2007 is drawing to a close, but before you get out the party hats and start practicing the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, we'd like to take a moment to recap some of the biggest developments in AdSense this year.
New feature launches were abundant in 2007, and many were based on your direct feedback and requests. To help improve the performance of your ads, we revamped the look of our ad formats and introduced ad placements to let you promote your site to potential advertisers. The new Manage Ads feature gave you the ability to make changes to your ad units directly in your account and quickly experiment with optimizations. In addition, we launched such features as video units, AdSense for mobile content, and referrals 2.0 to bring in new revenue streams for your site. Still others like the Allowed Sites list and the recently announced Ad Review Center were inspired by your requests for more control over your ads and your account.
With our growing community of publishers around the world, we also continued our international expansion of products and online resources. AdSense for content was launched in languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Bulgarian, while AdSense for search became available in a number of Southeast Asian languages. We added payment options such as Western Union Quick Cash in a few countries and EFT in Mexico. To help publishers connect with one another around the world, we introduced AdSense Help Forums in 9 new languages, including Polish, Arabic, and Russian.
And of course, we can't forget to mention the exciting things that happened right here on our blog. We welcomed 6 new languages into the Inside AdSense family (Italian, Korean, Japanese, French, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese), bringing the total number of AdSense blogs to 11. All 11 blogs combined received 2.6 million pageviews from 1.7 million visits, and global Groups subscriptions to all blogs crossed the 43,000 mark.
Finally, we'd like to close with our second annual Reader's Choice Award, which goes to the post you visited most this year: 'Introducing video units'. Accepting the award on behalf of the post is author Ryan Hayward, who had this to say: "In a world where Hollywood writers are striking and my favorite show, 'The Office,' is off-air, I hope that announcing video units helped to fill the creative void and made each of our lives just a little more entertaining. Cue the orchestra."
Here's to a very happy and prosperous 2008. Cheers!
Monday, 31 December 2007
Thursday, 27 December 2007
AdSense inspiration
A few weeks ago we posted the winner of the AdSense Story Contest, and as promised, here are a few more of the stories and video submissions we received. This one comes from AdSense publisher Amit Agarwal of Agra, India.
Amit is a professional blogger and personal technology columnist for the Financial Express and The Hindustan Times. He maintains a technology blog called Digital Inspiration, which draws readers from all over the globe and covers software reviews, web technologies, and social media. His latest venture, India Inc., carries news and analysis about business and finance. Amit also runs a message board where he personally answers reader questions on blogging, online monetization and software.
In the early days, Amit was only making a few cents on Digital Inspiration. After optimizing the site, however, his revenue went through the roof. Now AdSense helps Amit lead a very comfortable life. Amit says, "I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads are always so relevant to the content."
Amit has also found success with several other AdSense products and features. He currently uses referrals to recommend software to his readers, and has implemented link units to efficiently use space on his site. He also uses the Google Custom Search Engine, linked to his AdSense for search account, and so is able to monetize his search results while helping visitors navigate through his site's pages with greater control. As he notes, "Currently 75% of my site revenue comes through the Google AdSense program. And I get more time to focus on writing new content for my readers rather than hunting for advertisers. AdSense has helped change my life forever."
Amit is a professional blogger and personal technology columnist for the Financial Express and The Hindustan Times. He maintains a technology blog called Digital Inspiration, which draws readers from all over the globe and covers software reviews, web technologies, and social media. His latest venture, India Inc., carries news and analysis about business and finance. Amit also runs a message board where he personally answers reader questions on blogging, online monetization and software.
In the early days, Amit was only making a few cents on Digital Inspiration. After optimizing the site, however, his revenue went through the roof. Now AdSense helps Amit lead a very comfortable life. Amit says, "I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads are always so relevant to the content."
Amit has also found success with several other AdSense products and features. He currently uses referrals to recommend software to his readers, and has implemented link units to efficiently use space on his site. He also uses the Google Custom Search Engine, linked to his AdSense for search account, and so is able to monetize his search results while helping visitors navigate through his site's pages with greater control. As he notes, "Currently 75% of my site revenue comes through the Google AdSense program. And I get more time to focus on writing new content for my readers rather than hunting for advertisers. AdSense has helped change my life forever."
Friday, 21 December 2007
Happy holidays from the AdSense team
We'd like to send our warmest holiday wishes to all of our publishers around the globe. While you may not be catching snowflakes where you are, we hope you find a winter wonderland (or summer wonderland for our readers in the Southern Hemisphere?) wherever you're located this holiday season.Our U.S. offices will be closed until Thursday, December 27th, so it may take us some time to respond to your emails. In the meantime, you can consult our Help Center for immediate answers, or spread holiday cheer by discussing your questions with other publishers on the Help Forum.
Happy holidays!
Thursday, 20 December 2007
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.
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.
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