Google AdSense Archives

There are some countries that simply do not like Google or they simply don't get along with Google. If you are in one of those countries and you try to access Google AdSense or possibly other properties, you may see a message from the provider.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a copy of that message. Here it is:

Unable to access AdSense homepage

A connection has been established between your current IP address and a country sanctioned by the U.S. government (for more information, see http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ ).

We're unable to grant you access to the AdSense homepage at this time.

I personally never saw such a message, so when I saw a thread about it, I found it interesting.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We have covered time and time again about Google having issues paying publishers in this country or that country. This time, Australians are suffering from now being paid on time.

There are at least two threads with reports of the delayed or no payments from Google this month. The threads include a Google AdSense Help and a WebmasterWorld threads.

A Google representative posted in both forums, at WebmasterWorld he/she said:

Your unpaid USD earnings from May will be issued to you at the end of June, provided you have exceeded the threshold amount. Any monthly earnings accrued during June will be finalised in your local currency and posted to your payment history page in the first week of July as per usual.

For those of you who are eligible to migrate to local currency reports but haven't yet, please note that this won't affect the timing of your payments. If you migrate your account today, your June earnings will be converted to your local currency between July 12th and 15th, and if you've exceeded the payment threshold, you'll be issued a payment for those earnings at the end of July.

In the Google AdSense Help thread:

There seems to be an error in processing your payment. If your payment isn't issued in a week, you should see it credited to your account and included in the next payment that you receive. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Some publishers are really suffering from this, because AdSense is their sole income. One said:

I'm in a huge financial crisis because of this. Adsense is my main source of income and Google hasn't sent checks to South Africa for the 2nd month in a row. They told me that last month's check will be issued with this month's check but again no payment has been issued yesterday.

Hope this is worked out soon!

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld.

About two weeks ago, we asked AdSense publishers what do you want to be called. Well, after almost 150 responses, I figured I share the results with you.

:: Web Marketer said 30 respondents or 21%
:: Web Publisher said 28 respondents or 20%
:: Webmaster said 27 respondents or 19%
:: Self-Employed said 24 respondents or 17%
:: Web Developer said 14 respondents or 10%
:: Web Editor said 6 respondents or 4%
:: Retired said 4 respondents or 3%
:: Other answer... said 10 respondents or 7%

Other answers include:

• Broke
• Additional source of income earner :)
• Disintermediator
• undefined
• Money Maker
• Entrepreneur
• SEO
• Spammer

What we learn from this is that AdSense publishers don't have a true title, they are simply AdSense publishers.

I am surprised no one said, "Google money maker," or something like that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Since early February, Firefox users may have tripped on a Google AdSense security error. The error reads:

Security Error: Content at http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/ may not load data from example.com

It happens on some configurations of Firefox, where the security prompt seems to be warning you that content from a third party is loading on this web page.

There are threads as far back as February with this issue, specifically from Google AdSense Help. A newer thread at WebmasterWorld has more discussion around the security error.

I honestly don't think this is a Google specific issue. It seems to be a setting that warns surfers of third party content showing up on a web page.

HowToGeek.com has an article that describes how you can "fix" this security prompt from showing. But in the AdSense case, it might not work.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld .

We have been seeing Google test AdSense in iPhone apps for a few months now, but not it is official. Google announced the beta for AdSense for Mobile Apps. That means that some app developers can add Google AdSense ads to their iPhone or Android applications. To apply as a developer, go here - personally, I want in!

Here are sample ads taken from Shazam on my iPhone:

Google Ad in AdSense:

Bing Ad in AdSense:

AdMob hasn't worked out great for me, but I honestly should give it another try. But I am excited to give Google AdSense for Apps a try.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

The other week, Google released a new feature to allow AdSense publisher to control the font size of the text within their ads. This comes a few months after Google gave publishers control over the font type/style of their ads.

With all this control, I was wondering if it is actually helping you make more money with AdSense or not. Please take our anonymous poll and have your publisher friends take it as well.

We will post the poll here in a couple weeks.

Some are convinced it is helping with earnings and some are not too convinced.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Recently, there was a swarm of threads of complaints in that various AdSense forums about how it appears the Google AdSense earnings reports are not adding up correctly. I'll isolate two Google AdSense Help Threads that have discussion about this.

The issue is really not a calculation error but rather that you are looking at the wrong date ranges.

Alan7769 explained in the thread that the problem is, "since last payment reporting is going back exactly 30 days from the current day, instead of back to the first of the month after your last payment was done." Alan recommends you use the "advanced reports and put in the actual dates from and to for your report, at least until adsense fixes the problem with the since last payment reporting."

There is a terrible amount of confusion now about this so hopefully Google will make things a bit clearly on those default reports.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help Threads.

Update: Google has posted a statement:

If you've seen a sudden drop in reported earnings, please note that it likely isn't due to a decrease in earnings but more because of a change in the date range.

You can confirm this by going to the reports section of your account and selecting the correct date range and running a report. For instance, if you were paid on May 26, then the Overview page will show earnings from May 26 to today's date, when you select 'Since last payment' from the drop-down.

However, when you run a report in the 'Advanced Reports' section and select May 1 to today's date, you will find the actual unpaid earnings for this period.

I've consulted our specialists and will follow up once they revert.

In the meantime, please refer any affected publishers to this thread.

Still, not all publishers are convinced or happy.

Back in February, Google gave us font type selections for our AdSense ads. Now Google announced the ability to control the size of those fonts.

Here is a screen shot of the three sizes you can pick:

Google has been testing both larger fonts sizes and smaller ones here and there, so this was expected, and it is now here.

To learn more about this, see the AdSense blog post and chat about it at WebmasterWorld.

One important note that AdSenseAdvisor said in the thread:

I also wanted to give you a heads up that soon we'll be setting the default font size a little bit bigger based on your feedback that sometimes the text ads on your page are hard to read. I'll keep you posted.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that in some cases the Google AdSense ads will not render when using Google Translate or viewing the page on Google Cache. We reported about the Google Cache issue about a year ago, and back then I believe it was temporary.

The issue is that in some cases, people use Google Translate to view web pages and if Google doesn't show the ads, these publishers (as well as Google) is missing out. The same with the Google Cache. Some sites are hit up worse than others and it isn't impacting all ads.

WebmasterWorld moderator, martinibuster thinks it might be a simple issue of miscommunication:

It's been noted that the teams developing these tools don't always communicate with other parts of Google. This may be an instance of that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Google AdSense blog announced they have expanded the local currencies in the reports to nine more countries. The countries include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, and the UK.

Here is what Google said, and read it carefully before you make any changes:

If you're located in one of these countries, you can now update your account to display earnings in your local currency. After you've updated your account, any earnings generated from advertisers paying in currencies other than your local currency will be converted daily. If you receive payments in your local currency, this means that there also won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month. However, you can still choose to receive payments in U.S. Dollars or change your payment method at any time.

Before enabling local currency reports in your account, we recommend downloading and saving copies of your past reports in U.S. Dollars for your records. You can then update your account by signing in to AdSense and clicking the link in the green prompt on your Reports Overview page. You'll be asked to review and agree to a new set of Terms and Conditions. Unfortunately, we're not able to interpret the meaning of changes in our legal documents for publishers -- if you have questions or need legal advice on interpreting the new Terms, please don't hesitate to contact your attorney.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread is asking AdSense publisher what they call themselves. They said, often when they met people or speak to people, they are not sure what to say when people ask them what they do. Are they are publisher? Maybe a webmaster? How about an online marketer?

I am sure on many levels, AdSense publishers are all of the above. So I decided to create a poll to allow you publisher to answer anonymously what you would call yourself. Feel free to pick more than one choice or add "other."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Google AdSense Help thread reports that one publisher not only received his check in the mail this month, but also received the check for another publisher in the same envelope.

The publisher said in the thread:

My payment cheque arrived with someone else's cheque too. I don't in the least mind posting it on, but I feel I ought to let Google and the cheque's owner know what's happening. Who do I email?

Google emailed this publisher directly, to not drive more attention to the issue in a public setting.

I assume the automated check machine and mailer accidently had some paper glitch and one check got stuck to another and both were placed in the same envelope. This is the first time I heard of such an issue with Google AdSense before.

It is funny in that Michael Arrington received a $1.3 million check by accident the other day.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Google's AdSenseAdvisor posted a thread at WebmasterWorld notifying AdSense publishers that there will be a reporting delay and we should not panic.

Normally, when the reports lag, you see hundreds of posts in the various forums with publishers panicking. It is no surprise some people worry, because some people are fully dependent on the income they make from Google through AdSense.

AdSenseAdvisor said yesterday at about 2pm (EST):

Just writing to confirm that you may be seeing a temporary delay in the reporting of clicks that started this morning (June 9). We're still recording clicks and your stats will catch up. Ad targeting and ad serving are not affected. While this is well within the "no need to panic" window of reporting time, I wanted to give you a heads up in case you see impressions registering normally but a lower-than-usual number of clicks showing up in your reports.

I'm sorry if this has caused you any stress.

Hopefully the reports are now up to speed.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In early March we reported that if you take Google to small claims court, you might win. It talked about the story where a small AdSense publisher sued Google in small claims court for terminating his account and not paying him. The publisher won in small claims court, but on May 22nd, Google took the publisher back to court, to appeal the decision and Google won.

Google showed how the publisher violated the terms of service and thus had the right to be terminated. Specifically, the publisher asked his viewers to click on the Google ads, which is not in accordance with Google's TOS. The court reversed the decision and the publisher went home empty handed.

I posted screen captures of the violation and the court PDF at Search Engine Land.

Lesson learned: Do not sue Google when you are clearly wrong, it makes all publishers look bad.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: You can read the publisher's side of the story, which has a lot more detail, over here.

Google has been holding these webinars to help AdSense publishers pick up new tricks and tips. The latest webinar is on the topic of Channels/Advanced Reporting. That topic includes:

• Learn how to set up channel tracking in your AdSense account
• Find out how you can optimize AdSense using channel data.
• Track AdSense performance for a specific ad placement
• Measure the performance of individual sites

The webinar is tomorrow, June 4, 2009 at 6:30 pm PDT. You should be able to sign up via this page, but for some reason, the signup link doesn't seem to be working for me at this moment. I posted the issue to Google, so hopefully it will work shortly.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Update: Here is a link you can use to register.

I am a huge fan of Google Ad Manager, the hosted ad serving solution from Google. The only issue is that those who heavily use AdSense run into issues when they wanted to test out using Ad Manager with AdSense. What is the issue?

Google does not communicate clearly that after an AdSense channel has been imported to Ad Manager to become a placement, this change is permanent, and you will no longer be able to use that channel in your AdSense account.

There have been complaints about this in the Google Ad Manager Help forum since earlier this year.

Steve, from the Google Ad Manager team, explained that this is the case due to technical reasons. He said there is an alternative:

However, you can now begin using this new placement in Ad Manager for any of your directly sold ad campaigns as well as AdSense ads. When a channel is imported into Ad manager, any placement targeted campaigns to that channel will also be imported.

The main issue is still an issue. Why is there no warning of this before allowing AdSense publishers to make the transition to Google Ad Manager? Many AdSense publishers do not need the features of Ad Manager, and they learn this quick. But once they switch, those channels are locked forever and they can't go back.

Forum discussion at Google Ad Manager Help.

This story was pre-written and scheduled to go live on May 29th.

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around what it will take for Google AdSense to "remain great." Clearly, you must first agree that AdSense is "great," and if you do, then we need to agree on what must be done for it to remain that way.

Some of the suggestions in the thread include:

• Accept only sites with 5,000 daily visitors or more
• Go back to the basics
• Drop smart pricing
• Relax the AdSense algorithm
• Penalize sites that copy content
• Less AdSense Spammers
• More & better advertisers

There are other suggestions in the thread, plus not everyone agrees with all of these suggestions.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This story was pre-written and scheduled to go live on May 29th.

Google AdSense has an ad unit named "link units." The link unit ads look like links and if you click on them, they take you a landing page of Google ads. In the past, those ads were only text ads. Now, Google is showing image ads on the bottom of the page.

Here is a screen capture:

Google explained more about how and when they are triggered:

These image ads are contextually targeted, based on the link unit topic users clicked to reach the ads. If no image ads are available for the given topic, we'll only show the original text ads -- in other words, we won't show a PSA or insert a blank space in place of the image ad in this case. Advertisers can bid on these image ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis, so you'll generate earnings for valid clicks and impressions. You can review the performance of image ads on your link unit pages by generating a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page.

Here is a sample of a real link unit Google ad:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has many experienced publishers talking about a tip they never talked about before. The tip is about how slowing down your server, actually increases your AdSense CTR and leads to higher earnings.

WebmasterWorld moderator, incrediBILL, said that by accident he noticed that when his server is slow and bogged down by traffic, his AdSense CTR climbs. As soon as he posted it, Moderator martinibuster and Senior Member, youfoundjake both said he let the secret out.

They both confirmed that slowing down your server will make people impatient and encourage people to click on the ads, assuming they load faster then the rest of the page.

One member points out that "smart pricing" is linked directly to how fast your pages load. So in the long run, it might hurt your earnings. But I guess if you make it slow enough to not be considered slow by Google's standard but yet slow enough to make people want to click on ads, you win?

In the past, we heard reports that speeding up your server increases AdSense earnings by as much as 25%.

Who knows? Do you think faster or slower servers have an impact on earnings? Take our quick poll:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google has been holding webinars for both new and expert AdSense publishers. The next webinar is tomorrow, Thursday, at 6.30 pm PDT. It is on the topic of getting paid.

The topic is named "Understanding the payment cycle" and is described as:

De-mystifying the AdSense payments system. Learn about the various payment options and understand the payment cycle.

One of the most discussed topics in the various AdSense forums are about payments, so a webinar devoted to payment topics, makes a lot of sense.

Keep in mind, Google caps the attendance to 500 people. So go register for the event now and don't forget to be there.

AdSense experts will be on hand to answer questions submitted from the audience.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

A WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help thread reports seeing more of empty or test AdSense ads. We have seen them back in March 2007 but they have disappeared until now.

Here is a screen capture of one ad that reads "text goes here" in the ad and the URL reads yoururlgoeshere.com.

Google replied to the threads confirming this is a Google bug with Linux operating systems. Google said:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This issue is isolated to Linux users, and our engineers are looking into it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

The first AdSense Orientation Webinar took place on April 18th. It was an overview of AdSense for new publishers. Google is hosting a second orientation webinar tomorrow, Thursday, May 14, 2009 6:30pm (PST).

AdSensePro Obair said in a Google AdSense Help thread that this webinar will differ from the first in that Google would like to "spend more time chatting with you and answering your questions about this presentation."

You can view a recording of the first webinar below via YouTube:

You can register here for the new orientation webinar.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

There have been recent rumors that Google has been terminating publishers for not updating their privacy policies. The week prior to that post, we polled our audience, asking if they have updated their privacy policies to comply with Google's guidelines.

The majority of those who answered the poll said, they did not update their privacy policies.

Here is the break down of results for the question, "Have You Updated Your Privacy Policy for Google?":
:: No said 55 respondents or 63%
:: Yes said 32 respondents or 36%
:: Other said 1 respondents or 1%

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Google AdSense Help thread has several publishers ranting about the lack of contextual relevance that the Google AdSense flash based ads have towards their content. They say that the image ads and text ads are more contextually relevant, and thus they want to be able to block out the flash ads from displaying on their site, all together.

Currently, the only way to block flash or animated ads is to block all image ads. Blocking image ads is not something all publishers want to do. Some want static image ads and at the same time, they don't want flash or animated ads.

The poll below asks if you think Google show allow for blocking of static ads versus animated or flash ads.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

When Google Ad Planner launched I was really in shock and awe. Google has added a new feature to Google Ad Planner named the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center. It basically gives publishers a way to add more details about their site, so that advertisers can find their sites and better judge the traffic and demographics data of your web site.

To gain access to this, you need to be a publisher and you need to verify your site with Google Ad Planner. There are two ways to verify your site, the details on that is over here, but since I am already verified under Google Webmaster Tools, I can easily add them to Google Ad Planner.

When I logged in, I had no sites in my profile, but since I had sites verified with Google Webmaster Tools, I was able to add them easily to the publisher center:

I clicked on "select sites to include" and was presented with a list of sites I can include:

Then I am presented with an overview and a way to "edit" the information about these sites:

I clicked on edit on one of the sites and the screen looks like this:

Here is also a screen capture of the categories I can add my site to:

For more information about this Google Ad Planner Publisher Center, see the Inside AdSense Blog.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google is hosting a series of free Webinars for new AdSense publishers. The orientation webinar seemed to go well, so why not join the next webinar?

The next webinar is on May 7, 2009 at 6.30pm (PST). It is on the topic of implementation and optimization:

Learn how to work with your ads and experiment with different formats, colors, etc. to maximize your performance.

Google can support up to 500 publishers on the webinar, so make sure to sign up quickly if you want to join. You can sign up over here for the second webinar.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

A WebmasterWorld thread started by moderator martinibuster has been getting a lot of attention over the weekend. MartiniBuster asks other members to come up with theories on why it appears AdSense earnings are lower these days then a year prior.

MartiniBuster's own theory is pretty interesting. In short, he says that there are less AdWords coupons floating around these days, so less people are experimenting with the content network. Let me quote MartiniBuster:

As I recall, there were thousands of dollars worth of AdWords coupons flooding Internet conferences. Those AdSensers who have not attended conferences several years ago won't know what I'm talking about so before you comment on this theory, hear me out.

Every conference I went to there were thousands of dollars worth of coupons available from denominations of $250 on down (as I recall). I think there may have been $500 coupons available, too. There were so many coupons floating around that some people were selling them, exchanging them between themselves, and opening multiple AdWords accounts to take advantage of them.

Could part of the higher payouts have to do with there being less publishers in the system? Is it possible that another contributing factor in those early days of higher ECPM was the flood of AdWords coupons?

Now, there are many other theories for the lower earnings, outside of the world being in a recession. They include:

• Google needs to take a bigger piece of the AdSense pie
• Slow down in new fresh to the net ad clicking users.
• Ad blindness for veteran net surfers.
• Less MFA has to affect a segment of publishers.
• Landing page rules turning off some advertisers.
• AdWords complexity
• Google dropping the ball on code quality due to lack of competition for too many years leading to data loss that is later artificially unfairly balanced out.
• More advertiser control positively affecting few and devastating the rest.
• Google silently taking a bigger portion of publisher's earnings to meet the market expectations.
• Smarter advertisers
• Over saturation of content

There are many more ideas and theories being debated in the thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Google AdSense Help thread has many reports from Google AdSense publishers based in Israel, that Google has not paid them yet. There was an issue last week with publishers getting paid late, but most of those issues are resolved by now. The issue seems to be a problem for Israeli Google AdSense publishers, even today.

Google AdSense representative, Obair, confirmed the issue:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We've noticed this issue with a few accounts in Israel. Rest assured, we've notified our payments specialists have been notified. Thanks for your patience. Please also direct any other publishers with this issue to this thread. Thanks!

Hopefully this issue will be resolved shortly.

Also over the weekend, a WebmasterWorld thread reported that the ad statistics were "frozen." Meaning, the reports in the AdSense console seemed to not be updating. That issue seemed to resolve itself over time.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld.

Profiting off of medical concerns, such as with the recent Swine Flu outbreak, is something most people don't think about. But in a WebmasterWorld thread, some people are suggesting that if people are afraid to go out, they might spend more time on their computers.

Clearly, more people sitting front of a computer, surfing the web, can lead to higher AdSense earnings. So technically, publishers and Google may profit off of this concern. At least, indirectly.

The thread said:

I believe if this flu does take hold, then it could be good for adsense members, due to the amount of people staying away from shops etc. More online shopping, more clicks :)

Sad, but possibly true.

In any event, Chris Sherman posted Tracking the Swine Flu Epidemic at Search Engine Land the other day.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The first week of March, Google gave publishers the ability to view their reports in Euros and get paid in either dollars or Euros. Since then, I have noticed many threads from confused publishers asking why are their reports now in Euros. Like it happened by itself.

AdSense Pro Jen chimed in on one of those thread at Google AdSense Help explaining what is going on. She said:

I've been in contact with the Dublin office on this concern and have the following clarification for publishers seeing this announcement:

Before you opt into this feature:
- AdSense Reports will be shown in USD
- You can choose to get paid in USD or Euro

After you opt into this feature:
- AdSense Reports will be shown in Euro
- You can still choose to get paid in USD or Euro. Your payment currency is entirely up to you, and does not change after the T&C's are accepted to have Euro as the reporting currency. In other words, whatever payment method and payment currency you had before you accept the new T&C's will remain unchanged after you accept the T&C's.We apologize for any confusion that the announcement is causing and for any offense that may have been taken by the wording.

So it seems like currently, you cannot go back to viewing reports in USD once you opt in to seeing them in Euros.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Yesterday, the Google AdSense blog announced a several updates to the AdSense program policies agreement. The main thing is that to comply with the AdSense terms, you need to comply with the terms of service on any of the other Google products and services.

Google summed up the changes as follows:

• Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we've now brought it directly to the 'Ad Placement' section of the program policies page so that it's easier to find. According to this policy, we don't allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.
• Deceptive implementations: We've clarified this policy a bit in the 'Encouraging Clicks' section of the program policies - ads may not be formatted in a way that makes them indistinguishable from other content on the page where they appear.
• Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.
• Other Google products' policies: With this new policy, publishers aren't permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the policies of that other product or service. For instance, this would include placing ads on sites which allow users to download YouTube videos, which isn't permitted by the YouTube Terms of Service.

If you look at the program policies, it says you must comply with the webmaster quality guidelines, as well as all the other Google guidelines for the other services. So that doesn't just mean they are targeting link sellers, MFAs and blended ads as JenSense says, but anyone who doesn't adhere to any of their policies.

Will Google enforce them all? I highly doubt it. But time will tell.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Typically, Google issues payments by the 25th of the month for the previous month and the money is then available on the 26th (if sent electronically). But many Google AdSense publishers are complaining in threads at both Google AdSense Help and DigitalPoint Forums that they have no word from Google on if the payment has been issued.

Here are some of the scared publisher's posts:

I used to get the "payment in progress" message within 24-24 of the month. And pick my payments on 26-26 of the month. Today is 27, and even no "payment in progrees" statement has appeared.

I am scheduled to receive payment through Westren union quick cash. Normaly payment is issued on 25th and can be picked on 26th. my march earning was more then $100 but i cant see any payment issued link.

Personally, I see that my payment was issued on April 24th and I should see it on the 28th. But many publishers are concerned the Google is holding payments from them for no reason.

An other, but older Google AdSense Help thread has confirmation from a Googler that Google is indeed delayed on paying some publishers.

AdSensePro Obair from Google said:

If you're scheduled to receive a payment this month, you should see the following message on the payment history page of your account:

"You are scheduled to be sent a payment by the 30th of this month. If you're receiving a standard delivery check, please allow up to 4 weeks for delivery, depending on your location. If you're using EFT or secured express delivery, your payment should arrive by the 5th of next month. Learn more..."

So don't panic, your money will come, the question is when. Some publishers depend on this check and to have it delayed, can be serious for some. Hat tip to Morgan Chemij for encouraging me to write about this.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and DigitalPoint Forums.

The other day we reported on the new beta project at AdSense that let's you filter ads out by category. Back then, it was rumored that Google allowed the advertiser to specify the category of their ads. That was wrong.

AdSenseAdvisor has come into the WebmasterWorld thread to clarify, saying Google controls those categories. AdSenseAdvisor said:

Google’s adserving technology determines the category to which an ad belongs.

This makes more sense and helps avoid the issue of advertisers maliciously miscategorizing ads.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever since May 2008, when Google began supporting third-party cookies as part of the DoubleClick acquisition, Google has been asking AdSense publishers to update their privacy policies to include language that third-party cookies are in fact utilized. Then, more recently, Google started behavioral targeting ads and asked publishers again to update their privacy policies.

A new wave of AdSense publisher account bans has been spotted in the discussion forums and some believe this is due to some publishers not updating their privacy policies. A Google AdSense Help thread has discussion around this theory. One "Top Contributor" said:

The privacy policy is a huge deal because it's about doing ethical business. Google is, and partners with, some of the largest companies in the world through the AdSense/Words programs, and if parties on either side of the fence (SANE parties I mean, not these doofi who for some reason think that Google is trying to remain one of the world's largest and most successful companies by ripping them off for a hundred bucks) lost faith in the Google brand - which is largely built on their ethics - then the whole thing falls apart. The advertisers must have a degree of confidence that Google both maintains and enforces standards among their AdSense publishers...so if Richard Branson happens to stop by LowGenius.Com and see that I don't have a privacy policy, and there's an ad for Virgin Airways at the top of my page, he's going to throw a fit and pull his ads...the whole network loses.

But do you think Google is really banning accounts over not having the proper privacy policy?

We recently polled our audience to see how many have updated their privacy policy for AdSense and currently, most have said they have not. If you have not taken the poll yet, please do and I will publish the results later this week.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

The Google AdSense Blog announced they are beta testing a new feature for publishers that allow them to filter ads based on category. So if publishers don't want ads that are about dating, religion or "get rich quick" type of ads, they can block those ads from showing on their site by blocking the whole category.

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? In fact, They shared a screen shot that details the various categories. In addition, it even shows you how much money you are making from each category. This way, you don't block your most profitable category.

Here is a screen shot:

So what is the issue? A WebmasterWorld thread asks a very important question. Who is classifying the ads into categories? Is it Google or the advertiser? One member said that when someone asked a Google rep about this at the ADSPACE conference (where this was announced), Google said the advertiser is categorizing their ads.

Here is the post from the thread on that:

Someone asked this question at the google panel at adspace today, and the way i heard the answer is that the _advertiser_ sets the category.

Both the questioner and the answerer were not too clear, but this is what i gathered from the exchange.

The concern is that advertisers will make sure not to categorize their ads in certain categories that might be perceived as negative towards publishers. Now, I am not 100% sure if advertisers to categories their own ads, we will have to wait and see how this all works.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Google has notified us that the advertiser does not categorize the ad, instead, Google does this automatically. More details in Google Determines Category For Contextual Ad Category Filter.

Google released a whitepaper titled "CPA Performance Trends on the Google Content Network." The whitepaper has the following findings, all very positive about how Google AdSense performs:

1. Ads on the Google Content Network are likely to be as cost-effective - or even more cost-effective - than ads on the search network.
   • The median advertiser has a content CPA that's about 2% lower than their search CPA.
2. The Content Network drives a significant share of total conversions.
   • The Content Network drives nearly 20% of total conversions for the median advertiser.
3. Conversion rates are higher for advertisers who used either of two AdWords campaign management controls: the Conversion Optimizer and site exclusion.

Thing is, no one believes the report. A WebmasterWorld thread has real advertisers saying they don't see this in their daily use of Google's content network and this seems to be a Google backed study that would bias the results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever since Google AdSense began supporting third-party ad serving technology, via DoubleClick technology, Google has required publishers to update their privacy policies to specify so.

Then more recently with the implementation of the behavioral targeted Google ads, Google said the privacy policies need to be updated. They even posted a help document specifying those details.

Many publishers have already updated their privacy policy, because I think the deadline to do so, may have past. But I am confident many publishers didn't do anything or make any change to their privacy policies. In fact, I am not even sure if I have a privacy policy on this site. :)

Did you update your privacy policy based on Google's request? Take our poll:

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

This coming April 18th, at 11am PST, Google will be hosting a free AdSense Webinar on the topic of "Orientation" for the first 500 people who sign up. To sign up, go to this URL and click on the "Sign Up" link in the middle of the page.

The first Webinar is to give you the "understanding of the basics of your AdSense account. Learn more about the program and get familiar with your account."

AdSensePro Obair said in a Google AdSense Help thread, you can expect to learn the following from this Webinar:

• Learn how to make the most of your AdSense account
• Get an opportunity to chat with some AdSense Specialists
• Get detailed insight in to different account features

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.

Late last week, Google AdSense had an issue where publishers were unable to login to the site and manage their ads. The reports began coming in on April 10th and some earlier reports came in on the night of the 9th.

We have threads at Google AdSense Help, Google AdWords Help and two at WebmasterWorld and dozens at DigitalPoint Forums.

Both AdSensePro Jennifer and AdWordsPro replied to the issue on the 10th. AdSensePro Jennifer chimed in when it was fixed, saying "OK, things should be back to normal. You should be able to log into your accounts." AdWordsPro gave dialog during the downtime, saying:

Word has is that technical issues are now resolved, and that stats will catch up in the near future. I was told perhaps 4 or 6 hours, but am going to be on the safer side and tell you 6 to 8 hours.

I believe the issue was resolved some time Friday morning.

Now people are complaining about poor Easter day earnings.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help, Google AdWords Help, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Some webmasters on WebmasterWorld are keeping an optimistic view on Adsense despite disappointment in their earning this year. The issues with Adsense lately are no secret, ranking from reporting issues to a Google glitch holding Adsense checks for some publishers. Let conspiracy theories on why abound, but that's not going to halt some from keeping a positive look on what an earnings drop in Adsense can actually spur you to do.

For some when issues arise with Adsense and they fear their income being threatened they kick into high gear to explore areas to diversify their revenue streams into others areas that will hold up when Adsense clearly isn't. As ember a member on WebmasterWorld states when his Adsense earnings drop it "forces him to contact advertisers directly and establish relationships with them. It let's me sleep at night knowing that if I lose my AdSense account, it is not the end of the world".

He goes on to say:

I think this could a blessing in disguise. I was getting lazy, anyway. Time to talk to advertisers.

He makes a great point. Stop being lazy. The WMW thread includes many many success stories on people contacting advertisers directly being able to raise their income well over what Adsense is returning for them. One member complains about the complexity of Adsense turning away people and opting instead for direct relationships that are easier to maintain and consistent.

Great thread with lots of discussion, check it out at WebmasterWorld

AdSenseAdvisor notified publishers via a WebmasterWorld thread that the competitive ad filter now supports up to 500 possible filters. I believe this limit is up from 200 filtered URLs from 2006.

Some publishers were able to block more than 200. In fact, I was able to block up to 500 since February 2009. However, now all publishers should be able to block up to 500.

AdSenseAdvisor said:

Check your account. We have more than doubled your number of filters (to 500).

Please don't go crazy with this. The reason we're not announcing it on the blog is that we don't want to overload our system with everyone filling their filters to capacity at once.

Huge thanks go to the awesome engineering team that implemented this for us (I'm an AdSense publisher, too, after all).

Please feel free to leave love letters to our engineers below.

Most publishers are really happy about this increase.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It feels like almost every other day where I see threads on the issue of Google not reporting AdSense clicks properly.

A new thread at WebmasterWorld has dozens of publishers complaining that their reports seem to have stalled or are seriously lagged. There are also a few threads at DigitalPoint Forums and Google AdSense Help.

My first thoughts are to just stop checking hourly and check back tomorrow. But for someone who earns 75% of their income with AdSense, I can understand why the concern.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

On Friday, I reported on an AdAge article that showed Google was testing incorporating Twitter streams in AdSense units. The first test, which was confirmed by Google as a limited beta, would show TurboTax's Twitter stream in AdSense units, likely on pages about taxes.

If you scan the recent @turbotax communication via Twitter, you can see why I am nervous about this implementation. If it was purely marketing speak, showing promotions or helpful tax tips, then I would understand it. But as you can see from the stream, TurboTax is having disconnected conversations with other Twitter users. If you see the latest five Tweets from TurboTax in an AdSense unit on a page on taxes, you would have no clue what the ad meant - in this case.

I have asked Google to provide a sample of what this ad unit looks like, but they did not comply. They did give me this statement:

To provide more marketing opportunities for our advertisers to reach users in moments that are relevant and useful to them, we are currently testing different ways that allow advertisers to better update their ads in real time. We are currently in a limited test with a small number of advertisers and publishers.

I understand that Intuit wants to grow a following for @TurboTax on Twitter, but is this the best way to do it? A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around this news. Many are skeptical, but skeptical for the wrong reasons. I am fairly confident I understand Twitter well, I have been on it very early, before most people and I am fairly active on it, under @rustybrick, but using it in this manner, at least the way I understand how it is being used, seems off.

Problems with showing your last five or so Tweets in an AdSense unit?

1. The Tweets may not be relevant to the content of the page
2. You may display disconnected conversations that the public won't be able to understand
3. Many people still are clueless as to what Twitter is
4. Followers are great, but will it lead to sales (many cases, yes, it will)

In this case, I am very skeptical that this type of ad unit will work for Google and advertisers. I am sure publishers won't like to see someone else's Twitter stream on their pages.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It has been about five to six months now of us reporting that Google has a bug that holds payments to some publishers. In fact, many publishers have been waiting months to be paid and some seem to still be waiting.

A Google AdSense Help thread has confirmation from Googler, Obair, who is still manually removing the hold status on publisher accounts.

It is sad to see that publishers are still experiencing major slow downs in being paid. In fact, if they don't reach out to Google via the help section, they may never get paid. The issue goes back months and months, but was initially confirmed in January 2009.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

A DigitalPoint Forum thread has a collection of "weird" or "funny" ads people spotted through Google AdSense or AdWords. I thought I share them in text format, but feel free to see the thread to see screen captures.

• AdSense shows ads on a skydiver accident for American Airline with the slogan, "we know why you fly."
• AdWords shows ads for Big Daddy and Big Juicy Butts
• AdWords ads for used toilet paper
• Hillary Clinton Naked ads?
• Amazon selling "human remains."
• A search for world of warcraft showing an ad for virgin males (I guess that makes sense)
• You can visit hell on ebay
• Or sell your kids on ebay

Feel free to add more to the forum.

Forum discussion and pictures at DigitalPoint Forum.

The Google AdSense blog announced that they will be adding additional email preferences to the account page. Here is a picture of the new preferences page:

I personally do not see these new preferences under the contact preferences page, but I guess it will show up for me shortly.

In a WebmasterWorld thread, AdsenseAdvisor said:

These new email notification preferences were created in response to feedback from you guys that we haven't been giving you enough opportunities to hear from us. Until now, you've all been limited in the kinds and formats of information you could sign up to receive by email, so we wanted to give you more options and better control over the email offers you get from us.

If you sign up for all the new categories, you'll be eligible for all kinds of great stuff that I probably shouldn't give too many details on yet.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There is a very long thread at Google AdSense Help discussions where publishers are accusing Google of taking a larger piece of the ad revenue share. Typically, when someone clicks on an AdSense ad, Google takes some of that revenue, while giving the remainder of the revenue to the publisher.

Some are suggesting that since a couple days ago, Google began taking as much as 90% of the revenue split. There are over 120 posts in the Google AdSense Help, with complaints.

Some suspect it might be a lingering issue from the high impression counts AdSense was reporting, but many don't think it is related.

There is no word from Google on the issue right now. We will continue to monitor things and keep you all posted.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Some very watchful DigitalPoint Forums members noticed that Google updated the Google AdSense home page. Here is the before and after.

Before there was more color in that box on the left:

Now, the box on the left is mostly blue:

Notice the difference? Yea, pretty small, but we noticed.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A week ago today, we reported how AdSense publishers were not happy with video unit payouts. In fact, they were extremely upset with how little the earnings were for displaying rich media on their sites.

Friday, Google announced that they are "sunsetting" (dropping) the video ad units. Google said:

After reviewing our AdSense video units feature, which allows you to show YouTube content and ads on your pages, we've found that it hasn't had the impact we had hoped for. As a result, we've decided to retire this feature at the end of April so we can focus our resources on other opportunities to help publishers earn from their sites.

Google recommends that you begin removing the video unit boxes from your pages. Today, the video unit option is not available to new publishers.

There are three forums discussing this now, two with official Google representatives responding to questions.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Google AdSense Help.

Yesterday we reported that AdSense impressions were double reporting. Well it turned out to be more than just a reporting error. Google was double or triple serving the same ads on the same site, which is not something they should have been doing. In any event, Google has announced they fixed the issue:

If you're displaying multiple ad units on your pages, you may have noticed that your pageviews were higher than normal for part of yesterday and today. Our engineers identified a bug which prevented ad units from detecting other units on the same page. As a result, our system logged a pageview for each ad unit that was loaded on a page, instead of a pageview for each page containing ads. In some cases, this also may have caused specific ads to appear in multiple ad units on the same page.

Please be assured that ad unit impressions were still logged correctly and ads were still displayed on your pages, so you were properly credited for all earnings generated from your ads. We've resolved the issue, and although you won't see the pageview count in your reports retroactively changed, your pageview tracking is now back to normal.

But like I said, some ads were double or triple served on the same page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

Feels like at least once a week, I write about how Google AdSense has reporting issues. Today, I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread that has dozens of AdSense publishers complaining that the reports seem off again.

Specifically, the issues are as follows:

• Impressions are twice the normal expected amount
• Click through rates are about half of the normal expected amount
• Earnings are (obviously) on target with what is expected

In summary, many publishers are noticing high numbers in impression reporting, but lower in the actual click through rate, which leads to the same earning reports as they historically see.

AdSenseAdvisor said a few hours ago:

I'm happy to look into this, but please forgive me if it takes some time (it's pretty late in California right now).

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: This is now fixed but ads were double or tripled served in some cases.

We know Google is on Twitter, so is AdWords and we know at least two AdWords reps are also. Yesterday, AdSense joined Twitter @adsense. The way AdSense joined was in Google style, the first Tweet was:

Ads by 47 6F 6F 6F 6F 6F 6F 6F 67 6C 65

What does that mean? Well, if you use an Hex/ASCII converter and plug in 47:6F:6F:6F:6F:6F:6F:6F:67:6C:65 it translates it to "Gooooooogle." As you see on many Google AdSense ads, they have a line that reads "Ads by Gooooooogle."

The Inside AdSense blog officially announced the new Twitter account. So feel free to follow it on Twitter and while you are at it, follow @seroundtable and @rustybrick.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

AdSenseAdvisor said in a WebmasterWorld thread that having more ads on the page will lead to higher revenues per impression.

This may be obvious, that showing more ads, will lead in more revenues per page view, but not for all publishers. Some are of the belief that showing less ads increases the value of each click and then might lead to more revenue per impression.

It is nice to see that a Google representative has went on record as saying that this is generally the case.

I assume many of you disagree, if so, why?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread posted a screen shot of an unusual Google AdSense ad. Here is a picture of the ad:

Matt Cutts is the head of Google's web spam team. I am not sure how many sales this type of banner would lead to, since those who are looking for SEO services, may not know Matt. But it might lead to conversion for those prospects that do their homework.

In any event, this was a funny thread to spot.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last week, I ran a poll asking if Google AdSense made up most of your income. The 129 responses are in and I wanted to share them with you. It seems like 47% of those that make money will AdSense say Google makes up more than 25% of their income. 53% said Google makes up less than 25% of their income. Here is the breakdown:

:: Less Than 25% of My Income said 58 respondents or 45%
:: Over 75% of My Income said 25 respondents or 19%
:: Not Applicable To Me said 20 respondents or 16%
:: Over 50% of My Income said 14 respondents or 11%
:: Over 25% of My Income said 12 respondents or 9%

Is it possible that 23% of publishers make 75% or more of their income with Google? The 23% is when you take out the "Not Applicable to Me" results, since they likely are not AdSense publishers.

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.

There are two different threads at WebmasterWorld that show publishers, advertisers and affiliate's concern over a new proposed tax law in California.

The law, as understood in the thread, would potentially tax any seller who using AdWords to market their product or service. Moderator, incrediBILL, explained:

The conclusion I drew after reading the law is that since AdSense directly refers customers via links, as do the AdWords ads showing in the SERPs, it's therefore theoretically possible that anyone using Google as an advertising vehicle could be subject to CA tax.

If people advertising in Google are suddenly subject to collecting and paying CA tax then people will most likely stop advertising on Google.

You can see the details about this tax proposal named AB178 and the hearing won't be until April 13, 2009.

Some are very skeptical over the bill and they are not worried too much about how it might impact them.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: 5 Star Affiliate Blog has very good coverage of this concern. Well worth a read.

There are two threads at Google AdSense Help discussions with AdSense publishers who are simply not happy with the earnings they have been reported to receive from their YouTube content.

Let me quote you some upset publishers:

My revenue is down more than 50%. There were people who were expecting to earn $200 in January and instead earned $80. I was expecting $1000-$2000 and earned a little over $80.

Received my report. 1/5th of my Content Host earning. Shame.

63. Wow. Just as we're writing about it, the amount posted. And it ain't pretty. I had $67 in Content Host earnings (63,600 views/1000 clicks) and only $17 in YouTube earnings... sheesh, that sure wasn't worth the wait!

Some feel ripped off by Google while others feel that there may be a glitch in the system. But one publisher recommends "patience," explaining:

Settle down guys. The Partner program is definitely not a "get rich quick' program. Part of the low revenue is the economy and the other part might be the simple fact that an advertiser does not want to pay a lot to run ads on your videos.

I have seen my YT amount drop to 1/20th or so what I would expect but content host amount is going up and that is fine with me.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

We have a lot of Google AdSense publishers that read this site and I wanted to run a quick poll asking you guys, what percent of your income is from Google AdSense. The poll is completely anonymous and if you have a 20 seconds, please take the poll.

As you can see, I broke the figures out in a very generic fashion, to keep it simple. Please take the poll and have your publisher friends and colleagues taking the poll. I will publish the results for everyone to see.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last night, Google began emailing AdSense publishers about their new terms of service to cover the recent behavioral targeting changes to be made to the content network. The email I have a copy of is sent to a Danish publisher and he used Google Translate to translate the text. Here is a copy:

...Following this announcement, your policy on privacy now reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information on http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557&hl=da to ensure that your site's policies for protecting personal information has been updated and make any necessary changes before 8 April 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, unfortunately we can not propose a policy to protect personal information in a certain language...

I personally did not receive this email yet, but there is a lot of discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld around this update.

Yesterday, when I covered this news, I asked if publishers will be able to control if the ads are triggered from the interest categories or not. Google answered that question now, saying yes, they can control it.

So you need to make sure that your site's privacy policy is in accordance with the terms of service to run AdSense ads. You can learn more about that at this document at Google. Google actually asked publishers in the past to make sure they had a solid privacy policy, when they began serving ads through DoubleClick.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld.

I spotted a thread at both DigitalPoint Forums and Google AdSense Help discussions that is extremely suspicious.

The user is linking to a page that has AdSense ads on them, calling this user out for violating Google's terms of service. It seems like this guy really wants the publisher to get banned. So he calls them out.

My thoughts? Well, I got a few.

(1) I think that this user may want to ban other AdSense publishers and maybe put up an AdSense ad with their publisher IDs in the ad. Then made the page overly against Google's terms of service, in an effort to ban these publishers. This happens and it sometimes works.

(2) The page which is over here is overly in your face on Google's terms of service. It doesn't just violate one issue, but virtually all of them. At some point, you can expect that this looks like a fraud and that anyone who visits the page thinks it is a fraud.

(3) These are so over the top that punishing this publisher doesn't do any good. They simply want to be punished (not that I think the pub ids in use are the ones who did it, see #1). I can't see most internet users actually taking the time to click on those ads. Heck, they probably would leave the site immediately. But what do I know.

I hate seeing this type of stuff and I rarely bring this out into a post over here. But this is just way over the top and I decided to share it.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Google AdSense Help.

Google Gets Into Behavioral Targeting, Launches “Interest-Based Advertising” Beta at Search Engine Land is a must read on this story. In short, Google is testing behavioral ads on the content network, using what they call "interest based categories" and "previous interactions." The cool part is that Google allows you to specify which categories (600 of them) interest you and you can also opt out at http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/.

In any event, the Search Engine Land article is a really good article on this topic. I know I wrote most of it, but both Greg Sterling and Danny Sullivan added tremendous perspective to the article. In fact, Greg touched on a major concern AdSense publishers are discussing about this program.

The concern is that Google's contextual relevancy may dwindle down, in exchange for behavioral relevancy. Contextual relevancy is what Google takes pride in, they love to say they have ads that match the exact content of the page. If you are reading about Sony video cameras, Google will show you AdSense ads for Sony video cameras. But possibly now, if you are a sports enthusiast (Google knows this because you visit sports sites) and you are reading an article about video cameras (because you want to buy one for the next game), you may see sports ads and not video camera ads.

This is incredibly new for Google. They have been using previous queries to trigger ads in search. But right now, Google said this is not tied to search history. There have been rumors that Google said they don't plan on behavioral target a while back.

In any event, let me pull out some quotes from the threads. We have discussions at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Publishers who really care about the ads that are shown on their site and want them to be relevant to their site will be frustrated/angry when site users call up to complain that there are inappropriate/irrelevant ads on it. This will especially be an issue for people that share a computer (example: families).

So if you look at baseball they will show baseball ads. So they follow you around and put ads up that has your interest. So oneday later on the day you look at something else and they still are showing those dam baseball ads. Give me a break. Have I mentioned that google is not god and google and adsense sucks.

SO you come to the forum and they still show those dam baseball ads.

There is also a lot of discussion around the privacy and opt out features. The big question is, will publishers and advertisers be able to say, I don't want my ads to be targeted behaviorally?

Forum discussion at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

The Google AdSense blog suggested that publishers add the Google News Widget to their web site. But publishers are not understanding why they should direct people off their web sites for free.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, what is the incentive to lure visitors off your web site and into Google News? One publisher said, "if a widget is going to take visitors away from my site, it certainly better compensate me for them!"

I spent the past fifteen minutes looking for an old feature that Google AdSense had available but discontinued years ago. It basically was a widget you can add to your site that would show news, web results and other content from Google, but it wouldn't earn you money. They discontinued it, but I cannot find my post that talks about it, at least not now.

Here is an example of this Google News Widget in action:

But some publishers say that this added content makes for a better quality site.

I actually have two sites where I plan to add it as a service to my regular members. I don't really care if they leave my site, what I care about is that they keep coming back. The more useful the site, the more likely they are to come back.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This and last week we reported issues with Google reporting up to date stats. Many publishers felt that Google had a major reporting delay and they were very concerned. Typically, it turns out to be nothing and the numbers tend to update themselves over time. But this time, it was a little different.

Google admitted to a bug in the AdSense contextual targeting system that returned irrelevant ads on publisher sites. Typically, Google AdSense ads are relevant to the content on the page, but something went wrong where Google's contextual targeting went off. On Thursday of last week at 2pm (PST) a bug for "approximately 10 hours" triggered these issues. The issue was resolved by Friday morning, according to Google.

Google admitted that non-contextually targeted ads may result in lower earnings and impact your earnings for those ten hours. Google said:

You were still credited for all valid clicks and impressions on the ads which appeared on your sites, but this bug may have impacted your overall AdSense for content revenue if you had visitors to your pages during these hours. Please note that because we're unable to determine which ads would have been viewed or clicked on by visitors to your sites in the absence of the bug, we will not be manually adjusting yesterday's earnings.

The big question was, was this a reporting glitch or were these publishers that severely impacted by the relevancy issue?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A few weeks ago, Google finally gave AdSense publishers a way to specify the font type they want to show on their web sites. AdSense publishers were really happy with the added control and Google was happy to give publishers this level of control.

So why am I seeing reports that Google is ignoring these AdSense font preferences and overriding them with something else?

A WebmasterWorld thread has several publishers complaining that Google is not using the font they picked in the AdSense ad set up.

One said, he doesn't mind, because it helps against "ad blindness." But why give the publisher the option. If I set my preferred font, then use it. If I don't set it, then feel free to experiment.

One publisher said:

just curious whether anyone else has set up their ads with a fixed font, only to see them carry on changing.

i know it's probably just google testing the fonts again, but why are they carrying on testing them when they've already given us the option to change them

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense statistics have been having issues updating since March 4th. In fact, we have seen reports prop up again and again since then. March 6th, people were complaining and people have been complaining since, including this morning.

We have two threads, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Google AdSense Help. Each thread complains about the same thing, over the course of the weekend and today.

There are also dozens of threads at DigitalPoint Forums on the issue.

We have no official word from Google on these recent issues.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

Huffington Post has a story about a Google AdSense publisher who had his account terminated by Google for "posing a signficicant risk to advertisers." That advertiser sued Google in small claims court for $721, the amount of money he had accrued for clicks on his site. Guess what? He won! Seriously, go read the story, it reads very well.

Let me now give you the AdSense publisher reaction from DigitalPoint Forums.

Its small claims court. Google didn't even have lawyers representing them - a paralegal instead.

All you'll win is the few bucks Google owes you. Better than nothing I guess... but you cannot get your account back via small claims court.

Sounds like a rare exception, doubt others would be able to do it.

Very nice article. I'm happy for the dude. Everybody whose account got cancelled, sue Google!

You can see his original posts in the Google AdSense Help Forum.

Is this going to spark a ton of law suits for Google?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Turns out that publisher did indeed violate Google's TOS and the court overruled the decision in appeals court.

In a day and age where 70% of Google publishers are reporting less earnings with Google, Google needs to take bold moves to get more people to see and click on their ads.

Google introduces expandable ads. The ads will be displayed on publisher sites and they can click on the ad to make them expand into a much large ad that overlays over the content of the page. The expandable ads can contain movie streams, show video game clips, or display various views of an item for sale.

Google said this won't disrupt the end user because it has to be clicked on to be expanded, will never be "double its width or height," the "user may close the expanded panel at any time," it won't change your content, and it has to comply with their terms. There is a comprehensive help section devoted to expanded ads at Google AdSense Help.

Here is a sample ad:

Publishers await to see if this helps earn them more money. Who is the real loser here? I guess the searcher or the average consumer. Outside of that, the advertiser, publisher and Google are all winners.

Also, this may lead to publishers trying new tricks to get people to click on the ad. Note, clicking on an ad to expand it does not generate cost to the advertiser, it is only the click that leads to the advertiser's landing page that has any cost.

By the way, Google is also testing more interactive ads, according to Amit Agarwal.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

If you visit the Google AdSense home page you may notice that the login page has been redesigned. Here is a picture of the new page:

The old one looked like this:

We anticipated the new home page would be coming soon this morning, when we reported about the recent login issues with AdSense. This also probably means that many (not all) AdSense counters, notifiers and trackers are having issues operating now.

Note that this is occurring while there are major stat delays with the AdSense reports.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last night, I noticed dozens of reports that Google AdSense publishers were unable to login to their AdSense consoles. The first report came in at 1:59am (EST) from a Google AdSense Help thread.

Most of these publishers noticed a new Google AdSense login page. The page then wouldn't allow them to login. The question is, is Google testing a new login page for AdSense? I know a lot of third party AdSense tracking tools stopped working last night as well. Maybe Google tried to change things up to prevent those scraper bots from bogging down their system? I don't know.

At 5:57 this morning, a Google AdSense representative, William, confirmed the issue and said it was fixed. Some publishers may still have issues logging in, if you do, he recommends "clearing the cache and cookies or try using a different browser."

At about 2:50am, I saw first reports at a DigitalPoint Forums thread that publishers were able to login again. But there are still lingering reports of publishers not being able to login. So make sure to listen to William's suggestion above.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Since early January, AdSense publishers have been complaining that they have not received payment in multiple months. In fact, Google confirmed the issue and said they are "taking this issue seriously."

In early February, Google promised those delays will stop and these publishers would get paid at the end of the month, in February. Google said then, "to be noted the holds removed between January 15 and February 15 will be reflected in payments issued at the end of February."

At the end of February, Google seemed to be somewhat frantic in posting help threads to sort out the issues with payments. This should have been a warning sign to many of those publishers who have not seen a payment from Google in months that they may not see a check in the near future.

Yesterday, Google posted a thread at Google AdSense Help saying that many publishers were not paid at the end of February and promises, yet again, to pay publishers, but this time, it won't be until the end of March. Why the delay, yet again? Well, it seems like Google wasn't able to manually remove the "hold" flag on these accounts by the February 15th deadline. So because of that, publishers have to go without pay yet another month.

AdsensePro William said:

If you were one of the publishers who ended up with your AdSense account on hold for payments due to an AdSense bug, you were reassured that payments would be processed to be included at the end of February. Originally, the payments were to be included in the payments at the end of February. However, because Google had to remove these holds manually, it seems as though this wasn’t done until after the February 15th cut off time. So what does this mean for affected publishers? You have to wait another month to receive your payment due to Google’s bug, according to AdSensePro Jen.

Yes, so now Google’s bug means you have to wait until the end of March for those payments. Still no word on how many publishers are affected or if perhaps some of them made the February 15th cut off so they will get their payments at the end of February as the original post implied, but the new post by AdSensePro Jen seems to say that all affected publishers didn’t have their account’s fixed until after the payment cut off deadline.

All I have to say is that this looks really bad for Google. Some publishers may depend on this income to pay their rent and buy food. If you are one of these publishers, I would try to get on the phone with Google or send them an email to make sure everything is in order for the end of March payment.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

The exchange rate and how it plays in the Google AdSense space for non-USA based publishers is a big deal, especially these days. We cover it often enough, including times where Google outright made huge mistakes and when the rates seemed unfair at times.

The latest thread on the topic comes from WebmasterWorld where a European publisher said he just received payment, but that payment seemed way off. He said Google gave him an exchange rate of €0.774/1$ (~1.30), when the current EURUSD is 1.266. Heck, even Google search shows that exchange rate:

European publishers are not happy because the 1.30 rate has not been seen since February 9th.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There were reports this morning at about 1am (EST), that the Google AdSense console was down. A DigitalPoint Forums thread has several publishers upset with the downtime, but soon later it came back up.

The Wall Street Journal blog has confirmation from Google about this downtime. I am a bit shocked they bothered to cover AdSense console downtime, but as they said:

AdSense is the online-ad server of choice for thousands of Web sites, and while it’s not unheard of for it to experience down time, it comes in a week that’s already seen the catchphrase “Gfail” bandied about.

Google told the Wall Street Journal that the downtime was for about 90 minutes and did not impact all publishers.

This news comes days after Gmail went offline for a couple hours.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

One of the official representatives in the Google AdSense Help Forums, AdSensePro Jen, has posted three threads in an effort to help publishers who are having payment issues. Those threads are named:

• I have no visible holds on my account, and have not been paid
• I have requested a check reissue but not received a confirmation
• My check/payment was returned or expired and I'm unable to remove a hold on my account

The first thread is the only thread that has any current complaints in it, but the threads are less than 12 hours old anyway.

Let me break out the payment issues with each thread:

(1) I have no visible holds on my account, and have not been paid:

Please reply to this thread if you meet the following criteria:

- you have no visible holds on your account
- you have over $100 in earnings
- you have not yet been paid

However, please keep in mind that the payment hold issue that was occurring earlier was fixed after the 2/15 Feb payment cycle deadline. As a result, if you believe you were under this issue, you should be paid in the next cycle at the end of March.

(2) I have requested a check reissue but not received a confirmation:

If you have once submitted a check reissue request and never received a response, please reply to this thread.

Keep in mind that if you requested a reissue and received a reply about your earnings being credited back in 15 days, the request was processed and there is nothing more you need to do.

Moreover, if you are using EFT, you cannot request a reissue, you must check with your bank as to why the earnings were not received.

(3) My check/payment was returned or expired and I'm unable to remove a hold on my account:

Please reply to this thread if you have a payment that was returned or expired and after you entered your updated address/account information, the hold still hasn't been removed from your account.

Hopefully, you don't have to reply to any of these threads.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

We are hearing reports from several publishers in the Google AdSense network that Google is testing larger font types in their ads.

We have threads at both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums discussing both seeing this in action and the results from the larger fonts.

Some like the larger fonts because they feel it draws more attention to the ads, which leads to more clicks and more earnings. But some don't like how the large fonts stand out. They feel it distracts from the content on the site and they have no way to downsize the font.

Maybe this will lead to giving publishers control over the font size, like they recently did with AdSense Font Types just last week.

JenSense has some pictures of the larger font types being tested.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Earlier this month, we polled Google AdSense publishers, asking how their earnings from Google is working out in this recession. After receiving about a 120 responses, I thought I share the results with you.

About 70% said they are earning less these days, whereas 22% said their earnings are the same and 8% said their earnings have increased.

Here is the break down:

:: Earnings Have Dropped said 82 respondents or 68.91%
:: Earnings Remain The Same said 27 respondents or 22.69%
:: Earnings Have Increased said 10 respondents or 8.4%

Yes, this recession is likely cutting AdWords budgets, impacting both publishers and Google.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

After years and years of testing different font types and styles in Google AdSense, Google is now giving the publisher the option of defining which font they prefer on their sites. The AdSense blog finally announced this feature last night and the new fonts include Arial, Times and Verdana. Here is a screen capture:

Plus, publishers can set their default font preference over here.

Google has been testing font styles since early 2007 and then began aggressively testing fonts in May 2008, using fonts such as comic sans both then and in June and August.

Publishers are very happy about the extra control and already want more font options.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

In December, Google expanded the AdSense for Domains product to all US publishers. Today, we are hearing reports in several forums that it has now been expanded to international publishers as well.

I was very concerned to learn in December that this extremely controversial program was expanded then. But to be honest, I have not seen many complaints since the expansion. For my perspective, things did not get worse by opening up. In fact, maybe things have been getting better with Google and fighting off certain types of MFAs and arbitrageurs. Opening this program internationally does worry me, but let's see how Google handles it.

Right now, we have very little feedback on the implications of this move. The best thing is to wait and watch. Oh, trust me, as soon as I see complaints, I will bring them to you.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld.

Update: Google has confirmed with me that Google has indeed opened up AdSense for Domains internationally.

Over two years ago, Google started testing AdSense optimization reports, also known as automated AdSense tips. They can be found when you go to your AdSense Inbox.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, why does Google not send AdSense optimization report every month? Personally, I have not received one since December 2008 and I am happy that I have not received one. Here is a screen capture of my reports in my AdSense inbox:

I assume the tips don't show every month because (1) they are often repetitive and (2) can be dead wrong on occasion.

One WebmasterWorld member offers another possible reason, "They laid off the tip writer." Of course, he is joking.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Over the weekend, there were hundreds of posts and dozens of threads with complaints from both Google AdWords advertisers and Google AdSense publishers. The complaints were that the reports were not being updated. Google has confirmed the issue in Google AdWords Help discussions area saying:

• There was a stats issue in the Ads system that affected stats related to Adwords and AdSense.
• The issue started at roughly 4AM PST on Sat 2/14/09 and lasted several hours.
• The issue only affected stats and reporting. AdServing was not affected and all ads continued to run as normal.
• Account access was normal during this time.
• AdWords engineers are working to get all stats back online/up-to-date ASAP. The update process has started.
• No stats have been lost
• It is anticipated that by the end of today all basic stats at the Adgroup, Campaign, and Account level will be current.
• Advanced stats such as Product Placement Reports and Query reports for Friday, Saturday, Sunday are anticipated to be available by Tuesday 2/17/09

Like I said, there is a lot of discussion around this issue. Here are the threads:

• Alert: Account stats were delayed Saturday, February 14, 2009, Google AdWords Help
• Adsense on Valentines Day, DigitalPoint Forums
• Adwords Drop. Is anyone else seeing this?, Search Engine Watch Forums
• Are everyone's stats really lagged right now?, WebmasterWorld
• Saturday Feb 14th stats stuck, WebmasterWorld
• Stats stuck?, DigitalPoint Forums

Google has confirmed in a Google AdSense Help thread that many publishers did not received their January payments due to a bug in the system. The bug put publisher accounts on hold, which automatically held any payments being sent to these publishers. Google's AdSense Pro William confirmed the issue last night, saying:

Of late we have noticed complaints from Publishers about not receiving payments on time in spite of having no visible holds on the account. This was due to a bug which has been fixed and in the mean time we have been removing the holds manually and the publishers would be receiving the payments in the next payment cycle possible. Also, to be noted the holds removed between January 15 and February 15 will be reflected in payments issued at the end of February.

I believe this is a continuation of the story we covered a couple weeks ago named Google Confirms Not Paying Some AdSense Publishers. Let's add this to the list of recent bugs we have been noticing with Google in the past week, I think we are over 10 now.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Jennifer Slegg reported that Google AdSense has increased the number of channels for AdSense publishers by an addition 300, adding up to a total of 500 channels. Channels give publishers a way to segment their ads and track them for performance and earning objectives.

The thing is, the discussion at WebmasterWorld seems to think that this is a thing given to publishers on a publisher by publisher basis. For some reason, many are reporting only having 200 channels, while others said they had a total of 500 for a really long time now.

I checked my account and I have a total of 500, but I do not know when that was given to me:

In any event, if you only have 200 and you need more, I am sure bugging your AdSense representative might help.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google added a statement to this forum thread on February 17th saying:

We’ve been experimenting with more channels for a small set of publishers. Thanks in large part to your feedback, we’re trying to extend this test to more publishers, especially those who we know are already using channels most heavily. The reason we can’t just roll this out to everyone is that we need to make sure that our ad serving and reporting continues to run smoothly.

The Google Adsense Preview Tool has been bugging out for the past few days, only returning to normal just a day or so ago.

First reports came from Google AdSense Help forums on Thursday, February 5th. Google noticed the complaints on the 6th, and a Google representative said:

Thanks for bringing up the issue and sorry for the trouble. We've noticed the issue and are working on it. We'll inform you as soon as it is fixed. Thanks again for your understanding.

Then the following day, on the 7th, we received reports that the tool is now working again.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Many, many Google AdSense publishers are complaining about a drop in earnings from their Google AdSense initiatives. A long and detailed thread at WebmasterWorld has a lot of complaints from publishers on the topic.

There is no question that ad dollars globally have dried up. The economy is in really bad shape and consumers are not buying, so sellers are not advertising. I can tell you from personal experience, we use to turn away advertisers left and right and now it is almost impossible to get a new advertiser here. (Hint, if you want a good price on ads here, contact us.)

I hear that many Google AdWords advertisers are slashing budgets due to the drop in sales they have experienced. With a drop in advertising budgets, that means less ads to go around in the contextual space, which results in less money for Google AdSense Publishers. There are no hard facts on this drop yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more data come out on this soon.

Publishers, let us know if you have seen a drop in AdSense earnings in the past couple weeks or so. Take the poll below:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense might be testing a new ad format. We have a few reports of publishers noticing this new format from DigitalPoint Forums. Here is a look at the new format:

This seems to be a fairly interactive ad box. It might be one of those Google Gadget Ads but one publisher said he never noticed the ad type on his site.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

It is that time of the year again, tax season and Google began sending out 1099s to their publishers. But some publishers are reporting that the earnings stated on the 1099s differ from the actual earnings.

A publisher in a WebmasterWorld thread said the 1099 only showed earnings of 12% of what he actually earned with Google in 2008. While a Google AdSense Help thread has another publisher saying his 1099 shows higher earnings then what he actually earned with Google AdSense in 2008.

So what does one do?

(1) Speak to your accountant
(2) I would inform Google of the issue through the contact us form in the AdSense console.
(3) Make sure the numbers are indeed incorrect

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

An advertiser notes in a WebmasterWorld thread that Google's Learning Center module has an interesting piece of content, under the section 3D, Targeting/Keyword Targeting. It said:

Note: Partner sites don't recognize keyword matching options. Therefore, all keywords on these sites are treated as broad-matched keywords.

This means, that when AOL displays Google AdWords ads on AOL Search, they might not listen to if you want to only show an ad for blue shoes, as opposed to red shoes. As you can imagine, this really got many advertisers worried.

The original poster brought this to the attention of his Google representative, who told him, that note needs to be clarified. He basically said, match types do apply to the search network, including search partners, but does not include the content network.

So match type controls do not make a difference on the content network, but they do make a difference on the search network and search partners.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Before starting, I am finding this very hard to believe. A fairly active member at DigitalPoint Forums, posted a thread linking to his blog, where he has a screen capture of Google AdSense showing up in place of the ad spots of AOL's Instant Messenger software.

Here is his screen capture from his blog:

I was going to dismiss this post completely, but then I looked at the members history at the forum. He has over 700 posts at the forum and has been an active member since February 2007. So it seems like this member has some history.

I am still very skeptical that this image was not 'photoshoped' to look this way.

So I will leave it at being extremely skeptical if this is a true screen capture or something that was made up. I simply do not know.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

An interesting WebmasterWorld thread has several publishers claiming that they make more money with Google AdSense with their old, not updated sites, as compared to their larger, more updated and cleaner looking sites.

In the past, we did discuss how ugly sites earn more with AdSense and most agreed that this is true. But outdated, old sites are earning more than updated and fresh sites?

Here is a poll, which one makes you more money?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Over the weekend, many AdSense sites, were not serving up paid contextual ads. Instead, they were serving up what are called PSAs or Public Service Ads. They kind of look like this:

They do not earn publishers money.

A Google AdSense Help thread has confirmation from Google on this bug. AdSensePro Ashley said:

This issue has now been resolved. PSA ads on affected blogs should now be replaced with paying ads. Some publishers may experience a short delay before they see paying ads on their blogs.

It might have impacted just Blogger/Blogspot blogs. But it impacted many blogs for a short period of time. There were 45 responses to this small "crises." There was also discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

This was not the first time Google seemed to have an issue with serving up PSAs. We covered this issue back in 2004, twice. If you want to eliminate PSAs, you can try that also.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and DigitalPoint Forums.

In the Google earnings call, that we reported earlier, Google's Senior Vice President, Johnathan Rosenberg, said on the earnings call:

AdSense revenue was weaker, though AdSense for content was strong. When it comes to AdSense for Search, we did a lot of arbitrage cleanup in Q3 and Q4.

This quote comes from a WebmasterWorld thread, and discusses the significance of such a statement.

Made for AdSense sites (MFAs are banking on arbitrage and Google promised to shut them down in May 2007. But stronger action appeared this past May. It seems like it has impacted Google's earnings.

In Q4 2007 Google earned 1.31 billion with AdSense (and that network), but in Q4 2008 Google earned 1.29 billion. Even in the third quarter, Google earned 1.33 billion. So there did seem to be a downturn recently in that area.

Some are using this statement to reduce their estimated tax payments in 2009.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of discussion from Google AdSense publishers on how poor of a day they had on Inauguration Day.

Traffic and clicks and earnings were way down for most of these publishers on the day. It seems like very few web users were out and about using these sites.

So let me poll our audience, how did you do on Inauguration Day?

I know this site's traffic was pretty even, but I think that was because we wrote a post about the day.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There is an extremely large thread at Google AdSense Help group with publishers complaining that they have not received payment this month from Google.

Jennifer, a Google AdSense representative, confirmed that Google did not pay some publishers due to a bug of some sort. She said:

We've been monitoring this thread and I can confirm that we have an issue on our back end that is preventing some publishers from seeing payment holds on their accounts. We are working with the YouTube team to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we have been working to contact affected publishers individually. Thank you all for posting in the forum. The faster we can aggregate data on a possible bug, the faster we can fix it, and forum threads like this are hugely helpful in surfacing these issues.

We appreciate your patience, and I assure you that we hear you and are taking this issue seriously.

Jennifer makes it sound like this is just impacting YouTube partners, but I am not too sure about that.

Google is known to have made many mistakes paying publishers in the past.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Last week, I really gave it to Google hard with my post named Publishers Feeling Screwed By Google AdSense Competitive Ad Filter. In short, the complaints about the Google AdSense competitive ad filter not working had lingered on with no response from Google.

Google caught wind of the increased level of dissatisfaction from publishers and finally posted in the WebmasterWorld thread saying:

Sorry, guys. This one is entirely my bad. It's not that AdSense dropped the ball, it's that I dropped the ball.

We've been looking into it, but I haven't provided updates because I've been out of the country. I apologize for not giving you all a heads up.

I'm going to message a few of you privately to get more specifics if you don't mind providing them (for troubleshooting use only) so we can determine if there is an issue on our end.

One quick question for all of you: what method are you using to determine the destination URLs you're adding to your filter?

Okay, fine, so she/he is human and missed this thread. We forgive you. But what I find very interesting is the last line of the response. AdSenseAdvisor said:

What method are you using to determine the destination URLs you're adding to your filter?

To me, that implies that the issue is not necessarily with the competitive ad filter not working, but it not working as publishers think it should work. Publishers might be blocking URLs, thinking they are blocking a whole domain, when in fact, they are not. It seems to me, that this may be more of an issue of education then of bugs. Or maybe not?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of discussion around the AdSense code not complying with the W3C validation requirements. Some webmasters want their pages to be 100% validate, and adding this code may ruin that.

I am told the piece that invalidates the HTML is:

id="cse-search-box"

There is no word from a Google representative on this issue, yet. But I suspect we should hear soon about this. I mean, the thread is pretty active and it should be an easy fix for Google, I would suspect.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In late December, we reported that Google's AdSense Competitive Ad Filter stopped working for many publishers. Guess what, it is still not working for many of them and they are feeling very let down by Google. If you don't know what Google's competitive filter is, it basically gives publishers the functionality to block specific ads from appearing on their pages.

Successful AdSense publishers depend on the competitive filter to block out the MFAs and poor quality sites from displaying on their sites. But since late December, the filter stopped working for many. Here are some of the continued complaints in the WebmasterWorld thread:

I've managed to keep earnings up by constantly monitoring and blocking ads but my filter is filling up with garbage. Once it's full and my site visitors see nothing but crap ads and stop clicking, that's it, buh bye AdSense.

I'm with coach. This is pretty sad.

I let it go a few weeks to see what would happen- Sounded like ASA was all over it. I guess not. I tried blocking a few more today and they were already in the ad filter. Nothing can be done I guess.

I am surprised the ASA has become quiet over this. It is not as if he/she isn't aware of the problem.

Is it intentional? Is Google doing this to earn more money? They recently cut jobs and products, plus they have been spewing ads everywhere and anywhere. Time will tell.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

About a week ago, we ran a poll asking publishers how helpful they found the AdSense optimization reports, which they launched in April 2007.

The results are now in and we see that about 70% find them to be not helpful and likely a complete waste of their time and Google's time (which is automated).

Here is the breakdown of the 60+ votes:

:: AdSense optimization reports are not helpful said 43 respondents or 69.35%
:: AdSense optimization reports are somewhat helpful said 17 respondents or 27.42%
:: AdSense optimization reports are very helpful said 2 respondents or 3.23%

I guess you can't please them all. But while 70% say they are not helpful, only 3% find them to be very helpful. I guess we would like more votes, but I would guess most experienced publishers don't make changes based on those optimization reports.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense began testing AdSense optimization reports about two years ago. They officially released in in April 2007 and publishers were eager to get tips from Google. We then began noticing that the tips were not only repetitive and automated but also sometimes offering wrong tips all together.

So, now two years later, I ask you via a poll, are these optimization reports useful or helpful to you in any way?

Please take the poll, tell your publisher friends to take the poll and I'll publish the results within 30-days.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you're fat and get offended easily, don't use any service that uses Google AdSense. That's what WebmasterWorld members are spotting -- ads targeting the "fat" people of America. Apparently there's a conception that the holidays may have gotten people overweight. Or perhaps this is a way to ring in your New Year's Resolutions.

But that isn't satisfying publishers who are using Google AdSense. On top of other offensive Google AdSense ads, this isn't faring well for Google.

In reality, though, not every publisher is that disappointed in these ads. Some are considering clicking on the ads because they are looking to lose weight. Others are seeing a fair share of earnings from other clicks. It's certainly not as bad as ads featuring naked people, but it's not necessarily in the best taste for everyone.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Do people really use the Internet during the holiday season? According to the activity on Twitter yesterday, perhaps they actually do. But elsewhere on the 'net, that may not necessarily be the case. Publishers report that they get the lowest earnings during the holiday time, for the most part.

Of course, like any industry, there are always anomalies. A few publishers, but hardly the majority, report that the performance has been pretty good.

I guess I'm not too surprised.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Both Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network publishers are reporting getting payment early this month. Some suspect it is due to being closed during the normal pay period, due to the holidays. Some suspect Google and Yahoo are being nice for the holiday season. Some suspect it might have to do with making sure payment goes out before the end of their fiscal years (due they even go by the calendar year?).

We have a Google AdSense related thread at WebmasterWorld where many have reported already receiving the money in their bank accounts. We also have a Yahoo Publisher Network related thread at DigitalPoint Forums.

For whatever reason the payments are going out now, many publishers are finding it to be a nice holiday gift.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

On Friday, a number of Google AdSense publishers reported that AdSense was down. The cause was unknown and Google officially never actually volunteered more information about it.

Google AdWordsAdvisor was able to provide the publishers with information -- mostly ensuring them that Google was prioritizing the issue -- but there is no further information on behalf of Google's actual AdSense team.

AdWordsAdvisor does say, though, on a completely side point, that "In the AdWords side of the world, though, the stats that advertisers see in their account are delayed by up to three hours as a matter of course, under normal circumstances." We're not entirely sure how this factors into reporting on Google AdSense's side, but this is interesting information regardless.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld forum member who runs Google AdSense on his travel site was a bit appalled when he saw that the ads being run are of nude Asian women. He has no idea how those ads got there and is extremely disgusted that the ad was placed on his site which now makes him guilty by association.

In fact, it's causing this publisher to consider removing Google AdSense from his site altogether. The ad borders on illegality, he suspects.

It's not the first time. Another person who ran Google AdSense on a children's website discovered adult and teen gay chatroom ads on their site. When the parents complained to the publisher, the publisher claimed that it was Google's responsibility. At the end of the day, though, the parents said they'd stop visiting the website -- and that ultimately means that the publisher is really at fault. What did this publisher do? Let's put it this way: they're not using Google AdSense anymore.

The specific ads for the Asian women are likely to be just some overseas bridal program (you know, like Russian Brides). Still, the targeting is offensive and this is something Google should consider filtering further. Again, by association, the publisher gets held responsible and Google is bound to lose revenue when the publisher pulls out of the AdSense program.

AdSenseAdvisor is on the ball and is looking into it.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

The Inside AdSense blog made a big announcement yesterday saying that AdSense for Domains, the much controversial feature set that has been offered for several years to a select group of publishers, has been open to all publishers.

We suspect that this has something to do with Google's fear of the economy -- lately, with Google allowing bidding on hard liquor and beer, they certainly are becoming more lax in terms of what they can do to make a quick buck. (Some suspect that firearm ads are around the corner.) Barry highlights the various monetization opportunities that Google has become more open with, and it is obvious that Google really is trying to capitalize on a poor economy.

But he's not happy about this. With AdSense for Domains, you have a serious issue with quality. When it was just open to a few people, you found reports that people lost $20k+ to garbage traffic. The problem is that Google is indexing these domains that are severely lacking in content and are putting it under the "we want to make this a great searching experience." Some people can see through the facade and think that Google is trying to make it a great moneymaking experience instead. After all, a search drives an unsuspecting visitor to a domain with bad content but possibly relevant ads and they click on those ads, thereby making Google some serious dough if done repeatedly. One member calls this action "degrad[ing] the value of the internet."

If Google would do the right thing, it's that they'd remove these domains from searches. But chances are they really are greedy for some money. Unfortunately that's at a lot of poorer people's expense.

You better also hope that some good domains don't get taken so that publishers can make a quick buck too, but chances are we're too late for that.

As so many people say in the WebmasterWorld thread, this is Google's way of polluting the internet. This is Google's way of ignoring real concerns and introducing more problems. And people still wonder when and if Google will heed the AdSense requests made by publishers. With this low blow, we suppose not.

More sentiment follows:

Thank you, Google, for further polluting the web. Thank you, Google, for making domain names even further unavailable for real development. Thank you, Google, for strangling the online world. Thank you, Google, for not listening to us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This means that there will be more junk domains to block from my AdWords campaigns. (And I'm already blocking more than 400 useless, junk domains.)

Google tries hard to hear what we, the publishers, want. Yet in the background planned the biggest kick in the guts that I have seen for a long time. It makes a mockery of everything here.

So, Google, what do you say for yourself?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google has been rolling out integration of your AdSense data in Google Analytics since October, but many publishers still wish they had it. If you do not have it yet, you can now get it.

AdSenseAdvisor posted a WebmasterWorld thread said you can get it by going to the Inside AdSense Blog and reading the top. The top basically says:

Want to integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics? Improved reporting was on publisher wish lists this year, so we're spreading the reporting cheer this holiday season. Fill out our interest form, and we may be able to enable the feature earlier for you.

So if you want your AdSense integrated in Analytics, quickly go to the interest form and fill it out. It will then add your name to the list and you should get it soon.

AdSenseAdvisor said this is a Happy Holidays present to publishers. So take it while you can!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A AdSense Help thread has confirmed reports from Google that some (not many) publishers may have had a hold on their account for about four months due to a bug. That means, these publishers were not paid for around four months due to an issue with a specific feature of the site.

As explained by Ashley from Google:

A small number of publishers have experienced this issue, whereby their account is on phone verification hold, but they cannot see the hold in their account. However, please be assured that the issue has been resolved on your account, and a payment for your earnings up to the end of November will be issued to you at the end of this month.

It is nice that Google will be paying out what is due to this publisher, but a four month delay and nothing extra for that?

Forum discussion at AdSense Help.

Many webmasters have been complaining this past weekend about poor income earnings on Google AdSense. The mentality is that there are "terrible stats" and that the earnings are "ridiculous." Complaints range from "maybe the AdSense era is finished for me" and "soon, I'll be owing Google money from the poor return." And the timing is suspicious because we are in the midst of a holiday shopping period--regardless of the economy, earnings shouldn't be so low.

One individual has expressed sentiment that the Internet is a fad that's wearing off. That thought is repeated from a user who says that his behavior has definitely changed from when he started surfing in the beginning.

The world economy is bad, the net is maturing, people are out Christmas shopping, and my main sites cater to unnecessary travel - a real luxury at the moment that many will not even be thinking about.

I'm not over optimistic about 2009 either but think that things will start to get better in 2010.

On the other hand, maybe there's no economic correlation at all to this issue. It was suspected that maintenance may be the reason for poor earnings. n Barry's post about AdSense ads being served through DoubleClick tracking, it's thought that the maintenance was related to DoubleClick and hence the AdSense earnings are down. Maybe this is related to the new tracking tools DoubleClick can give advertisers -- or maybe not. This is not suggested in the particular thread I highlighted but it is mentioned in another WebmasterWorld thread.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Some of the Google AdSense ads have recently been served and tracked via DoubleClick. Here is a picture of me with my mouse over a Google AdSense ad from my personal blog. As you can see, the tracking URL is http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/iclk?.

We know Google was planning on using DoubleClick cookie tracking as part of them acquiring DoubleClick. So maybe this is part of this integration?

I am not the only one seeing this. A few publishers are noticing this and commenting on this at WebmasterWorld. Some suspect it has to do with the poor earnings people noticed over the weekend, which we will be writing about within the next hour or so.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

AdWordsAdvisor has replied to the WebmasterWorld thread I was tracking on Google sending out holiday gifts to advertisers and publishers. AdWordsAdvisor said Google will not be sending out gifts to advertisers and publishers like they have in the past. Why? AdWordsAdvisor say because it "is not the most appropriate gesture this year given the current global economic climate."

Are you kidding me? Just say the truth. The gesture is right, cause these publishers and advertisers earned you millions of dollars in 2008. It is just because you guys are cutting back in preparation for an incredibly horrible 2009. I am not upset that the gifts are not going out, in fact, I considered the same for my company - but I decided to just spend less this year, as opposed to cutting it out of our budget. Just be honest, tell it like it is. It is that Google is trying to save money, like the rest of the world. I do not see how it is an inappropriate gesture. In fact, it would be very appropriate to stand up as a different company and say - hey, we value the advertisers and publishers that make our business run and here is a gift, even if it is just a card, to say thank you. But to call it inappropriate? I don't buy that.

So why are some people getting gifts? Well, some people are outliers and they get Google fridges and special schwag from Google on a per company basis. But the mass holiday gift in 2008, as you can see above, has been cancelled.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

December 1st was Cyber Monday, and a lot of publishers and advertisers have seen increases in earnings per click and even in Quality Score. These are great results for publishers and advertisers, but what exactly could be the cause?

Suspicions have been set on the biggest online shopping day of the year. After all, the Monday after Thanksgiving denotes big holiday discounts and preparation for the Christmas holiday. I've seen Santa running all over the television screen, for example, and in paper ads. The media is telling you that it's a good time to shop, and the public is listening.

Of course, high clickthrough rates don't necessarily mean purchases nowadays; people are checking out reviews before they buy.

Maybe it's not as easily explained as that, but it does seem that a lot of people were experiencing the same results on 12/1 and this does make some logical sense.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A detailed WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of complaints from Google AdSense publishers about the quality of the ads.

In short, publishers are noticing that the ads are repeating themselves multiple times on the same page and the ads are less relevant and sometimes borderline spammy. Typically, Google does a relatively good job with the quality of AdSense ads. But it seems like something went out the window recently, at least according to these publishers in the thread.

AdSenseAdvisor did confirm that he/she spoke with the right people at Google about this. AdSenseAdvisor said:

After talking to AWA and others, I can tell you that your specific concerns are being heard by the right people at Google.

I won't be able to say anything more than that on this subject, but please know that the "no comment" is coming from the the right people.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Google AdSense Help.

A few weeks ago, we posted on publishers' biggest Google AdSense requests. Ever since the story ran (and beforehand as well), the thread had a lot of activity with publishers making some big requests of Google's AdSense team. Now, there's a thread asking for your 5 most important requests among the requests that have been presented.

There are about 30 requests altogether, and they are grouped into themes: nontechnical, ad appearance and action, ad filtering and viewing, ad pricing, ad managing, AdWords improvements, referrals, and stats and reports.

Today at noon Eastern, votes are being tallied, so if you want Google AdSense to change in any way, you might want to take a look at what other publishers are looking for and make sure your vote counts.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

WebmasterWorld members are reporting that Google is being stricter in accepting new publishers for Google AdSense. Your site must adhere to specific guidelines to be included. Rejection reasons include not owning the TLD of the site you are applying for Google AdSense, an active domain (6+ months of age), including personal information that is accurate, and applying from a website with original content.

Good news? Absolutely. Nobody wants to see AdSense on domains that have poor quality. But some suggest that Google should review all sites with AdSense -- yes, manually. Of course, that won't necessarily cure all issues, because I could be approved on mysite.com and still publish my ads to myothersite.com, but it can help.

In any event, most advertisers are happy that Google is finally being a little more stringent about the quality and age of the sites that advertisements are being pushed out to.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread is gathering the top 5 publisher requests to be shared with Google's AdSenseAdvisor. Forum member participation is building up, with the following requests being made thus far:

1. Ability to block more than 200 sites in the Competitive Ad Filter
2. Ability to block by keyword in domain name. The example used is that a publisher wants to block spammydomain.com and spammydomain.net -- but wants to use "spammydomain" instead of having to use up 2 slots (see #1) for the filter.
3. More advertising channels.
4. A minimum CPC option.
5. Ability to enhance blocking by phrases on the landing page
6. Ability to block ads by keyword
7. Implementation of a referral program where commissions can be granted.
8. Make the AdSense Manager easier to use

Is that all? Nope. There are more requests. A few of these requests have even been echoed by more than one publisher.

What are your topmost priorities for the Google AdSense team to consider in the upcoming future? Join the forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We have questioned if Google limits how much an AdSense publisher can earn in the past. We even ran a poll where the majority of publishers felt Google did not have a glass ceiling for AdSense earnings.

Now, a WebmasterWorld thread pulls out a quote from the new AdSenseAdvisor that Google does not cap publishers. Let me quote you:

I 100% guarantee that there are no earnings caps on AdSense accounts. I will swear it on a big stack of Google search results. No earnings caps.

That is believable to me. Do you believe it?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense had a two hour outage yesterday morning causing lots of concern amongst the publisher groups.

There are two long threads, one at Google Groups and another ad WebmasterWorld discussing the outage.

The first report came in at 4:09am (EST) Thursday morning and at about 6:44am, first reports came in that the statistics started to populate in the AdSense reports. At 1:05pm (EST), AdsenseAdvisor and AdSensePro Jennifer wrote the same message, a minute apart, at the respective forums:

There was a minor reporting issue for about 2 hours. This should be back to normal, and all data form that period will be restored.

Thanks for your patience.

Jennifer

All looks good now.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and another ad WebmasterWorld.

The other day, we reported about the concern over Google AdSense displaying political ads throughout various sites, even though the publisher did not want to push for political agendas.

Google listened and they blogged that they will be speeding up the AdSense ad filter and increasing the ability to block categories. The blog post said:

1. We plan to improve the speed of your filters, and we're working towards filters in the future that will take effect in less than an hour
2. We'll also continue improving the Ad Review Center, giving you ways to block entire categories of ads in addition to individual ads.

This announcement has made AdSense publishers pretty happy. A WebmasterWorld thread shows some of the positive feedback from publishers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

About 8 or so months ago, we reported an issue with the AdSense color picker, where it would not save the color in the manage ads area.

An updated WebmasterWorld thread seems to have AdSense publishers confirming that this is now working again. Here is the confirmation we got from a publisher just about 8 months after first reporting the issue:

This appears to be fixed now!

When you edit an ad, the current ad color settings do now show in the color options correctly, and the sample ad reflects the correct color settings.

Users should note that the Color Palettes drop-down does not reflect the current ad color settings, HOWEVER, the Color Palettes drop-down does not affect editing the ad unless you drop it down and change it.

Thanks, Google, for fixing this!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There are two very long threads in the search forums talking about how Google's AdSense ads are showing political ads on their sites. A WebmasterWorld thread and a Google Help Forum thread has discussion on why these ads are showing up.

In summary, there are thousands of publishers out there that put Google AdSense ads on their sites. Typically, the ads shown are relevant to the content of their site. But with all the politics taking place and today being election day, the ad dollars are going towards getting voters out to vote for their agenda.

The problem with this is that many publishers are not interested in supporting one candidate or proposition over another. They don't want their content or site to be discussing the hotly debated topic of politics, especially at this time. But at the same time, it is almost impossible for them to shut these ads off - without taking down the ads completely, which is costly. The publishers just want a way to turn off political ads.

The same thing actually happened to me yesterday. When I announced the Election Day theme here at the Search Engine Roundtable, people commented that my ads might convey that I am voting for McCain over Obama or I might be voting for a certain proposition over another.

By the way, here is our theme for Election Day (do go vote):

If you take a look at the contextual ads on my blog, you will notice that my request for people to vote, has sparked ads for McCain. Here are two sample ads, one from Microsoft ContentAds and one from Google AdSense:

Some publishers have taken the extreme of losing two days of online advertising income due to not wanting to have their site support A over B.

Should Google and other contextual ad programs offer publishers a way to opt out of political ads?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Help Forum.

In a Google Groups thread, AdWordsPro.Sarah tells us that there will be a new forum opening on November 5th .

The new forums will boast user posting incentives, integration with the help center, enhanced user profiles (personalization with social -- photos too!), rich text posting, and video capability.

Meanwhile, the Google AdSense team reports that they, too, have started a new forum, and it's already available. Here's the link and here's an interactive feedback forum that complements it, where you can report bugs with the specific forums.

Google Chrome is also changing its home, according to another Google Groups post. There's no date on this launch, but with the AdSense forum debut, it looks promising for all Google Help properties.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums, Google Groups (AdWords), and Google Groups (Chrome).

Yesterday, several Google AdSense publishers and I got this email. I never get anything from Google AdSense, so I found it interesting that they cared. Here's a snippet:

We understand that the recent economic turmoil has created a lot of uncertainty in the lives of AdSense publishers. During these difficult times, we're continuing to invest in innovations that improve publisher monetization and advertiser value in the content network.

We're focusing on further developing our product offerings and boosting ad performance for publishers. We recently announced advancements in AdSense for search and experiments to make ads more effective. We're bringing DoubleClick technologies to AdSense publishers, and we'll continue to launch new products and features. We're also continuing to improve our offerings for AdWords advertisers, making it easier for them to target the Google content network. Features for advertisers, such as the new display ad builder, are designed to improve ad performance on AdSense publisher sites.

We'll keep driving technological progress, but our best asset will always be our publisher partners. The strength of AdSense lies in the value of the content you bring to users and the quality of the sites you bring to advertisers. Our success is tied to yours. We look forward to partnering with you for the long term, and remain dedicated to helping you succeed.

Why now? The economy has taken a turn for the worst, or so many people think, and Google wants to assure us that they are innovating and that things will be fine with our Google AdSense accounts. But it's also a way for Google to keep the relationship with publishers close to their hearts and let us know that they value us.

Plus, Google wants our continued business!

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums

I am shocked this happened once again! Just a month ago, Google messed up and paid out Indian based AdSense publishers the wrong amount, a lesser amount, due to exchange rate conversion issues. Yes, they went back and paid the difference to those publishers, but now I am hearing new reports of these same Indian based publishers being paid the wrong amount again!

A WebmasterWorld and Google Groups thread reports Google is paying out a 1:1 rate of the US dollar to the Indian Rupee. Yes, the current exchange rate is $1 US to 49.660 INR - again, major difference.

So this is the fourth time, that I found, Google messing up paying their publishers. First time was with Australian publishers back in December 2007, then with Canadian publishers in early September (August pay period), then with Indian publishers last month and now again with Indian publishers.

This might be just a reporting glitch but it is a major scare for publishers to see something like this, yet again! What happened to three strikes and you are out?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups.

Update: They have fixed the issue, and have used the rate of 49.780 : 1, which is reported the "highest ever."

But we are also having complaints about the conversion rate Google is using in the UK and in Canada.

A WebmasterWorld thread is bashing the video Google AdSense unit. Many AdSense publishers call this unit earn nothing or next to nothing with this unit. The question is, is the forum bias or is it true?

Please do comment below but also take our poll. Which Google AdSense unit is the worst performing unit you are running?

I left out referrals because those have been discontinued. Looking forward to the responses.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday we reported about a new type of Google AdSense ad. I wasn't sure if it was new, and even one commentator added another option, that the ad could be an image ad.

In any event, today, I spotted a unique type of ad via DigitalPoint Forums. The ad seems to be a Google AdSense ad, but it looks like a specialized coupon formatted ad. Here is a picture of the ad:

Now, this too can be an image ad, but for some reason, I think this might be an interesting test by Google. Maybe Google will be releasing Google Coupon Ads from AdSense? I have no evidence of this, but I can speculate, can't I?

Forum discussion DigitalPoint Forums.

I am often very reluctant to show some of the threads I find discussing new Google AdSense ad formats. But this one, might be new or might be an extension of Google Gadget Ads, I am not sure. Having said that, let me show you what I found.

A DigitalPoint Forums member posted a screen shot of this Google ad.

Is this a new AdSense format? I am not sure, but it does look unusual. A few options:

(1) Google is testing a new ad format.
(2) This is a Google Gadget Ad
(3) This is a fake, photoshoped ad.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

First go read Greg Sterling's write up at Search Engine Land named Location in the Browser: What Does It Mean?

Now that you read that, you will realize that the implication of Google adding geolocation capabilities to your desktop browser can be huge. The Geolocation API can run on any browser that has Google Gears and automatically will run on Android and Google's browser, Chrome.

Google currently knows your approximate location for when you do searches only via IP data, personalized search data or other, less exact methods. But now, if the browser can detect wifi locations and/or cell towers, Google will know where you are, almost to your exact location. GPS is supported, but most laptops or desktops do not have GPS devices built in yet (yes, yet).

The reaction to this from advertisers and searchers are split. A WebmasterWorld thread has advertisers excited that Google's geolocation capabilities will be able to target their ads better. But searchers are not yet 100% comfortable with Google knowing their exact whereabouts, at all times while using Google properties. Personally, I am not about privacy - I actually am considering wearing a GPS enabled device with me at all time to track me where ever I go and then publish that data on my personal web site. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

As we expected, Google Analytics has integrated with Google AdSense. An AdSense blog post contains the details on how to hook up your AdSense account with your Analytics account - I personally tried this and I am unable to do so. As Google said, "this feature is not yet available to all our publishers, but please keep checking your account for an invitation." In any event, AdSense publishers are extremely happy about this new feature. Here is a video on how it works:

Now, this is not the only additional feature in the new Analytics. Google also added or is adding:

• Advanced Segmentation
• Custom Reports
• Motion Charts
• New Account Management Dashboard
• The Data Export API
• Integrated Reporting with AdSense

Forum discussion at:

• Google Integrates Adsense , Cre8asite Forums
• Google Analytics AdSense Integration, WebmasterWorld
• Google Analytics New Features Announced, HighRankings Forums
• Integrate Google Analytics with Adsense, DigitalPoint Forums

In September, we ran a poll asking Does Google Limit The Amount AdSense Publishers Can Earn?

The majority of respondents don't believe so. 57% do not believe in a ceiling, while 28% do and 15% said that the ceiling applies to only select publishers.

Personally, I doubt there is any ceiling for 99% of the publishers. I would not be surprised if there were special agreements with some publishers that may limit the amount some can earn - but that is just a wild guess.

Here is the breakdown of the results:
:: No AdSense Glass Ceiling said 38 respondents or 57%
:: Yes AdSense Glass Ceiling said 19 respondents or 28%
:: Some AdSense Glass Ceilings said 10 respondents or 15%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 14th.

In late September, we ran a poll asking AdSense publishers if they are earning more or less than the previous year. The results are now in and honestly, don't tell us much.

Most said they earn more but just about the same number of respondents said they are earning less.

Here is the break down:
:: Earning More said 49 respondents or 42%
:: Earning Less said 43 respondents or 37%
:: About the Same said 19 respondents or 16%
:: Other answer said 5 respondents or 4%

So the results are pretty much all over the place.

Tamar covered the question on if the economic downturn is hurting publishers or not. We have added a new poll to that thread, so please participate!

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 14th.

Are you a Google AdSense publisher who has taken a hit from the recession? A few forum threads, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at DigitalPoint Forums, discuss the impact of the economic crisis on money earned through the Google AdSense program. What have publishers noted?

Some publishers haven't observed a thing. The behavior is expected with no indications of decline. On the other hand, though, there are a few publishers who have spotted some decline, though they have no idea about whether to attribute the financial crisis to it. Some have seen reduced click-throughs, and a small percentage of folks are actually making more money.

Where are you at?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 14th.

Michael VanDemar blogged about apparent Google AdSense insensitivity as it relates to the recession. He says that there's a possibility for the suicide rate to skyrocket, just like it did in the Great Depression. Thus, he's a little disturbed by a Google AdSense ad for Woot.com which said the following:

"Before you jump out of
that window, why not spend your
last remaining dollars at Woot?"

Naturally, Michael has found that quite offensive and tasteless, and many users agree. It's possible, though, that Google missed this one for removal. I think it may be questionable, but I understand the sarcasm in Woot's usual marketing messages and this is no exception.

Should it be removed? You tell me. Take the poll.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn. And a hat tip to Gary for spotting this as well.

Google is on march to make sure to continue monetizing searches in any way possible. This time, Google has added AdSense to Google Maps, in some cases. This was reported at Search Engine Land, Digital Inspiration and Bloggle first. Let me take you through it.

Doing a search for my corporate address returns a map of my location, with businesses listed on the left hand side. If you click on a business, let's say the first dental one, Google then displays a small single line ad (AdSense like) to the bottom of the map. Here is a picture:

The ad shows a relevant dental ad. But sometimes you do not need a business address, sometimes an ad for office space might come up. It has in my case.

This seems to be a test right now, so we will see how long this lasts.

Google has been testing and posting local ads for a while now. For more on local business ads at Google, see here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Stick and ad here, an ad there, and how about an ad up there, or maybe in your games? That's right, Google finally announced the beta launch of AdSense for Games. More details about the ads can be found at google.com/ads/games and you can request to be in the beta program over here. You must have at least 500,000 game plays and have 80% of their traffic from the U.S. or the U.K.

We knew this was coming when Google bought AdScape back in February 2007.

Here is a video that helps explain things:

Are we going to be seeing a how new slew of Flash based game spam?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums and more blog discussion at Techmeme.

In January of this year, we wrote about The Impact of the Dollar Exchange Rates on Google AdSense. Then, Google AdSense publishers were upset that they were earning less due to exchange rate issues.

But now with the stronger dollar, relative to the euro, publishers are rejoicing.

A WebmasterWorld thread has many Europeans sounding happy. Here is one post:

Wow! The euro is now trading close to $1.35, which is lower than it has been for quite some time. Since many europeans have seen their adsense-bourne profits evaporate due to the strong euro vs the low dollar, this should be great news for all euro-publishers :) Just wanted to share this piece of good news.

Now, to clarify. The US Dollar is strengthening against the Euro not because of a solid US economy. It is because of a scary European economy. The powerful currency of choice, these days, would likely be the Yen. Anyway, I am not an economist - so let's keep it at that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It is not uncommon to see a Google AdSense ad with either one big ad from a single advertiser or many ads from multiple advertisers. But why would Google decide to ever show only one ad, as opposed to many?

That was the topic of a Google Groups thread where Google AdSense representative, Ashley, responded with the answer.

She said that these single ads are called "expanded text ads" and can be displayed in either a placement-targeted or a keyword-targeted text ad. Now, placement-targeted text ads always expand to fill the entire ad unit. However, keyword-targeted text ads may or may not show a single ad - it depends on if Google determines that "a larger ad will perform better for a particular page," said Ashley.

This post was pre-written and scheduled to be automatically posted today.

Hundreds of Google AdSense publishers cannot login to their AdSense accounts right now. Derek Chew showed me that when he tried, he ends up at a URL that looks like this https://www.google.com/adsense/legacylogincallback. The error when you land at that page is "UsernamePasswdNotMatch." I personally can login to my account, but many cannot.

We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld discussing the issue.

First reports came in at about 1:07pm (EST) today and the issue seems to have lingered on for many, until at least the time of this post.

There is no official word from Google on this login issue. I do see several threads at Google Groups the AdSense forum, with complaints.

One user said the trick is to first login to Gmail and then try logging into AdSense. Give it a try.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Update: At about 3pm (EST), an official Google representative wrote that they are aware of the issue. She said the issue should be fixed within minutes. But then a few minutes later told people to use the workaround, which is to login to a different Google service using the your Google Account (Gmail, Google Reader, Orkut, etc), you should be able to access your AdSense account just by going to www.google.com/adsense.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a three page thread on the topic of Google messing up yet again with the exchange rate given to publishers. This time Google equated one US dollar to one Indian Rupee. The true current exchange rate is $1 US to 46.555 INR. Yes, a huge difference.

The main questions Indian AdSense publishers are asking themselves are:

(1) Is this just a reporting glitch?
(2) If not, how long will it take for them to get the difference they are owed?

We have seen this happen in the past. First with Australian publishers and then with Canadian publishers, every time - it benefited Google.

I know the US dollar is at risk, but $1 US to 1 INR?

Honestly, don't panic, I am sure Google will make things right.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Google is aware of it and will let us know what they will do to fix the issue.

Are you making more money with Google AdSense in 2008 then you did in 2007? That is the question asked at a WebmasterWorld thread.

The answers are pretty much across the board, with only several responses. I figured, since we have a large AdSense publisher readership, that I ask you. So take the poll below:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever since Google launched their AdSense contextual ad program, publishers had a theory that Google had a cap on how much publishers can make. Some believe the cap is a certain dollar amount, some believe it is an equation based on percentages and some don't believe in this cap, at all.

A WebmasterWorld thread has recent discussion around the AdSense Glass Earnings Ceiling theory. If you read the thread, some swear by Google instituting a cap of some kind, while others said they never experiences such a cap. The seniority of members who believe in the cap are mixed also, so who really knows?

Let's poll our audience, do you believe in the cap?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The New York Times has a story about an AdSense/AdWords arbitrageur, a webmaster who makes money off getting visitors to his site through AdWords to have them click on his AdSense ads. The story is named Stuck in Google's Doghouse, where Dan Savage who runs SourceTool.com has sent a nine-page, 4,000-word letter to the antitrust division of the Justice Department over Google's business practices.

We have discussed the topic of arbitrage in this sense, even before it was coined that in the SEM world. But in May 2007, when Google decided to shut down arbitrageurs from what some may call, sucking the life of of the search results, it had a major hit for many small website operators. Including Dan Savage who made his money on making a few pennies of profit on those clicks.

Every since Google introduced the landing page quality score components, advertisers have been complaining big time. I wrote a pretty good summary of the history behind these AdWords Slaps in July, so you can read up about it over there. In short, while advertisers may have been paying $0.10 per click to get traffic, they may now be paying $10.00 for the same click, due to "quality score" factors that rose their bids.

Dan Savage is calling this move as monopolistic, at least in his case.

Google, he believed, didn’t like his Web directory because it was a search engine itself — though much more narrowly focused than Google’s search engine — and Google found it a competitive threat.

What’s more, Sourcetool competed directly with business.com, which was one of Google’s “content network partners,” meaning it gets additional advertising revenue because Google directs AdWords ads to the site as well as AdSense ads.

My thoughts? I am torn. I honestly don't think Google is going after business they find to be competitive. Heck, we see Yahoo advertising on Google, Ask.com advertising on Google and visa versa. But I do believe Google went after "arbitrageurs" because they felt the quality of those ads and results lead to a poor search experience. That is my thoughts and I can be wrong.

The debate is pretty wild in some of the forum threads:

• Is Google A Monopoly And Doesn't Know It?, The NY Times explores, Cre8asite Forums
• Adword Arbitrageur fights back?, WebmasterWorld
• NYT: Stuck in Google’s Doghouse, DigitalPoint Forums
• NY Times Background Story on DOJ AntiTrust Investigation, WebmasterWorld

Recently, there have been many complaints about the exchange rate used in Canada by Google to payout AdSense publishers. A DigitalPoint Forums thread says the rate was 1 to 1, calling the US dollar equal to the Canadian dollar. Plus, Google charges a fee on top of that, according to the thread.

But it seems like Google is making a change to that Canadian exchange rate.

Both the DigitalPoint Forums and a WebmasterWorld thread said Google has sent out a notification to Canadian AdSense publishers that the exchange rate will be changed.

The email sent to these publishers said Google used an "incorrect exchange rate" for Canada. The WebmasterWorld post said:

Did anyone else receive a notice from Adsense about being issued a payment with an incorrect exchange rate? Apparently they're going to issue another payment to correct this. I remember that this happened before last spring and they recalled a whole bunch of EFT payments and reissued the corrected versions immediately. I'm in Canada, by the way.

This is not the first time Google reissued payment due to exchange rate issues. Google inverted the Australian exchange rate and had to reissue payments in the past. Plus, often publishers complain about the exchange rate Google uses.

Forum discussion DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that many publishers have started to notice that their Google AdSense ads are not showing up when someone accesses their pages via the Google cache.

For example, a recent Google cache copy of my personal blog does not show the AdSense ad at the top right of my blog. It simply does not render on the page. Typically, it would show to the right of the linkedin logo.

Some theories are that it is related to the Allowed Sites AdSense feature, but I don't use that for my personal blog. Others just think it is a temporary Google bug. Time will tell.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's ad serving tool, Google Ad Manager (google.com/admanager/), which launched as a beta in March is now open to all publishers. If you are a publisher using OpenAds, OpenX, phpAdsNew or a similar product, you may want to strongly consider switching to this free hosted platform.

I personally use it on this site and I have incredibly happy with Google Ad Manager for a long time. Why? (1) I don't have to worry about my server hosting the ads, (2) I don't have to patch it for hackers, (3) I don't have to pay for extra server capacity and bandwidth and (4) it is easy to use.

If you are interested in giving it a shot, I strongly suggest you use my tutorial named How To Set Up Google Ad Manager On Your Site or Blog to get started. Google Ad Manager has a ton of features, but my tutorial should get you started and then, you can explore the other features.

Why is Google providing a free hosted ad serving tool?

(1) To get more publishers using AdSense, because they make it incredibly easy to rotate AdSense ads with direct ads.
(2) To get metrics and data from larger publishers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums.