.

Getting started with AdSense Native ads 
AdSense Native ads can be placed together, or separately, to customize your website’s ad experience. Use In-feed ads inside your feed (e.g. a list of articles, or products), In-article ads between the paragraphs of your pages, and Matched content ads directly below your articles.  When deciding your native strategy, keep the content best practices in mind.

To get started with AdSense Native ads:

  • Sign in to your AdSense account
  • In the left navigation panel, click My ads
  • Click +New ad unit
  • Select your ad category: In-article, In-feed or Matched content

We'd love to hear what you think about these ad formats in the comments section below this post.

Posted by: Violetta Kalathaki - AdSense Product Manager

 *This format has already been available to eligible publishers, and is now part of AdSense Native ads.

Today, we’re excited to announce the addition of Urdu, a language spoken by millions in Pakistan, India and many other countries around the world, to the family of AdSense supported languages.

The interest for Urdu language content has been growing steadily over the last few years. AdSense provides an easy way for publishers to monetize the content they create in Urdu, and help advertisers looking to connect with the growing online Urdu audience to reach them with relevant ads.

To start monetizing your Urdu content website with Google AdSense:

  1. Check the AdSense program policies and make sure your website is compliant. 
  2. Sign up for an AdSense account 
  3. Add the AdSense code to start displaying relevant ads to your users. 
Welcome to AdSense!



Posted by: AdSense Internationalization Team

Cross-posted from The Keyword

The vast majority of online content creators fund their work with advertising. That means they want the ads that run on their sites to be compelling, useful and engaging--ones that people actually want to see and interact with. But the reality is, it’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web--like the kind that blare music unexpectedly, or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can see the content on the page. These frustrating experiences can lead some people to block all ads--taking a big toll on the content creators, journalists, web developers and videographers who depend on ads to fund their content creation.

We believe online ads should be better. That’s why we joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group dedicated to improving online ads. The group’s recently announced Better Ads Standards provide clear, public, data-driven guidance for how the industry can improve ads for consumers, and today I’d like to share how we plan to support it.

New tools for publishers

The new Ad Experience Report helps publishers understand how the Better Ads Standards apply to their own websites. It provides screenshots and videos of annoying ad experiences we’ve identified to make it easy to find and fix the issues. For a full list of ads to use instead, publishers can visit our new best practices guide.



The Ad Experience Report

“We’ve always put our users first and support the Coalition’s Better Ads efforts and standards. The report’s videos and screenshots are incredibly helpful and make the Coalition’s research actionable for our teams. We’re impressed with the level of detail and transparency Google is providing and commend this initiative.”
- Troy Young, President, Hearst Digital Media

As part of our efforts to maintain a sustainable web for everyone, we want to help publishers with good ad experiences get paid for their work. With Funding Choices, now in beta, publishers can show a customized message to visitors using an ad blocker, inviting them to either enable ads on their site, or pay for a pass that removes all ads on that site through the new Google Contributor.

“Looking at the past few years, we’ve come to realize that to the rise of ad blockers has negatively impacted potential revenue across all of our properties, particularly in Europe. Funding Choices allows us to have a conversation with visitors using ad blockers on how our business works, and provide them a choice to whitelist or contribute to our newsroom. We’ve found that people are generally open to whitelisting once they understand how content gets created.”
- Marc Boswell, SVP, Sales Operations & Client Services, Business Insider

Funding Choices is available to publishers in North America, U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand and will be rolling out in other countries later this year. Publishers should visit our new best practices guide for tips on crafting the right message for their audience.

Chrome support for the Better Ads Standards

Chrome has always focused on giving you the best possible experience browsing the web. For example, it prevents pop-ups in new tabs based on the fact that they are annoying. In dialogue with the Coalition and other industry groups, we plan to have Chrome stop showing ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads Standards starting in early 2018.

Looking ahead

We believe these changes will ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to have a sustainable way to fund their work with online advertising.

We look forward to working with the Coalition as they develop marketplace guidelines for supporting the Better Ads Standards, and are committed to working closely with the entire industry—including groups like the IAB, IAB Europe, the DCN, the WFA, the ANA and the 4A’s, advertisers, agencies and publishers—to roll out these changes in a way that makes sense for users and the broader ads ecosystem.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy
Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

As a publisher you face many challenges. One of the broadest and most encompassing of these is growing your user base while making sure your content remains high-quality and policy compliant. Your feedback has helped us understand this challenge, and we’re always working to improve. A few weeks ago, we announced two new AdSense features: page-level enforcements and a new Policy center. Today, we’re excited to let you know that these features are available globally for all AdSense publishers.

Page-level enforcements for more granular policy actions
To allow more precise enforcements, and provide you with feedback about policy issues as we identify them, we’re introducing page-level enforcements. A page-level enforcement affects individual pages where violations of the AdSense Program Policies are found. As a result, ad serving is restricted or disabled on those pages. Ads will continue to serve where no policy violations have been found, either at the page- or site-level.

When a new policy violation on one of your pages is identified, you’ll receive an email notification and ad serving will be restricted on that page. As this is a new feature, you may already have current page-level enforcements that were not surfaced through these email notifications. To make sure you’re not missing anything, head over to the new Policy center to review existing violations.

After you've addressed all policy violations on a page, you may request a review (previously known as an “appeal”). Reviews typically take one week but can sometimes take longer. We'll restore ad serving on the affected page or pages if a page is reviewed at your request and no policy violations are found. Alternatively, you can simply remove the AdSense ad code from that page and the page-level enforcement will disappear from the Policy center in about a week.

More transparency with the new AdSense Policy center

The AdSense Policy center is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about policy actions that affect your sites and pages. You’ll be able to see:
  • Non-compliant page(s) or site(s)
  • Why a page or site is non-compliant
  • Steps needed to make your page or site compliant 
  • Steps to request a review of the actioned page(s) or site(s)


Follow these steps to see your current page-level enforcements, and request a review of the actioned page(s):
  1. Sign in to your AdSense account.
  2. In the left navigation panel, click Settings, then click Policy center.
  3. In the "Page-level enforcements" section, find the site or sites that have page-level violations and click Show details.
  4. In the "Page" section, click the Down arrow to learn more about the enforcement, the violation(s) on the page, and how to fix them. 
  5. Click Request review and tick the box after you’ve made sure the violations on the page are fixed.
Our beta participants provided a lot of great feedback and suggestions on how to make the AdSense Policy center as useful as possible. We’re constantly looking to improve the clarity with which we communicate our policies and policy enforcements, so let us know what you think through the ”Send feedback” link in the AdSense menu.

Learn more about these updates in the AdSense Help Center or head over to the Policy center to try it out.

Posted by: John Brown, Head of Publisher Policy Communications, 
Richard Zippel, Publisher Quality Product Manager and 
Nick Radicevic, AdSense Product Manager





What is AdSense?

In short, AdSense is a free, simple way to make money by placing ads on your site.

Google’s ad network connects advertisers looking to run their ads on the web with publishers like you, looking to monetise your website, making it simple for everyone to succeed. AdSense connects publishers and advertisers, giving AdWords advertisers the opportunity to bid on ad space on websites like yours. 

By working with an ad network like AdSense, you can spend less time marketing and selling your advertising space and more time focused on creating the best content for your users. Learn more in the AdSense 101 article.

What do I need to sign up for AdSense?

As a site owner, you’ll need pages with unique content that's relevant to your visitors and that provides a great user experience. Before you apply to AdSense, make sure your site's pages are ready by visiting the AdSense Help Center. If you’re ready to turn your #PassionIntoProfit, sign up for AdSense today.

How do I know if I’m eligible to join the AdSense network?

Before applying for an account, make sure that the site you own has been active for at least six months, and complies with the AdSense program policies.

AdSense also works with products such as Blogger and YouTube to allow you to create host partner accounts. To be eligible for a hosted AdSense account via Blogger or YouTube, you must first meet certain eligibility requirements. Learn more about signing up for an AdSense account via YouTube.

How do I monetize my YouTube channel using AdSense?

To start earning money from your video content, you’ll need to apply for an AdSense account to link to your YouTube account. Follow these steps to become eligible to receive payments:
  1. Make sure your YouTube account is enabled for monetization. 
  2. Submit your application to create a new AdSense account to link with your YouTube account. Once approved, you'll see a "Host account" label on your AdSense homepage.
  3. If you also have your own non-host site where you’d like to show ads, then you’ll need to submit a one-time application form to tell us the URL of your site (you only need to complete this step if you want to monetize your site, and don’t need to take this action to earn money from your YouTube videos).
Providing that your site is following the AdSense program policies and you’ve completed 5 steps to getting paid, Google will send your first payment the month after your account exceeds $100 in earnings.

How can AdSense help me grow my online business?

AdSense helps you to create a revenue stream from the valuable content you host on your site. AdSense saves you time with a quick and easy setup allowing you to focus on the elements of your business that require your focus.

It’s like an automatic car -- it removes most of the manual adjustments, allowing you to cruise along with less effort. You still need regular “tune ups” to get optimal performance, but you won’t need to shift gears to get from point A to point B.

What is DoubleClick Ad Exchange?

DoubleClick Ad Exchange gives you real-time access to the largest pool of advertisers.The main difference between DoubleClick Ad Exchange and AdSense is that AdSense does a lot of the technical settings and optimization work for you, such as automating the sale of all your ad space to the highest bidder. With DoubleClick Ad Exchange you manage these adjustments yourself, controlling exactly how your inventory is sold.

As an example, DoubleClick Ad Exchange allows you to choose which ad space is for public sale and which is reserved for private auctions. This additional input from you helps you to get the best results from DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Another important distinction is that through AdSense, demand is primarily from AdWords advertisers, whereas DoubleClick Ad Exchange pulls demand from multiple sources. This means that in addition to AdWords advertisers, you can also access other major ad networks and agencies. Check out the more comprehensive list of differences at our Help Center.

Should I use DoubleClick for my site?

Check out our Choosing the right tools for you article to figure out if solutions from DoubleClick are right for your site.

Can I use AdSense to monetize my WordPress site?

WordPress doesn’t allow advertising on their free hosting plan (WordPress.com). If you’d like to show ads on your WordPress hosted site, then you’ll need to switch to a self-hosted WordPress.org domain. Visit our product forum and learn how to make this switch.

Can I monetize multiple sites under a single AdSense account?

Yes! AdSense allows you to add multiple sites in association to the same account. This will enable you to monitor the inventory on your sites from the same place, saving you valuable time. Here’s how to set up multiple sites on your account:

  1. Sign in to your AdSense account.
  2. In the left navigation panel, click Settings.
  3. Click My sites.
  4. Click Add.
  5. Enter the URL of the site that you'd like to add (e.g., example.com). If you're unsure which URL to enter, check the section on formatting the URLs of your sites below.
  6. Click Add site.
  7. Your site is added to your site list with a status of "verified".
Check out the Help Center for more info on this!

I’d like help growing my business with AdSense, does AdSense offer performance growth tips?

Yes it does! When setting up your account, simply check the box beside the “I’d like to receive performance suggestions” message.

If you already have an account, go to the Settings tab and check the “Performance Suggestions” box.

If I’m not using AdSense yet, how can I receive performance tips?

Follow AdSense on social media for daily tips on how to optimize your account and product updates; Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.

Also, watch the AdSense Optimization Library playlist on YouTube to learn AdSense best practices, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.



How do I get more traffic to my site?

First, you’ll want to take advantage of the options within Google Search Console to make sure your site is visible for search users. The AdSense Help Center has all the information you’ll need to submit your site for index, diagnose any problems, and identify which keyword queries are driving traffic to your site.

Next, follow the Long-term revenue framework, a tool often used by our AdSense optimization experts, to better understand the four levers that can help you grow and develop your site.




Also, catchy titles are a way of pushing referral traffic from social media platforms, and Brandon Gaille wrote a great guest-blog for us that lays out how to approach naming your content.

Be sure to follow AdSense best practice policies when planning your strategy, to avoid violations on your account. It’s important to know that in order to maintain ad serving on your site and keep an AdSense account active, it's the responsibility of the publisher to keep up to date with, and adhere to, the AdSense program policies.

How do I increase clickthrough rates (CTR) in AdSense?

Please see our recent response to this question on Quora where Symone Gamble shared her best practices.

What are responsive ad units?

Responsive ad units automatically control the size of your ads using a single piece of ad code. They also allow ads to be resized after a screen orientation change. Using a responsive ad unit will allow your site to show the most appropriate ad size according to your user's device, and will help you to maximize your revenue potential. Learn more about how responsive ad units work and then check out how to customize responsive ads to match the style of your site.



How can I make my site load faster?

Tools like PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test can be used to audit the speed of your site, identify possible problems, and even suggest solutions. From there, follow these 5 tips to improve page speed published on the Inside AdSense blog and then print out the Ultimate Page Speed Infographic for mobile-specific advice.

Why do I have invalid traffic deductions in my AdSense account?



How do I stop my site getting hacked?

HTTPS protocol ensures your servers are talking to who they are expected to be talking to and the conversation cannot be interrupted by anyone else, and that content cannot be altered in transit.

Make sure your software is up to date: this might seem common sense, but up-to-date software means there are no holes or faults that might make you vulnerable to people with a less than honourable intention.

Passwords: Using safe, secure, and complex passwords will protect the security of your site. Avoid words that contain common words, names of friends, family and pets as these are all easily attainable using social media, leaving yourself at risk. Don’t forget to change your password regularly; set yourself a reminder to change your password every few months.

What can I do if a site that I don't own is using my AdSense code?

Since site code is readily available to anyone who inspects your page, it's possible for someone to copy your ad code and paste it on a site you don’t own. In this case, if the ad code ends up on a site that violates the AdSense program policies, your account will receive a policy warning.

To prevent this, site authorization is an optional feature that lets you identify your verified sites as the only sites that are permitted to use your Google ad code.

Learn more about site authorization on the AdSense YouTube channel.

How to stop certain ads from appearing on my site?

The AdSense 101: You’re in control video will show you how to control the ads displayed on your site.

Why is there a decline in my AdSense revenue?

If your earnings have taken a dip, we recommend you check 4 engagement metrics in the performance tab of your AdSense account:
  1. Clickthrough rate (CTR)
  2. Cost per click (CPC)
  3. Page revenue per thousand impressions (page RPM)
  4. Page views
Here’s a few resources to help you identify the potential causes, and nextstep solutions to solve them.
What are AdSense experiments and how can I run an experiment?

AdSense recently introduced automatic experiments, which allow you to take a back seat as Google runs A/B tests on a small portion of your traffic. To enable the feature, just visit the "Experiments" page on your Optimization tab, and switch on "automatic experiments".

The opportunities generated from these experiments will appear in the “Opportunities” page on your Optimization tab. They'll be labelled "verified by experiment,” so you’ll know they’re backed by data and tailored to your site and users.



Posted by: Jay Castro from the AdSense team

May 8, 2017 Update: We've heard your feedback on the empty spaces resulting from an unfilled ad unit. Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to automatically collapse unfilled ad units -- if it's safe to do so without affecting the look and feel of your site. By using “Ad balance” you’re automatically opted-in to this update.

Thank you for providing feedback to help us improve this and other AdSense features!

---

Over the last few weeks you may have noticed the Ad balance subtab under My ads. This new AdSense feature will give you more control to create a great ads experience for your users.

Ad balance lets you reduce the number of ads you show to your users. Finding the right balance between the number of ads you show and the user experience on your site can lead to better overall engagement with your content. With Ad balance, you’re able to see how changes in the volume of ads you show affect your earnings, and find the balance that makes the most sense for you and your users.

By only showing your best-performing ads, you may see a minimal drop in your earnings. However, these changes may result in an overall earnings increase, since an improvement of the user experience often leads to users staying longer on your site and engaging with more of your content*.

Blog post img-01.png
Ad balance is the first example of a Lab that's being made available to all publishers. Those of you who had the Show fewer ads lab enabled have been automatically moved over to Ad balance**. Thank you for trying it out!

To learn more about this new feature, please visit the Help Center.

We’d love to hear what you think about Ad balance. Please leave your feedback within your AdSense account by clicking send feedback.

Posted by:
Dongcai Shen, Software Engineer
Rikard Lundmark, Software Engineer
Spandana Raj Babbula, Software Engineer

*We don’t guarantee any specific results. And, just as a reminder, you’re responsible for the content and layout of your site.
**Find out how you turn this feature on and off and make changes to your settings in the AdSense Help Center.

8 minutes to read
Now that you’ve got your account setup, and you’re writing winning content, it’s time to build a quality brand and create a sustainable revenue stream with AdSense.

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What separates a website from a brand? Credibility, consistency, and community.

Think of the websites you visit most - chances are they’re updated regularly with content that’s familiar and trustworthy. You can also navigate these sites intuitively, without putting any thought into how you’re consuming the content you love or where the links you’re looking for are positioned.

In this blog, we’ll cover how to effectively measure how well your site is performing, how to use experiments to uncover new insights, and how to lay out your site in a way that engages your readers.


Measure your performance with reports 

Only by digging deep into how visitors engage with your site can you identify the roadblocks that may keep them from returning. 

To make sure you’re up-to-date with everything you need to know, check the ‘common reports’ tab in your AdSense account dashboard. Focus on the following key areas to analyze your overall account performance.
  • The reporting dashboard gives you a quick summary of three main reporting metrics: estimated earnings, page views, and revenue per thousand impressions (RPM). It’s a great way to quickly check the overall health of your account. 
  • The entire account by day report helps you analyze daily performance, and gives you a better understanding of why your earnings change over time. If you’ve made recent changes to ad units or placements, then it’s a great way to measure how the adjustments affected click-through rates. 
To find this report, visit the Performance reports tab, then Common reports on the left-hand panel, select Ad units and then add Platforms from the top as a secondary dimension. 
  • Use Ad units + Performance to measure your campaign success by device. CTR and Active View Viewable (AVV) are the key metrics to monitor here, with AVV showing you how many of your total measurable impressions were truly viewable. If an ad’s active view percentage is below 50%, then consider placing it in a more prominent area to improve engagement. To learn more about viewability, check out DoubleClick's 5 Factors of Display Viewability.
  • The Platforms report identifies how ads are performing on different devices. For example, you may find that your ad units are performing better on mobile devices than on desktop (or vice versa). If that’s the case, then measure your web traffic and make sure that your ads are optimized for the devices you receive most traffic from. 
  • If you manage multiple domains within a single account, then use the Sites report to compare performance. The report is especially helpful if you have different mobile and desktop versions of the same site, allowing you to find new ways to optimize UI for consistent experience across devices. 

Every website is different, so if there are specific metrics you want to target, then learn how to create your own reports to measure what matters to you. 

Use experiments to discover new opportunities

AdSense Experiments split your site traffic into two different ad settings, so you can compare performance and make more informed decisions. 

There are three different ways to run experiments on your content:
  1. Design it yourself by choosing the ad setting and variation you’d like to test.
  2. Choose an experiment from an opportunity on your Optimization page. 
  3. Use automatic experiments, which allows AdSense to run experiments on a small portion of your web traffic that are tailored to your website. 
Experiments can help you to measure the impact of both ad content and ad style on your earnings. Discover whether ‘text only’ or ‘text and display ads’ capture the attention of your audience, and whether or not changing the colors of your ads helps them to blend in.  

We recommend allowing automatic experiments on your site, as a time-efficient and easy way to inform your decision-making. 

Improve the usability of your site

Great content can get lost when it’s hosted on a website with poor usability. Pages that are slow, needlessly complex, or difficult to navigate are more likely to disrupt your visitors focus and drive them away.

For a better UX, we recommend focusing on the 4 S’s: Speed, scroll, style, and simple. 

Speed: A recent study by Google found a strong correlation between page speed and key performance indicators like revenue, bounce rate, session duration, and viewability. Web users are impatient when it comes to loading times, and are likely to get frustrated and abandon slow pages. 

To measure the speed of your website, use PageSpeed Insights or the Web Developer Kit. And if you’re looking for some quick fixes to improve loading times, consider asynchronous loading, lazy loading, or AMP.

Finally, use the mobile web speed toolkit for in-depth and tactical recommendations to get your website up to speed. 

Scroll: Infinite scroll continues to add new content at the bottom of your page, taking away the need to load new pages. 

It’s ideal for publishers that post lengthy articles, tutorials, or slideshows, and works particularly well for websites focused on mobile consumption. 

Style: Your website needs to look attractive and consistent across all pages to build immediate trust with new visitors. Focus on two areas: content style and ad style. 

For content style, choose a theme, layout, and color scheme, then stick to it. Consistency is key to developing a brand that your readers will grow comfortable and familiar with. 

Responsive web design improves UX by maintaining the same look and feel to your site regardless of the device it’s being viewed on. 

With ad style, the first thing to consider is how they will affect the flow of content on your site. Placing ads at natural breaks in your narrative, or in areas where the user’s attention may have waned, can improve UX and may encourage a higher CTR (click-through rate). 

When placing ads, take some time to consider your options. Responsive ads automatically adapt to your user’s screen size, while native ads and matched content may help you unlock new ad revenue. 

Simple: The best digital content is scannable, snappy, and intuitive. By focusing on simplicity, you’re removing the roadblocks that potentially stop users from enjoying your content. 

Here’s some tips to make sure your site is as easy as possible to engage with:


If you think AdSense is a fit for your website, then sign up and get started.


Posted by Jay Castro, @jayciro



At Google, our policy teams are constantly looking for ways to improve the experience for everyone in the mobile digital advertising ecosystem - users, advertisers and publishers.  Part of this involves listening to our mobile publishers concerns. One such concern that we are addressing in this policy update involves the limitations we’ve previously placed on 300x250 sized ad units.

We recognize the frustration around limitations we’ve placed on this sized unit on mobile webpages, and starting May 2, 2017 we will no longer disallow this ad unit from being placed above the fold on mobile web pages.  After careful review, we've determined that when 300x250 ads are implemented above the fold in a user-friendly way, the ads do not annoy, distract, or result in ad performance issues.

With the removal of this restriction, you still must be vigilant to ensure that their mobile site layouts do not cause ads to push the page content below the fold in such a way that may lead to accidental clicks. To ensure a good user experience, we still recommend the site content should be clear and accessible above the fold. See our optimization guide for the mobile Web for tips on where to place your ads.

As well as having a mobile-friendly site, it's important to provide a good user experience for your mobile audience. By focussing on your mobile site's design, content, and ad placements you could help to increase user engagement. In turn, this could lead to an increase in your mobile ad revenue in the long-term.  For guidance on ad implementation best practices, please review our help center.

We hope you find this to be a positive update. Keep providing us with feedback!

Posted by John Brown, Head of Publisher Policy Communications

We’d like to personally invite you to share your thoughts with us in this 10-15 minutes survey so that we can keep improving your experience with us.

In the past, we have used your responses to improve how we help you, ways you interact with our product, and what type of features we offer. This year the survey is shortened and mobile friendly. Our questions should take about 10-15 minutes to answer.

You may have received a survey by email over the last few weeks, if so please take the time to respond to it as we value your input.

To make sure that you're eligible to receive the next survey email, please:
Whether you’ve completed this survey before or you’re providing feedback for the first time, we’d like to thank you for sharing your valuable thoughts. We’re looking forward to feedback!

Posted by Susie Reinecke - AdSense Publisher Happiness Team

6 minute read



Content is everything we consume online. Users arrive on a site to be educated, entertained, inspired, or complete a task.

Content is how you win new site visitors, and how you entice them to return. So it’s important to remember that, though ads are driving revenue, content should be the focal point of every page.

With that in mind, part three of our series for new publishers focuses on how to plan, write, and promote great content. If you missed part one (AdSense 101) or part two (AdSense best practices), then check them out and get caught up.

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The keys to engaging, shareable content

Be targeted, consistent, and frequent: Take the time to figure out who is reading your content and which topics they engage with most (we’ll get into the mechanics of this later on). Update your site as often as possible with fresh content, tailored to your audience.

Use video where possible: People crave video, users from around the world are now watching a billion hours of YouTube’s incredible content every single day! Video personalizes your brand and can boost the amount of time user’s spend on your site.

Be readable: Successful online content is scannable and snappy; follow these best practices to make sure your articles look enticing to viewers:
  • Don’t use more than 7 sentences per paragraph 
  • Keep your column width between 700 and 800 pixels 
  • Organize your content with headers and subheaders.
Stay on top of trends: Use online tools like Google Trends to identify subjects your audience is interested in, and discuss them while they’re still fresh. Trends is also really useful for location targeting - identifying popular topics and keywords in your target areas. 

Incorporate evergreen content: Evergreen content is information that stays useful and relevant no matter when it’s consumed. While trending topics should be used to generate buzz, evergreen content will bring a consistent source of referral traffic that may boost your position on organic search pages.

Figure out what works, and do more of it

If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to link Google Analytics and AdSense. Otherwise, the following recommendations will not be applicable for you.

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Content groups allow you to bundle your content into different lists, to analyze the themes that drive most engagement with your audience. For example, if you run a digital marketing blog, you could create content groups around SEO, social media, PPC campaigns etc. 

After setting your groups, use the AdSense page report to view and compare metrics. You may discover that your audience is interested in one particular theme - if so, try to focus on that topic more at the expense of groups with less engagement. For example, if your foodie blog has more views on food truck review articles than any other group, then adapt your content strategy to include more of that content.






The Landing Page report in Google Analytics helps you understand where users landed on your site, and where they left from. This will give you insights into the type of content that draws visitors from external sites, and may highlight content that should be re-worked due to poor metrics.

To get the most value from the Landing Page report, track the following:
  • Look for pages with high bounce rates. If you find that one or two areas of your site drive your users towards the exit, then ask yourself what you could do to improve them.
  • If you’ve got quality content that’s not attracting new visitors, then play with the headline or experiment with different primary images to promote it. 
  • Analyze page speed. 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. If some of your pages are slower than others, then it’s likely they contain bloated elements. Consider compressing images or getting rid of animated files. Check out the tactical recommendations to increase page speed in part two of this series.
Plan ahead with your audience in mind

Use the Demographics and Interests tab in your Google Analytics account to understand who’s reading your content, and what their interests are (you’ll need to enable this feature before getting started).

The Demographics report will give you insights into the age and gender of your audience, and allows you to segment these groups to see how different people react to your content.

Use the Interest report to shape your content to your audience’s interests, and identify upcoming events they may be interested in. For example, if fans of your digital marketing blog are also interested in new technology and gadgets, you could mention these learnings across your social channels to increase your following.

At this point, you’ll have accumulated data from content grouping, as well as the Landing Page, Demographics, and Insights reports. Use it all to paint a picture of your average user, what they enjoy, what they dislike - then use those insights to build a content calendar.

A content calendar will allow you to plan a content strategy that’s focused on the topics you know your audience enjoys. Be sure to research seasonal events related to your industry or product, so you can discuss them while they’re still relevant.

Build an audience on social

Growing an audience on social media can provide publishers with a consistent source of referral traffic to their sites. As with content, the best way to compel users to follow your social accounts is to provide them with consistent value.
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Here’s some tips to help you set up and maintain a strong social presence:
  • Don’t be too self-promotional. You’ll want to link back to your content, but if that’s all you focus on, potential followers will lose interest. 
  • Use your content calendar to prepare posts around upcoming events in advance. Users care less about an Oscars tweet a week after the ceremony. 
  • Create relationships with influencers. Retweet them, mention them in a favorable way, and link to their content. These relationships can lead to guest-blogging opportunities or retweets from an account with a large audience. This tactic can help you break through your current organic reach to access new users. 
  • Build relationships with your users. Answer their questions promptly, engage with them in conversations. If your audience feels valued, they’ll be much more likely to help you promote your content. 
  • Use Google Trends to discover trending topics on a daily basis, and tie in posts with popular conversations. 
For a list of helpful tools to help you manage your social accounts and build your audience, read our ‘Amplify your content with social’ blog post.

And make sure to check in next week, when our series for new publishers continues with a post on improving performance to potentially maximize profits.

If you think AdSense is a fit for your site, then sign up now and get started.

‘Til next time.

Posted by: Jay Castro, @jayciro