Doing his Music Thing

2008-05-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

As a fan of gadget blogs such as Gizmodo and Engadget, Tom Whitwell started Music Thing in 2004 after realising that there were no similar blogs for music gear. The blog showcases unique and strange instruments, and traffic grew as gadget sites began to link to Music Thing. Now, the site receives tens of thousands of visitors each day.

In July 2007, Tom wrote an article for The Times discussing his passion for his blog's content, despite the low AdSense revenue he had earned since joining the program in August 2004. His friend James noticed the article and encouraged Tom to make a few changes to improve his earnings. According to Tom, "this was the incentive to tidy up my template a bit, and think more about ad placement."

Tom started by moving the ad unit on his homepage above the fold and opting into image ads, to ensure that all available ads would compete against one another. On his article pages, Tom added link units at the top of each page and placed a medium rectangle below each article. In addition, he removed the borders from his ads and adapted the colours to blend better with the site.

Using custom channels, Tom was able to compare the effectiveness of his ad units on his article pages. Tom notes that "the block I'd considered my main ad (the skyscraper on the right) was much less effective than I'd thought. As Google suggested, the medium rectangle that I placed beneath each article is the biggest earner." Tom also found that small changes could go a long way -- he made a few template changes to ensure that the highest performing ad unit appeared first in the HTML code, which helped increase his earnings.

"It took me a few hours to optimise the site, after reading a few blogs about AdSense, looking at the advice from Google and my friend, and trying a few template changes," Tom says. "The results were amazing - with no extra traffic to the site, my average daily earnings have increased by over 500%." Although Tom doesn't plan to quit his day job any time soon, he notes that "every little bit helps."

After this experience, Tom recommends that other publishers "follow the optimisation suggestions as long as they leave you with a site you're happy with. If you lose confidence in your own site, you'll irritate your audience and lose interest in what you're doing. But at the same time, make sure you watch your statistics, so you know what works and what doesn't."

Do you also have an AdSense success story to share? Let us know.

Posted by Lucy McKenna - AdSense UK Optimisation Team

Introducing the Known Issues page...and a known issue

2008-05-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

A number of you have informed us that your reports are substantially lower than usual today, or aren't being updated. Our engineers are currently investigating the issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible. Please be assured that your account data has still been tracked, so this issue will not affect your earnings or payments. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for being patient.

On that note, we'd like to let you know about the new Known Issues page, where you can check for updates on this reporting issue and other existing issues. There can be occasional hiccups in our system, but we hope that this new resource will help increase transparency and keep you informed. Whenever possible, we'll also try to include temporary workarounds and updates about each issue as we work to resolve them.

Thanks again for bringing this reporting issue to our attention - we encourage you to check the Known Issues page and our AdSense Help Forum for updates.

Posted by Sunil Subhedar - AdSense Publisher Support

AdSense for search now powered by Custom Search

2008-05-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

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.)



Posted by Sandra Tsui - AdSense Publisher Support

Now open for comments

2008-05-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that we recently enabled comments on this blog. We'd love to hear your thoughts about specific posts you've read, and we hope that this feature will offer you engaging conversations and exchanges on a variety of topics.

We look forward to your comments as you leave them in the field below, but please do keep the discussion relevant to the specific post you've just read. Please note that we reserve the right to remove any off-topic or self-promotional posts in the interest of keeping discussions engaging. Also, we won't address your specific account questions or other personal inquiries via the comments field -- you can direct your questions to other publishers and AdSense representatives in the AdSense Help Forum.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Promote your feeds and gadgets with iGoogle

2008-04-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of iGoogle, Google's personalized homepage? Well, tens of millions of users have, and with a just a little bit of effort you can share that traffic.

iGoogle allows users to bring together their favorite content and services from around the web by adding feeds and gadgets to their Google homepage. Let's start with the basics of what feeds and gadgets are, and how you can create them for your own site:

• A feed is a format that allows your content to be delivered (and subscribed to) on the Web. This allows users to preview your content wherever they go, making it easier for them to find out whats new on your site and reminding them to come back. To learn more about feeds, check out Feedburner for everything you need from basic set-up to advanced performance tracking and monetization tools.
  
  
• Gadgets are mini-applications created using simple HTML and JavaScript. You can present more complex information in a gadget, such as a calendar, and also help users interact with your content, for example through search. To find out more about gadgets, check out the Google Gadget Center.
  
  

Once you have a feed or gadget -- and for those of you who already do -- you can start promoting it. As a first step, make sure to submit your feed or gadget to the iGoogle directory. Promotion can help new readers find your content and deepen engagement with your existing readers every time they visit their iGoogle page -- all of which can lead to more traffic for you site.

Don't stop there, though. Gadgets and feeds are ranked in the directory according to popularity, so make sure to feature your gadget or feed prominently on your site. One easy way to do so is with the ‘Add to Google’ button. Simply fill out some basic information, insert a small snippet of HTML into your site, and you’ll be ready to go.

Want to find out more about how to raise awareness of your feed or gadget? Take a look at our step-by-step guide.

Posted by Matt Ghering - iGoogle Product Marketing

Image ads for your mobile content

2008-04-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

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.



Posted by Alexandra Kenin - AdSense Product Marketing

Ad Review Center available to all publishers

2008-04-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

 

 

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