Inside AdSense: July 2013

The responsive web + AdSense

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

We know one of the biggest challenges publishers currently face is designing websites that adapt to different screen sizes, resolutions and user experiences. You’ve been asking for responsive ad units to help you deliver the best possible user experience on your pages, and we’ve listened to your feedback. Today, we’re happy to share that responsive ad units are now available as a beta feature alongside our recently released asynchronous tag.

The new responsive ad units allow you to support a wide range of devices by working with your responsive design web pages. You can now dynamically specify the size of the ad that will be served, adapting it to fit the way your site renders a page on a particular device.

As this is still a beta feature, here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

Be sure to specify fixed pixel values when setting the width and height of the ad to be served.
Make sure that the specified width and height match one of our supported ad sizes. Please note that link unit sizes aren’t supported at the moment.
The new ad code is responsive on initial page load only. Subsequent changes to the ad size, such as a screen orientation change, will not cause a new ad to be displayed. We know that this is an important feature for many of you and we’re currently working to address this.
Always set a default ad size in case some media queries aren’t supported.

Step 1 - create a responsive ad unit

Step 2 - modify the sample CSS media queries in the new ad code

More detailed examples and steps to get started can be found in our Help Center. If you’d like to know more about responsive design, have a look at our Google Developers resource.

Thanks for all of your feedback on responsive web design to date. Please do continue to share your suggestions so we can keep improving AdSense for you. Watch this space for more news and updates in the near future!

Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager
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Get the most up-to-date data on your account with local time zone reporting

Thursday, July 25, 2013

We know that access to the most up-to-date data on your account is important in understanding how it’s performing on a daily basis. Up to now, we’ve reported your daily earnings based on Pacific Standard Time (PST). Over the next couple of weeks however, you’ll be able to view your daily earnings based on your local time zone, giving you the latest information.

You can set up your time zone reporting preferences from your account in a few quick steps. From the Account information section on your Account settings page, a field now exists for time zone information where you can select your preferred local time setting. When you update your time zone preferences, you can expect to see some anomalies in your local earnings data for that day. Depending on your local time zone, you’ll either see a reduction or a spike based on whether the change means you are gaining or losing hours - keep an eye out for a notification in your account on this. It’s important to note that this does not affect your payments data which will always remain in PST.

When you update your time zone preferences, your existing saved and scheduled reports will be migrated to your preferred time zone automatically while future reports will also be based on your indicated preference. Updating your time zone preference will only affect your earnings data going forward and does not apply retrospectively.

Learn more about time zone reporting in our Help Center and make sure you’re getting the most up-to-date earnings data on your account.

Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager
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Boost your website performance using tips from our experts

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Google Analytics can be an incredibly valuable source of information for AdSense publishers, and today we’re announcing a new way for you to use those insights to improve your site’s performance. Google Analytics has created a data sharing setting to give you the option to let our optimization specialists proactively analyze your Analytics account data to find new ways for you to grow your business online. We’ll help you understand how people find your site, how they navigate through it, and how they become loyal users - and we’ll help you take advantage of Analytics features like Content Experiments to help you determine the most optimal layout for your site.

If you’ve linked your AdSense account with Analytics, opt in to the Account specialists data sharing setting under the Account Settings tab. Then we’ll be able to build targeted recommendations to help you improve the user experience on your site and monetize with AdSense more effectively.

Additionally, if you want to help make our other products work better for content publishers like yourself, you can opt in to the existing With other Google products setting under the same Account Settings tab. Sharing your Analytics data with other Google products can help us create new publisher solutions to achieve your website goals. For example, AdWords could recommend more effective keywords based on an understanding of how users behave on your site or AdSense could suggest more effective ad placements.

You can find full instructions for updating your Analytics settings in the Analytics Help Center.

Update your Analytics settings

Your website data will not be used for any purposes other than those that you specify in your settings, which you may change at any time. If you haven’t linked your AdSense account with Analytics, you can learn more about using Analytics with AdSense in our Help Center.

Finally, to receive more targeted optimization tips, make sure you’re opted into Performance Suggestions in your AdSense email preferences. We look forward to helping you grow your site!

Posted by Anitra Appa - AdSense Optimization Specialist
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Introducing favicons to our text ads

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

We’re constantly thinking about how we can make our ad formats better for you, your users and the advertisers appearing on your pages. Today we’re happy to share the introduction of favicons to our text ads. A favicon is a small graphic that an advertiser can use to brand their website, such as their company logo.

We regularly experiment with small changes to the look of our text ads, measuring the potential impact on user experience and publisher earnings. Our experiments show that adding these favicons to the ads makes advertisers more recognizable to your users, which benefits both you and the advertisers whose ads appear on your sites.

We’d love to hear your thoughts -- feel free to share your feedback about this new look for text ads on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Mohamad Ayyash - AdSense Software Engineer
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Google+ helps over 1.6 million Guardian followers read (and share and debate and post) all about it

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

While the Guardian started back in 1821 as a black-and-white-and-read-all-about-it newspaper, today it’s evolved into a global entity that’s pioneering a multi-platform, digital-first approach. In this context, the Guardian champions a unique, open model of journalism, built upon the notion that the open exchange of information, ideas and opinion can bring about change.

Given this philosophy, it comes as no surprise that social media plays a central and growing role in the brand’s work. Google+ offered the opportunity for the Guardian to reach and connect with both users of Guardian.co.uk and new potential readers. Now with over 1.6 million followers, the Guardian’s Google+ page is aimed at creating a conversation around the Guardian’s content, reaching new audiences, and finding out more about readers and their interests.

The team posts different types of content (video, photos, text, front pages) and items from different sections as a way of seeing what their Google+ audience responds to. Science and technology stories are particularly popular among their readers, as well as world news topics and hot political stories. According to the Guardian, the Google+ feature Ripples has proved extremely useful in tracking the life cycle of posts and helping to identify key influencers.

In addition, the Hangouts functionality in Google+ has emerged as a key benefit. In making use of this high quality multi-user video chat feature, the digital engagement team has run several Hangouts on a mixture of topics, from fracking to the future of the open internet. “For us one of the most interesting aspects of Hangouts is the ability to connect people from across the world in a live chat,” says the Guardian’s Laura Oliver. “We're also exploring them as a way to allow our readers to pose questions and get even closer to the subjects of a story or discussion.”

As for the future, Laura is exploring how to use Hangouts in the most inclusive way possible so that debates can encompass questions from all across its audience. To learn more about the Guardian’s success with Google+, read the full case study.

For more publisher success stories and tips on making the most of Google+ pages for your business, check out our Social Fridays blog series.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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Faster, more robust web with AdSense

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

In a perfect world, putting ads on a web page wouldn’t slow that page down at all. We’re striving to get to that point, constantly looking at ways to improve the latency of web pages containing ads, and today we’re happy to share a new beta version of our ad code. This new code (known as an asynchronous tag) enhances user experience on your sites by ensuring site content loads for your users, even if they’re having trouble loading the ad. This is particularly good news for mobile users.

Our new asynchronous ad code is still a beta feature, and so changing over to the new version is optional. In your account, you’ll notice that you’re now able to choose between the new and current versions of the code. To try the new ad code, follow the steps to create an ad unit, then, in the Ad code box, select 'Asynchronous (BETA)' from the Code type drop-down menu. As before, copy and paste the ad code into the HTML source code of your pages.

If you choose to switch to the new code, we recommend switching all of the ad units on your pages in order to give users the best experience. If you’d like to read more on the technical aspects of this tag, take a look at our post on the Google Developers Blog. Let us know if you’re planning to try it out and share your feedback on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Johan Land - AdSense Product Manager
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Inside AdSense

The responsive web + AdSense

Get the most up-to-date data on your account with local time zone reporting

Boost your website performance using tips from our experts

Introducing favicons to our text ads

Google+ helps over 1.6 million Guardian followers read (and share and debate and post) all about it

Faster, more robust web with AdSense

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