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I feel the need... the need for feeds

When you visit the AdSense Setup tab in your account, you'll notice a new "AdSense for feeds" option. This means you can now use AdSense to place ads in your RSS feeds, allowing you to increase the reach of your content while earning revenue. Our salesforce will sell cost-per-impression (CPM) ads directly to the largest advertisers, while the rest of your inventory will be filled with contextually targeted cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM ads. This means that more of your feed items will be sold and with higher overall revenue, than with any other feed network.

At this point, you may either be thinking, "great!" or "umm...what's a feed?" For those of you in the second category, feeds allow your content to be delivered and subscribed to on the Web, often as headlines, summaries or articles. FeedBurner also has a nifty tutorial that you might find useful.

And here are a few more reasons to try AdSense for feeds:
  • Receive higher CPMs and maintain a positive user experience by displaying ads specifically optimized for RSS feeds.
  • View detailed stats on your feed audience, distribution, and more through FeedBurner when you set up your feeds with AdSense.
  • Manage monetization for your feeds through the same account that you use to manage other AdSense properties.
AdSense for feeds is currently enabled in all languages supported by AdSense for content.

Want to learn more about what feeds are and how to get started with AdSense for feeds? Visit our Help Center and watch our introductory video from Product Manager Steve Olechowski:



To set up AdSense for feeds now, sign in and visit the AdSense Setup page of your account, or apply for an AdSense account.

Google: Inside AdSense

Video units more widely available

We've heard your feedback about the availability of video units, so we've expanded the languages and geographies where they're supported. We've added French, German, and Spanish to our list of supported languages, and also Brazil, Germany, India, and Mexico to the list of supported countries. To help you determine whether you'll be able to use video units, consider these two questions:
  1. Do you have an English, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish-language AdSense account?

  2. Are you located in one of the following countries?

    Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
If you answered 'yes' to both questions, then video units are available to you. Sign in to your AdSense account and visit your AdSense Setup tab to get started. After linking your YouTube and AdSense accounts, you'll be able to customize and embed the video player into your website, and choose between having videos automatically targeted to your content or manually selecting content categories and content providers. Companion and text overlay ads will appear with your videos, and you'll generate earnings for valid clicks and impressions on those ads.

You can find more information about video units in our Help Center, and as always, please feel free to leave us a comment with your video unit feedback. We'll be sure to keep you posted if video units become available in any additional countries or languages.

Google: Inside AdSense

Answers to your referrals retirement questions

Since our announcement about retiring AdSense Referrals during the last week of August, we've noticed a number of questions in your blog comments and in our Help Forum. In this post, we'll address some of the most frequently asked questions.
When you say 'AdSense Referrals' are being retired, does this only mean the program where I refer publishers to AdSense?

No, all referrals will be retired. This applies to referrals for AdWords advertisers, as well as for Google products.

What's the deadline for generating referral conversions once the program has been retired?

In order for you to be credited for a conversion, the referred user must complete the required action by the last week of September 2008. However, please keep in mind that your referral units will no longer display after the last week of August.

I have referral earnings in my account, but they haven't been included in a payment yet. Will I lose all past referral earnings?

No. If you've had successful referral conversions in the past, they'll still be included in your earnings and future payments. As mentioned above, any additional conversions must occur by the last week of September 2008 in order to generate earnings for your account.

Can I sign in to the Google Affiliate Network with my AdSense login information?

At this time, no. You'll need to create a new login and password on the Google Affiliate Network site at http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/ .

Will my ad units and search boxes be affected by this Referrals change?

No, AdSense for content and AdSense for search will still be available to publishers in our supported languages, and you can continue to generate ad and search code by visiting your AdSense Setup tab.
Thanks for your feedback, and we hope this helps provide clarification. Feel free to visit our Help Center for additional details about the AdSense Referrals retirement.

Google: Inside AdSense

Earning revenue from YouTube videos just got easier

We'd like to let you know about two recent improvements to video units that make them more easy and appealing to place on your sites. First, we've partnered with some new content providers that we'd like to highlight. These partners have signed on to let AdSense publishers embed their videos and share in the ad revenue.
  • Broadbandtv: "Broadbandtv is partnering with YouTube to bring the very best video program lineup to a growing and engaged online audience. Broadbandtv shows include hits from Fashion, Celebrity News, Sports, Technology, Comedy and Travel to top notch Spanish-language TV series like Somos Tu y Yo."
  • Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it."
  • The Orchard: "A global leader in digital music, video, new media and brand services, The Orchard offers family content like Gumby, Mr. Bill, My Favorite Martian, and other categories of content like music and comedy."
To give you a better idea of the videos that are available for syndication to your site, we've also created a gallery of some featured video units content partners. Note that to choose any of these content providers for your video unit, you should get their YouTube username by visiting their YouTube channel, and then put this username into the "Channel" field when choosing content for your unit.

Second, we're happy to announce that video units now support 728x90 and 160x600 formats to more easily fit into your site. These two new formats will feature five video thumbnails - when a user clicks on one of the thumbnails, a full sized video unit will appear, along with accompanying ads:

728x90 video unit


728x90 video unit, expanded


160x600 video unit, expanded



You'll generate earnings for valid clicks or impressions on the ads which appear. To use the new formats, you'll need to create new video units by visiting your AdSense Setup tab. To choose the new content for your video units, you can edit any of your players or set up new video units dedicated to this new content. Please keep in mind that video units are currently only supported for English or Japanese-language accounts in the following regions:
Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
Finally, if you haven't edited or made a new video unit recently, you may not have noticed that you can now preview the kinds of video that will show up in the unit, based on the filtering choices you've made. We heard that you wanted more insight into the types of content that would display, and we think this will help.

While you can use video units like any other ad, they're also a great addition to the content of your page. So we encourage you to use video units as you may have used embedded YouTube videos in the past - to add variety and interest for your users.

Thanks for all the feedback that's helping us to make video units more useful to you. If you have more thoughts to share, please leave us a comment.

Google: Inside AdSense

We're retiring AdSense Referrals

We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:
  • Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/.

  • AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AdSense for content ad units.
If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:
  • Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space.
  • Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information.
Thank you for your support of AdSense Referrals in the past. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Google: Inside AdSense

Video units now available in Australia and Japan

Following the success of video units in a number of international locations, we're excited to announce the launch of video units for English-language websites in Australia. In addition, video units are now available to publishers who are located in Japan or who have Japanese-language websites. If you're not already familiar, video units are embedded, customizable video players which both enrich sites with relevant video content and enable publishers to earn extra revenue. Relevant and non-intrusive companion and text ads accompany the video content.

With this new launch, you can show videos from our YouTube content partners on your site. You can choose those videos by category, choose individual YouTube partners, or have video units automatically target your site with relevant video. You can also choose the individual videos to be displayed in your video units. Finally, if you have video content of your own, you may even be able to sign up as a YouTube partner to have your content distributed to other AdSense publishers' video units.

To set up video units on your site, log in to your AdSense account and visit your AdSense Setup tab; if you have a site in one of our supported countries and languages, you'll see the option to set up video units. For more information about video units, please feel free to re-visit our original launch post and our discussion of some of your most frequently asked questions. In addition, you might find the information in our Help Center useful. Finally, we'd like to note that we're working on expanding video units to additional countries, but we're not able to provide a timeline for when that may occur.

Google: Inside AdSense

Introducing third-party ads on the Google content network

The Google content network now accepts display ads served from qualified third-party vendors. Third-party ad serving has been a longstanding request from top brand AdWords advertisers who use third parties to create and manage their online campaigns. Initially, we will be only accepting third-party ads in English, but we hope to expand to other languages soon.

Making the Google content network more accessible to large brand advertisers also benefits AdSense publishers and end users. Third-party ad serving will introduce a greater variety of advertising into the Google content network, increase the inventory of quality display ads competing to show on AdSense publisher sites, and offer more engaging ads for end users. In the long run, we believe the increased inventory and ad competition will result in increased revenue for many AdSense publishers.

Rest assured that ad quality on the content network will remain one of our highest priorities. Only advertisers with whom we have proven relationships and who've clearly demonstrated commitments to our quality standards may participate in this program. And our policies governing ad content and formatting are unchanged.

How to control third-party ads shown on your site
The same ad management features for Google ads also apply to third-party ads. You can use the Ad Review Center to filter specific placement-targeted ads from appearing on your site. To block contextually-targeted ads from a given advertiser, you can use the Competitive Ad Filter. (The Ad Review Center currently only shows placement-targeted ads, not contextually-targeted ads.)

Optimizing your site to allow third-party ads
To allow third-party ads on your site:
  1. Opt into image ads - Currently, third-party ads are only available in image or Flash, so they won't appear in text-only ad units.

  2. Enable advertisers to target your AdSense channels - Most advertisers who use third-party ads are brand-conscious. They prefer to specify websites where their ads will appear in order to optimize the targeting and effectiveness of their campaigns.

  3. Opt into placement targeting - Placement targeting will allow advertisers to target their ads specifically to your site.
Following these steps will enable your site to accept third-party ads. However, we can't guarantee where or when third-party ads will appear on your site.

Want to learn more about third-party ads? Visit our FAQ.

Google: Inside AdSense

Video advertising & monetization: A discussion at Ad:Tech San Francisco

Last month, Google product managers and marketers held a workshop on video advertising and content monetization at the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco. We thought our publishers would be interested in hearing some perspectives on industry trends, some new details about AdSense for video, and the opportunities that Google is offering advertisers to get their messages in video content. Here are some highlights to guide your viewing:
A state of the market: First, your friendly author takes you through trends in video consumption, users' consumption habits, and the estimated market size for video advertising.

History of video ad serving: Robert Victor uses conversations with "Joe and Sam" to describe the evolving needs of buyers and sellers, and previews how Google and DoubleClick In-Stream can fill the gaps.

AdSense for video: Shamim Samadi goes into detail about AdSense for video, describing the various formats we're supporting and recent success stories from Revver on the publisher side and HP on the advertiser side.

YouTube: Tracy Chan describes the compelling opportunities for advertisers on YouTube and how marketers and video creators can take advantage of the new Insights tool to gather a variety of data on viewership of their videos.



And if you want to snack on some more Google AdSense videos, check out our overview of options for publishers to make money from video content on their pages. You can also visit our video solutions site for publishers.

Google: Inside AdSense

AdSense for search now powered by Custom Search

We're happy to let you know that AdSense for search is now powered by Custom Search. If you've used Custom Search Engine (CSE) before, you know that Custom Search offers advanced customization options to help improve the accuracy of your search results and tailor them to what users are looking for. With the integration of Custom Search into AdSense for search, you can take advantage of CSE's most popular features without having to leave your AdSense account.

Here are some of the new features:
  • Site Search: You've worked hard to attract users to your site, so it's understandable that you'd be concerned about those users leaving through web search. Now you can choose to provide just site search so users can find all the information they're looking for on your site, and you can host the search results on your own pages so that they can find that information without leaving your site.

  • Improved indexing of your pages: We've recently improved our indexing technology so that you can provide a more enhanced Site Search experience for your users. AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site, as long as we’re able to crawl them, so that your users will see more results from your site in your AdSense for search results. Stay tuned for more updates on future crawl and indexing improvements!

  • Vertical search: You can also allow your users to search across multiple sites - this could be a network of sites that you own or other related sites that you think your users might find useful. If you write book reviews on your blog, for example, you can use vertical search to specify a list of online bookstores for users to search through. Other examples of vertical searches include computer forums, travel blogs, political sites you endorse, etc.

  • Tuning search results and ads with keywords: Search terms can have different meanings in different contexts, so you can now configure your search engine with relevant keywords. Let's say you manage a site about yoga - you can enter keywords such as 'yoga,' 'exercise,' and 'meditation' so that when a user searches for 'mat,' the search results and ads will be more related to yoga mats and less to commercial floor mats. (You can see an example of this in the video below). In experiments, we've found that this tuning has led to an increase in earnings for publishers.

  • Selecting ad location: Do you want ads to appear at the top and bottom of your search results? Or along the right sidebar as well, just like on Google.com? Now you can make the call on where ads are placed. (Here's a tip: we've found that placing ads at the top and right monetizes the best for publishers.)

  • Quick and easy updates: Just as you use our ad management feature to quickly change the settings for your ad and referral units, you'll be able to do the same for your search engine within your AdSense account. Your settings will be saved in your account, so you won't need to generate new search code for each change.
We recommend getting started with the features above by visiting your AdSense Setup tab and selecting 'AdSense for Search' as your product. Once you've set up your search box, you may wish to explore more advanced features such as site exclusion, labels, and collaboration. Please note that these new features will only be available to you if you've migrated your account to a Google Account.

Ready to learn more about the new features available for AdSense for search? Just visit our Help Center. (You might also notice that we've just implemented Custom Search there too.)



Google: Inside AdSense

Image ads for your mobile content

Our mobile ads team is pleased to announce that mobile image ads are now available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and the UK, as well as the US. With this mobile ad type, you now have a new way to monetize mobile content while still providing the same benefits as our standard text ads.

Mobile image ads enable you to take advantage of the large and growing group of Google mobile advertisers. Ads are matched to your site content and the size of a viewer's screen, and are paid on a cost-per-click basis. You can view example ads and sizes in the AdWords Help Center.

For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility and profitability. Publishers choose whether they want to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will then dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time a user is looking at their site.

If you're a current AdSense for mobile content publisher, you'll need to update your AdSense code in order to enable image ads for your site. Directions on how to do this can be found in our Help Center. We recommend selecting "Text and image ads" as your ad type, in order to take advantage of all available ads for your content. Once you have your code, paste it into the source code of your mobile website where you'd like to show image ads. If you're new to showing mobile ads, you can follow the same directions to generate code that allows for mobile image ads.

For more information on AdSense for mobile content, check out our microsite or our September post on the AdSense for mobile content product launch. You can also take a look at our posting on the Google Mobile Blog for news on this launch and for information on other mobile and mobile-advertising related topics.



Google: Inside AdSense

Ad Review Center available to all publishers

Many of you have been eagerly waiting for the Ad Review Center to arrive in your accounts, and we're happy to tell you that this feature is now available for all publishers. By enabling you to review all ads placement-targeted to your site, the Ad Review Center gives you more transparency and control, and ensures that ads are relevant to your site's content and users.

We wanted to share a publisher's thoughts about the Ad Review Center, so we chatted with Jennifer McDonald, Account Manager at RealNetworks for sites such as rollingstone.com and film.com. Before using it, Jennifer says that "the concerns Real had... were mainly concerns about running competitive ads on our sites." But she says that by using the Ad Review Center, her team has been able to keep competitive ads from running. As she notes, "We are able to quickly review the ads before they run on our sites and block any ads that are considered competitive to our services."

The Ad Review Center is now available for all publishers utilizing placement targeting. You can get started with this feature by visiting your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab.

Before getting started, we strongly recommend keeping your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately.' This will let you allow or block ads after they have run. If you choose the other option of 'Hold ads,' the ads will await review for 24 hours before being allowed to run automatically. Using the 'Hold ads' setting will keep ads from participating in the auction while they await review, potentially lowering winning bids and your AdSense earnings. Ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either, so we ask that you keep in mind the revenue impact of blocking ads or switching from the 'Run ads immediately' setting.

For more information about using the Ad Review Center, please visit our Help Center, and to start using it, please log in to your account.

Google: Inside AdSense

Show me the ads

After months of testing, we've just updated our text ad format to include 'next' and 'previous' arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the 'next' button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.


You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

Google: Inside AdSense

Working with the Ad Review Center

As you may remember, we started enabling the Ad Review Center for publishers back in December to let you review ads placement-targeted to your site. We've recently enabled the Ad Review Center for more accounts and will continue rolling it out over the upcoming weeks. To get a publisher's perspective on the new feature, we chatted with Richard Tribe, Director of ski.com.au.

Australian snow enthusiasts can visit ski.com.au to learn about resorts and travel deals, as well as news and photos of conditions. The site also serves as a skier community, with videos, forums, wikis, and several blogs. Richard has been using the Ad Review Center to ensure relevant, high-quality ads appear alongside his content. He explains that "the Ad Review Center allowed me to see who was targeting my site, and I saw a wonderful array of high-quality advertisers in there... The Ad Review Center is a great way of managing the quality and style of advertiser you would like to have associated with your publication."


To highlight specific inventory, Richard has turned his custom channels into ad placements. For instance, he found that his live camera feeds of snow conditions drove significant advertiser interest, so he created specific snow camera ad placements. He elaborates, "That extra choice helps make my site look more attractive and allows advertisers to place their ads exactly where they want to place them." With targetable custom channels, Richard has given advertisers more control over where their placement-targeted ads can appear, and using the Ad Review Center, he ensures those ads are relevant to his site's audience.

To check if the Ad Review Center has been enabled for your account, visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page under the AdSense Setup tab and look for a green notification box.

When setting up the Ad Review Center in your account, we strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately', and review placement-targeted ads after they have run. Ads don't participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either. We ask that you consider the revenue implications before blocking ads or switching from the 'Run immediately' setting.

Happy skiing (and reviewing)!

Google: Inside AdSense

A follow-up to our referrals announcement

You may have seen our recent post about the upcoming changes to referrals promoting AdSense. Since we made this announcement, we've received a number of responses about the program being dependent on the location of the referring publisher. We've carefully considered your feedback, and have decided to modify the original plan.
The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You'll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You'll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January.
The option to add a referral unit for AdSense will reappear in your account when you target any referral unit to Japan and/or any countries in North America and Latin America. To ensure payment for valid conversions, we recommend that you check the targeting settings on your current AdSense referral units.


We've also heard from a number of you that you're no longer seeing recent AdSense referral earnings in your account. Please be assured that this is a display error -- past conversions have not been removed from your account. Our engineers are working hard to resolve this issue quickly.

Finally, we'd like to let you know about upcoming changes to the referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox:
  • Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.

  • Firefox: We'll also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. Again, this is independent of your location as a publisher.
We understand that these changes may decrease revenue for some of you currently participating in these referrals programs. While it's our goal to help publishers earn as much as possible with the AdSense program, like any other referrals advertiser, we’re constantly evaluating our campaigns to make them effective and sustainable.

Again, thank you for your feedback and support of the referrals program.

Google: Inside AdSense

Upcoming referrals changes

Are you currently displaying a referral unit for AdSense on your website? Then read on, because there are some upcoming changes to the referral program that you should be aware of. But first let me clarify that only referral units promoting AdSense will be affected by this change; referrals to other products and services remain unaffected at this time. This change to referrals promoting AdSense will differ depending on your location, regardless of where your users are located.

- If you're in North America, Latin America, or Japan, the pricing structure for AdSense referrals is changing.

About a year ago, as an experiment, we changed the pricing structure for AdSense referrals so that when a user you referred to the program earned $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you would also earn $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days and removed all payment holds, you'd receive $250. We have decided to conclude this experiment and return to the original pricing structure. As a result, we'll soon no longer be offering the $5 bonus or $2000 bonus, and the payout for referring a user who generates $100 with AdSense in the first 180 days will return to $100.

These pricing changes will take place during the last week of January. A referred user who reaches $100 within 180 days of signing up and who removes all payments holds before the change occurs will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publisher. Any referred user who meets this conversion criteria after the change occurs will only generate $100 in earnings for the referring publisher. In addition, the $5 bonus will be removed at that time. Please note that the date a user was referred will only affect where the 180-day window is set but not necessarily the payout the referring publisher receives. For example, it's possible that a user referred in early January will meet the conversion criteria before a user referred in early November, and so the resulting payout may differ.

- If you're outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we'll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We've found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. Again, please keep in mind that you can still generate referrals for the other products listed under the 'Referrals' section of your AdSense Setup tab.

Soon, you'll no longer see the option to create a referral button for AdSense in your account, although existing buttons will display as normal. This specific referral type will then be retired during the last week of January - any users who meet the conversion criteria (reaching $100 in earnings within 180 days of sign-up and removing all payment holds) before the change will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publishers. Any conversions which occur after this change is made will not be recorded in your account. You may wish to begin replacing any existing referrals promoting AdSense with referrals for another product or an AdSense for content unit.

We appreciate your support of this referral product, and hope it won't cause you any inconvenience.

Google: Inside AdSense

Manage Ads gives you more ad functionality

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Introducing the Ad Review Center

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

Google: Inside AdSense

Farewell Onsite Advertiser Sign-up

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

New Manage Ads improvements, compliments of you

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Meet mobile publisher Mikle

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

Google: Inside AdSense

Video units coming to the UK, Ireland and Canada

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Accidental clicks fade into the background

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

Google: Inside AdSense

Say hello to placement targeting

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Answers to your video units questions

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Simplified ad management is rolling out now

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Coming soon: Make ad changes without replacing code

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!

Google: Inside AdSense

Introducing Google Gadget Ads

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.

Google: Inside AdSense

Here comes mobile

We've just launched AdSense for mobile, which can help you expand your online content to new platforms. If you have a website optimized for mobile browsers, or are interested in creating one, you can start monetizing your mobile site by accessing a growing number of our mobile advertisers.

When you add the new AdSense for mobile code to your site, we'll display relevant ads using the same targeting technology that you are familiar with for existing AdSense products.

To get started:
1) Sign in to your account.
2) Select the AdSense Setup tab and click on AdSense for mobile.
3) Follow the instructions to customize your ad unit for AdSense for mobile.



For the time being, publishers are welcome to add one ad unit to any mobile website that complies with our program policies. For more information, including technical requirements, visit the AdSense Help Center.

UPDATED image and Help Center link

Google: Inside AdSense

New webinar puts the focus on features

Referrals 2.0. Allowed Sites. Blogger in-line ads. If any of these new features sound foreign to you, we recommend registering for our upcoming webinar, What's New with AdSense. It will be held online next Wednesday, September 19th from 11:00-12:00pm PDT. In addition to providing you with more information about new features, our support specialists will provide a refresher on the top support issues every publisher should know. Those attending can also ask questions at the end of the webinar.

To register, click on the link below or paste it into a new browser window:

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

After you've registered, you'll receive an email from WebEx with details on how to participate. If you encounter any difficulty in registering, please contact adsense-webinar@google.com. If you're unable to attend, rest assured we'll be recording the webinar so you can view it later. To watch our previous webinars, check out our Help Center.

Google: Inside AdSense

Allowed and clear

We've learned through your feedback that some AdSense publishers are concerned about potentially malicious behavior on the web, such as having their ad code stolen, to be placed on an inappropriate site. To give you more control and security concerning ad code, we've recently launched the Allowed Sites list.

The Allowed Sites list, which you'll find by clicking the Allowed Sites link under your AdSense Setup tab, is the place for you to list sites or URLs where you want to allow your ads to appear. Sites that aren't on your list can still display ads using your ad code; however, impressions and clicks for these sites won't appear in your reports, advertisers won't be charged, and you won't receive any earnings from them.


Of course, it's entirely your choice whether to use this Allowed Sites feature. If you don't want to create an Allowed Sites list, there's no need to change the settings in your account; it will automatically default to allow any site to show ads.

To create your Allowed Sites list today, visit your AdSense Setup tab, click the Allowed Sites sub-tab, and choose the radio button for Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account. You'll then be able to enter allowed URLs for all y