The AdSense API: All grown up and ready to play

If you're a web developer or host, you may remember that we introduced you to the AdSense API last May. With the AdSense API, your users can create their own AdSense accounts on your site, and display ads alongside the content that they have created. They can also manage their accounts and view ad performance and earnings reports, all on your site.

In addition, you can enhance your customers' user experience by helping them to make money from their content and by giving them the ability to perform many AdSense functions without ever leaving your site. For example, they can:

• Create and manage AdSense accounts
  
• Customize and implement AdSense for content ad units and link units, AdSense for search boxes, and referrals for products such as Google AdWords and Firefox
  
• Generate URL and custom channel reports
  

Best of all, you get to make money with the AdSense API through the Revenue Sharing program. Advertisers pay your users and you when visitors click on your users' ads. Plus, you can earn Referral Payments when your users earn threshold amounts within their first 180 days after sign up.

Today, we're pleased to announce that the AdSense API is now open for all developers, with the release of our open development sandbox. This is a replica of the live service with some additional support to help you test and debug your applications. Once you implement the AdSense API in the development sandbox, we can go live with your implementation.

So now it's easier than ever to integrate AdSense into your website or online application. It took the folks over at Hubpages.com less than a week. We’ve expanded our developer’s guide and added more sample code to make seamless integration even easier.

Were you ready to start developing yesterday? Check out our Getting Started Guide and our FAQ. You’ll also find that the AdSense API Developer Forum is a great place to discuss the API and get answers to common questions.

To learn more about the AdSense API and how it can make your users happier while increasing your income, surf over to the AdSense API site.

Posted by Chris Muller - AdSense API Partner Development and Support

Maybe they're born with it -- or maybe it's labeling

In our 20 months of blog existence, we've published more than 270 posts geared towards AdSense publishers. There are a lot of useful updates and tips buried in our archives, and we want to make sure that you're able to find all of this great content once it no longer appears on the blog. So we're excited to tell you that we now feature labels at the bottom of every post and in our sidebar to better organize all of the blog's content.

If you’ve just joined AdSense, for instance, you can click the ‘Newbie’ label to find information about getting started with your account. Are you looking for information about how to understand your reports? Just visit the 'Earnings/Reports' section of the blog. You can look forward to categories like:

AdSense features
Case studies
Earnings/Reports
International
Newbie
Optimization
Other
Other Google products
Payments
Program Policies

We’re currently in the process of adding labels to all of the posts in our archives, and we appreciate your patience while we finish updating. Finally, if you're interested in adding labels to your own Blogger blog, feel free to visit Blogger's Help Center for instructions.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

AdSense Help Forum in Traditional Chinese

If you speak Chinese (or if you're an avid blog reader), you may remember that we launched an AdSense Help Forum in Simplified Chinese back in September 2006. We're happy to announce that the AdSense Help Forum is now also available in Traditional Chinese. There are over 1 billion Chinese speakers in the world, and we hope these two forums will allow our Chinese publishers to communicate in the most convenient manner.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Referrals, now with Google Checkout

Today we're excited to announce that in addition to AdSense, AdWords, Firefox with Google Toolbar, and Google Pack, you can now refer your users to Google Checkout through AdSense.


Checkout gives your users a faster, safer, and more convenient way to shop online. OK, that sounds great for them, but what do you get out of it? Well, every time you refer a user to Google Checkout, you make a little money. It's a simple process that includes all of three steps:

1. You place the Checkout referral button on your site.
   
2. Someone clicks on the button, signs up as a buyer with Google Checkout using a valid U.S. credit card, and completes a purchase of at least $10 before shipping and tax through Checkout within 90 days. (The current $10 minimum purchase corresponds to our existing $10 promotion for new buyers, so this amount may change in the future.)
   
3. You earn $1.
   

It's that simple. Please note that Checkout referrals are currently only available for U.S. publishers, and Google Checkout is currently only available for buyers with a U.S. credit card. We hope to make both Checkout and Checkout Referrals available in more countries soon.

If you're not convinced, why not try it out yourself? It costs nothing to sign up (actually, you'll even get a $10 bonus) and it'll make shopping online a little easier. And remember, if you're still figuring out how to improve the performance of your referrals, take a peek at our optimization tips for referrals.

You can get started with Checkout referral ads by visiting the AdSense Setup tab in your account. We think your users will thank you for showing them Google Checkout, and your wallet will like having some extra money for you to spend at all of those great Google Checkout stores.

Posted by Jack Chou - AdSense Publisher Support

Now accepting applications for new referrals beta

Many of you already use referrals to direct users to your favorite Google products. Now, with our new referrals beta, you can select products and services from our base of AdWords advertisers. This is good news for those of you who have wanted to use referrals in the past, but couldn't find a product to match your site's content. With the referrals beta, you can search for products that match up directly with your site's content. And you can customize your referral units to match the look and feel of your site, making it easier than ever to find a referral ad that fits in seamlessly with your site's design and content.

What's more, Google can help make sure you find and display the most relevant, best-performing referral ads on your site. Simply provide a few keywords to describe your site and your users' interests, and you'll see ads automatically displayed that perform best for your site. No more constant updating, rotating products, or guesswork.

As with our current Google referrals, you'll generate earnings when your visitors click through to an advertiser's site and complete an action defined by your advertisers, such as a sale or sign-up. Because these actions are often more involved than a simple click or impression, advertisers pay more for these referrals, which can translate into higher earnings for your site.

While we plan to open this up to all publishers in the near future, this update is currently only available on a limited basis as part of our beta test. If you are interested in being one of our beta testers, please visit the referrals beta site and sign up.

Posted by Dan Friedman - AdSense Product Marketing