Enhancing the new AdSense interface and retiring the older version

Over the past months, we’ve been working to improve the new AdSense interface and develop features that provide you with additional insights, control, and efficiency. Beyond the visual redesign, some of the new features only available in the new interface include multi-dimension reporting, reporting by country and platform, and search functionality in the Ad review center.







We’ve also heard your feedback on features from the older interface that you wanted to see in the newer version. In response, we’ve recently rolled out top-requested features like the ability to create scheduled reports and view channels on the Home tab.







While we’ve been investing in new features within the new interface, we’ve also been discussing our plans to move away from the older version. With that in mind, we’ll be retiring the old interface in mid-November. We’re continuing to focus on building new functionality into the new interface, and are excited about the additional improvements we plan to deliver.







If you haven’t already, we recommend switching to the new interface as soon as possible to familiarize yourself with the updated layout and new features. To do so, sign in and click the 'Try the new AdSense interface' link in the upper corner of your account. We understand that this adjustment may take some time, so you'll still be able to toggle back and forth between the two interfaces during the coming weeks. To address a common question we’ve heard, switching to the new interface won’t affect your ad targeting or earnings in any way.

In the meantime, we encourage you to watch our video tutorials, which will guide you through completing common tasks in the new interface. You can also find detailed information in our Help Center for the new interface.







Thanks for all the feedback you’ve provided about the new interface -- please do keep the suggestions coming. We appreciate your patience during this transition, and look forward to continuing to improve the new AdSense interface to meet your needs.







Posted by Waqas Anjum - AdSense Product Manager

Edit and schedule saved reports in the new interface

We’re happy to let you know about a recent improvement to the new AdSense interface, developed based on your requests for additional efficiency when managing your account -- you can now edit and schedule saved reports. This feature allows you to set up custom reports that will be automatically emailed to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.







When viewing a report in your account, you can select the ‘Save report’ button above the graph and select your preferences. If you need to edit the report or change the scheduling settings, just click ‘Manage’ next to the Saved reports section in the navigation bar.

If you’ve been using saved reports in the old interface, please know that we’re working on a tool to help you easily import these saved reports into the new interface. We’ll be sure to let you know when it becomes available -- you’re welcome to re-create them in the meantime, but you may wish to wait for this tool.



We hope with the launch of these features, you’ll be able to better customize the way you analyze and receive information about your ad performance. Let us know what you think!


Posted by Simon Bowden and Louis Collard - AdSense Engineering

+1: Now making Display ads more relevant

Earlier today we announced several exciting new additions to Google+, including open signups.  We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdSense publishers, +1 on the Google Display Network.







Starting in October, the +1 button will begin to appear on display ads on your site. With a single click, people will now be able to endorse specific ads and make them more likely to appear to their social connections.  We believe that these recommendations could lead your readers to notice ads on your site more, leading to more clicks and higher returns for you over time.







For example, take Susan, who sees an ad for a good deal on flights.  She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value this deal. Now, when Susan’s friends and contacts are signed in to their Google accounts, they’ll be able to see Susan’s picture across the bottom of the ad, with a note saying she +1’d it.

The +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads.

Susan’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. While the dynamics of our ad auction aren’t changing, the ad will now be included in the auction for the pages Susan’s friends visit, as we know recommendations from friends can be a strong signal of an ad’s relevance.







+1’s will be one additional signal that help determine an ad’s relevance. All eligible ads will continue to compete in the ad auction, and we’ll continue to show the ones that will generate the most revenue for you. +1 button clicks are not counted as clicks on ads. Although you won’t receive any revenue for +1 button clicks, +1’s will help AdSense to deliver more useful ads to your users, which we think will result in higher returns over time.

On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.

The +1 button will begin to appear on AdSense for content and AdSense for mobile content display ad formats--image, animated gif, and Flash ads. If you’d prefer not to allow the use of +1 features and social annotations on display ads on your pages, you can opt out starting today by signing in to your account at google.com/adsense.







Display ads become much more powerful when people can see which of their connections have chosen to endorse them, leading to a better advertising experience and higher returns for you.





If you’d like to learn more about the +1 button on display ads, please visit the AdSense Help Center.

Network Sourcing

Over the last two years crowd sourcing has been a hot topic for a lot of marketing agencies, either positive in case of gathering more interesting ideas from a wide range of free-lancing type talent, or negative in case of clients who avoid paying high fees to agencies by using crowd-sourcing tools to get free ideas.

Interestingly enough, most marketing organizations have misunderstood and misused the concept of crowd sourcing. Instead of using the underlying philosophy and related tools to leverage the internal resources that are quite often spread across tens or hundreds of offices, they perceive it either as a cost efficient way to collect ideas or as a revenue threatening danger utilized by clients. The real power of crowd sourcing can be leveraged when it is understood as network-sourcing to truly build a globally connected organization. This requires a few ingredients:

• Put a clear brief, tight timeline, and a democratic evaluation system in the center of the network sourcing assignment that is distributed to a manageable number of people in the organization’s network. More is not always better.
• Balance the drive for great ideas with the benefit of utilizing network sourcing as a tool to virtually bring together a normally poorly connected network of physically separated offices. Network-sourcing is both about idea generation and building a connected organization.
• Celebrate the winning ideas in a public forum to show the power of the marketing agency as an exciting virtual network that is better than just the sum of all the different global locations
• Slowly learn of how this “Closed loop network” can be opened up to some external players without diminishing the focus on the integrating powers of the network-sourcing

The principles of crowd-sourcing will become increasingly a strong approach of how to join large marketing organizations together against one common challenge and brief without the high travel and communication costs and frictions that we have been used to.

Waqas Anjum

More CTR (Click Thru Ratio) means more clicks on your Google Ads. But, is CTR all about position and colors of your ads? No! It's a lot more than that. CTR also depends upon the quality of traffic, relevancy of ads, and even the subject of your website. Let's get in detail:

Do you own a High CTR website?  

Yes! CTR varies from Industry to industry too. It depends upon the keywords you are using to make your web page. It has been observed that more technical the topic is (but not necessarily) less CTR it will give you (for example Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Network - exceptions are always there), but still works if the Ad content is well written.



However, this is only one condition; there are many undiscovered conditions that affect the CTR of keywords. At times, a particular season also has an effect on the performance of keywords. For example family of 'Turkey recipe' keyword is more active around November and December only and a quite sluggish rest of the year. It becomes really necessary to study the behavior of keywords before starting a massive website of Adsense around a topic.

Your Ad Position and Color: Old, but very effective

Google heat map helps improve the CTR (Clicks Thru Ratio) of your website by suggesting you the most converting areas for your Adsense Ads. You can have a glance at the Google's Survey that illustrates the ideal placements of ads on your web page.

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html#17954

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html#17954

https://www.google.com/support/adsense

/bin/static.py?page=tips.html#17954

Darker the area, better will be the performance of your ads. Your visitor tends to click on these darker areas more often than the other areas of the web page. Ads placed near rich content usually do well because users are focused on those areas of your web page. For example, on pages where users are typically focused on reading an article, ads placed directly below the concluding part of high quality content tend to perform well, as the visitors are left with no other choice except clicking the Ad block.

Get Targeted Traffic - The Most Essential Part

Traffic that is interested in your content (also called targeted traffic) is interested in your ads too. Thus, there is every likelihood that your ads will be clicked more frequently. Targeted traffic means more CTR, more earnings, and enhanced ad convertibility. On the other hand, the untargeted visitors are not interested either in your content or your ads, so keep your website's traffic targeted.



You can gather highly targeted traffic for your website by web promotion strategy and effective optimization of your web page structure. Effective web promotion strategy requires an appropriate Anchor text and more back links from relevant websites. And, to develop an effective web page structure, you have to optimize your Title Text, internal linking of your website, and most importantly your web content, in the best possible manner.

Choose the Right Anchor Text for Back Link Campaigns

Choosing the right anchor text for back links promotes your website to the traffic you exactly need from the search engines. Choose the Anchor text that directly speaks to your visitors and pulls the traffic that your web page requires. Targeted traffic results in increased CTR of ads. It helps promote your website to that segment of traffic, which is precisely searching for your content (or you can say the traffic that is most profitable to you). Targeting irrelevant keyword reduces your CTR by gathering the traffic which is not interested in your content or ads.

Wisely Choose the Title Text of Your Web Page

Title text of your webpage appears in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) as the Title link to your web page. Therefore, it is the title Text that directly speaks to the surfer on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) about your content's theme. It acts like a Free Advertisement Link to your website. If your title text does not interest the surfer, you lose considerable amount of much-needed traffic. Figure out a Title text that directly communicates with your potential visitors, brings targeted traffic, and enhances the CTR of your AdSense Ads. Don't overdo your title text, and use less than ten keywords in your title text.

Help Google Detect the Theme of Your Web Page

There are many on-page and off-page elements that affect your ad relevancy. Better targeted ads increase both your CTR and EPC. Here is how to optimize your ads:

Meta Tags

If there is NO CONTENT on your web page, the Google Mediabot will consider the Meta Tags while displaying ads. Meta tags have a considerable affect on the relevancy of your ads. It is advised never to leave this space empty. Also, try to make it as easy as possible for Mediabot to understand the theme of your web page.

Title Text

Google Mediabot gives good weightage to the keywords used in the Title text, which in turn gets reflected in your ads. Choose effective keywords for your Title text. Even the order of words in a keyword can affect the ads that are appearing on your web page. So, choose your keywords wisely.

Headings

Google Mediabot gives importance to the Heading text enclosed in

Boost Relevancy Artificially - Use Google's Section Targeting

Now, you can enhance Ad relevancy by using Google's Section targeting. Using this technique you can advise Google mediabot about the areas of your content which should be considered or ignored while matching the Ads with your content.



For more information on the same topic, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371



For more information on the same topic, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371

For more information on the same topic, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense

/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371

Use Channels for Analyzing Your Ads' Performance

Try to relate your traffic logs with your CTR stats. You will get to know which Traffic source is giving you what CTR. This will help you recognize the traffic segment which is most converting for your website. Channels allow you to analyze your ads' performance, so that you can pin point the changes that your website needs to boost your AdSense income. There are two types of channels available - URL Channels and Custom Channels. You can use the URL channel to track your performance, without modifying your Ad code. Through URL channels, you can analyze the performance of individual page or a group of pages, based on the directory system of your website.

Custom channels can help you measure the performance of different Ad formats presented in your web pages. And, by pasting channel-specific ad code into your pages, you can track CTR, Impressions, number of clicks each individual ad format is generating, and compare its performance with other web pages.

Block Junk Websites and Competitor Websites from Showing Ads

There are many junk websites that might be displaying ads on your website. These websites steal the traffic from your website and recycle it on their own Adsense ad blocks. Recognize such websites and stick them in Adsense Competitive Ad filter. Also, you can block your competitor websites using this competitive filter.



This trick can sometimes double or triple your Adsense income, augment user experience, and makes look your Google ads more genuine. For more information about this tool, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=21593&ctx=sibling



This trick can sometimes double or triple your Adsense income, augment user experience, and makes look your Google ads more genuine. For more information about this tool, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=21593&ctx=sibling

This trick can sometimes double or triple your Adsense income, augment user experience, and makes look your Google ads more genuine. For more information about this tool, visit:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense

/bin/answer.py?answer=21593&ctx=sibling

 you trawl through the AdSense message boards you can’t help but come across tales of woe from AdSense publishers that have had their account banned by Google.

Below is a list of ways people have been banned from AdSense and information on how to avoid it happening to you.

Don’t click on your own ads

The obvious one but still people do it. Google has the IP address of the computer/s that you’ve used to create and check your AdSense account. If it sees that this IP address clicks one of your ads you’re in trouble.

Don’t do it. It’s theft. Not from Google but from the AdWords advertisers.

If you want to go to a site advertised by one of your ads don’t click on it look at the URL of the advertising site at the bottom of the ad and type it into your browser.

If you click on one accidentally (which does happen) you’re probably be ok but it’s worth dropping a quick email to Google with an explanation and apology

Don’t log in to AdSense from a shared computer.

As I said above Google keeps a record of every machine IP address used to look at your account. If you check your stats on a machine then someone else clicks on your ads from the same machine Google sees this as click fraud. Worth bearing in mind when thinking of checking your stats from somewhere like an Internet Café.

Don’t log in to your AdSense account from work.

Apart from getting in trouble with the company that employs you there’s also a further real risk. Most companies use a proxy server to access the Internet. A proxy server with ONE IP ADDRESS. Therefore you checking your ads from work means this proxy IP address being recorded by Google as one that you use. Problem is if there are 1000 people in your company it is the same IP address for them too. Google can’t differentiate between you and the other 999 employees in your company. If one of these 999 clicks on one of your ads it’s ban time.

Don’t get into a ‘I’ll click your ads if you click mine’ agreement with another Webmaster.

As above Google will have your IP address and that of every AdSense publisher. If they see these IP addresses consistently clicking on each other ads it’s goodbye for both of you.

Don’t tell friends and family.

Telling friends and family about your money making websites can lead to problems. Even if you tell them not to click on your ads there’s always the chance that Auntie Maud will think it’s a good idea to make some extra money for her favourite nephew. 100 clicks later from the same visitor and your account is screaming ‘Click Fraud’.

Receiving clicks from illegal traffic

Check the AdSense TOS for sources of traffic that aren’t allowed by Google. These include methods like Traffic exchange, PTC advertising, Auto surf etc.

Do monitor your visitor and AdSense figures

Check your account at least once a day. If you see a massive spike coupled with a massive increase in Page CTR investigate using your visitor stats website. If you see it’s all come from the same IP address you could have been the victim of a malicious attack – inform Google via email and offer them access to your logs.