Year in review: 2008

As 2008 winds down, we'd like to follow tradition and close out the year with a look back at a few of the biggest happenings in AdSense.

In 2008, we introduced new features like AdSense for feeds and an improved version of AdSense for search to help you generate additional forms of revenue. We brought Google Ad Manager out of beta to help publishers with smaller direct sales teams more efficiently sell, schedule, and deliver their ad inventory. At the same time, we worked towards providing more information within AdSense accounts. In April, we enabled the Ad Review Center in all accounts to help you review ads placement-targeted to your sites. And in response to requests for more insight into your reports, we launched link unit reporting and began inviting publishers to link their AdSense accounts with Analytics.

Internationally, we launched AdSense for content in Thai and also expanded Western Union payments to a number of new countries such as Egypt, Taiwan, and Panama. To help more publishers find answers to their questions, we launched AdSense Help Forums in Hebrew, Czech, and Slovak.

On the English Help Forum, we celebrated our 50,000th member and then unveiled a new platform with additional capabilities. Now, forum participants can vote on the best answer to their questions, subscribe to individual discussions, and receive replies to their threads via email.

In news closest to home here on the blog, the Inside AdSense family continued to grow with the launch of blogs in Russian and Traditional Chinese. With your support, our 13 global AdSense blogs received 3.8 million pageviews from 2.4 million visits this year. Through our blogs, we brought you a Newbie Fridays series, 'Optimisation Essentials' videos from our Australian team, and began distributing AdSense stickers. Check out the sticker requests, postcards, and notes we received in the photo on the right :)

Last but not least, the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for this year's most visited post goes to our April Fool's joke, 'Introducing AdSense for conversations'. Co-author Julie Beckmann had this to say: "A lot of hard work went into omega testing the product for this post. While I found the hat fit snugly, I was disappointed to learn the effect my Orange County upbringing had on my chats -- 17 'like's' sprinkled into a two-minute conversation? My chats aren't fit to be placement-targeted."

Thanks for helping to contribute to an eventful 2008 -- we're looking forward to an even more exciting 2009. Happy New Year!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Warm wishes

From all of us here in Mountain View, have a safe and happy holiday season!


(Members of the AdSense, DoubleClick, and Google Ad Manager teams pictured above.)

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Light up your site

We all know how it feels to find the perfect gift. After scouring stores far and wide, suddenly your hunt is over: the stars have aligned to bring you just what you're looking for -- and not a moment too soon. It's a bit the same way when a search brings you to just the right site. But what if your site's just the right site, and users can't find it?

We're happy to let you know that you don't need divine forces to play a role in the findability of your site. Nope -- you can help make sure that your site turns up just when it should by taking advantage of these tips from our Search Quality Team.

1. Not sure if all your pages are being seen by Google? Search for your site's address after the command "site", like [site:example.com]. When you see your pages in the results, check your snippet content and page titles. Include information that matches the topic of a particular page. If anything is missing or you want more details, you can also use the Content Analysis tool in Webmaster Tools.
   
   
2. If you upload new pages or topics faster than Google crawls your site, make sure to submit a Google Sitemap and include a refresh rate.
   
   
3. Label your images appropriately. Users searching in Google Image Search will more easily find the image on your site. Don't miss out on potential traffic because of [001.jpg] instead of [NintendoWii.jpg]. Image Search is one of the largest search properties out there, so you should take advantage of it.
   
   
4. Manage your SiteLinks. Your most valuable links may not be the ones that Google chooses as SiteLinks, so remember you can remove any that you don't think users will find useful.
   
   
5. Check for errors and keyword traffic in Webmaster Tools. See our diagnostics checklist.
   
   
6. Serve accurate HTTP status codes. If you've retired a page permanently, serve a 404. If you've simply relocated it, serve a 301. The more we know about your old pages, the faster we will find the next best page on your site for a given query.
   
   
7. Users and search engines like organic content. Make some of your own!
   
   
8. Read our recently released SEO Starter Guide.
   
   
9. Watch our Tutorials for Webmasters.
   
   
10. Find out what information Google has about your website in Webmaster Tools.
    
    
11. Get the latest updates from the Webmaster Central Blog.
    
    
12. Find answers to your questions in our Webmaster Help Center, or ask your questions in the Webmaster Help Group.
    

Whether it be the perfect gift, the perfect site, or the perfect cup of cocoa on a cold winter's night, we hope all your searches are fruitful this holiday season.

Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

Western Union payment updates

Do you use Western Union as your payment method? If so, we've just made a couple minor updates that we'd like to let you know about.

Expiration date extended

We've now extended the deadline to pick up your Western Union payments from 35 days to 60 days. If you haven't picked up your payment within 60 days of issuance, the payment will be credited back to your account and a payment hold will be placed on your account. You'll then see a notice in your account with more details on how to proceed.

Split payments

As you may know, Western Union has specific payout limits depending on location. In the past, if your payment amount exceeded the Western Union payout limit in your country, we'd send your payment by secured express delivery check instead. Unfortunately, this would also incur a delivery fee, so we're happy to let you know that this is now no longer the case.

Now, if your payment exceeds the maximum payment amount, we'll divide up the amounts but still send them via Western Union. For instance, if the payout limit in your country is $3,000 USD and your payment for the month is $5,000 USD, we'll send you two payments: one for the limit of $3,000 USD and another for the remainder of $2,000 USD. If you're sent multiple Western Union payments, you'll see multiple 'Payment issued' lines on your Payment history page, each with the corresponding MTCN associated with it. Depending on your local Western Union agent, you may need to pick up multiple payments on subsequent days. We recommend consulting your local Western Union agent for further details.

Payment by Western Union is currently available in a limited number of countries, but we're working on expanding the countries we support, and we'll keep you posted with any updates.

Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments Team