Google has made some adjustments to how it uses referral URLs for contextual matching of AdSense ads. Google has started expanding the use of query words in referral URLs to a few hours.

Basically what this means is that Google is using user’s search history to determine what ads to show on sites using AdSense. If a user arrives at one AdSense site via a search results page, and then goes to another AdSense site within a few hours, they might see ads based on the referral data from the first one.

"The technical way that we’re doing this is by associating the relevant query words in the referral URL with the existing advertising cookie on the user’s browser," says AdSense Associate Product Manager Rebecca Illowsky. "After a short period of time (a few hours) the query words are no longer used for the purposes of matching ads. Of course, users can continue to opt out of our advertising cookie at any time here."

"This allows us to deliver more relevant ads on a wider range of AdSense partner sites that a user may browse over the course of a few hours," she adds. "Using signals from the referral URL is just one part of our teams’ continuing efforts to deliver even better contextually matched ads on your website."

Some people claim to have already seen a rise in clickthrough rate since Google made these changes. Commenting on Google’s explanation, one reader says, "I saw a rise in CTR and was wondering [if] something was cooking so I guess this was it."

Have you seen a rise in AdSense CTR recently? Let us know.

Google has launched an AdSense feature that lets AdSense publishers donate their earnings to Haiti earthquake relief efforts.

"We’re currently accepting donations from AdSense publishers with an unpaid account balance through January 31, 2010," says Google’s Elizabeth Ferdon. "To see what your unpaid account balance is, please visit the ‘Payment History’ page within your account. Your January earnings will post in the next few days, so feel free to refer to your ‘Advanced Reports’ page for an earnings estimate until those are finalized."

Publishers can donate either a portion or all of their unpaid balances as of the end of January. "As you may expect, there are certain restrictions to donating, and all our normal policies still apply — so even if you’re donating, please don’t ask others to click on your ads in order to increase your earnings," says Ferdon.

Google will not process donation requests from publishers whose request to donate more than their unpaid balance through January 31, or if they are subject to tax-withholding, their account has been disabled for invalid activity or other violations of terms and conditions, or if their accounts display the messages: "please submit your tax information", "please enter your PIN", or "please verify your phone number".

Partners in Health is the organization that will receive the donations. They will go to proivde medical aid.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Relief Site To Help Haiti

> Twitter Helping Haiti Earthquake Victims

> BusinessWire Offers Free Haiti-Related Press Release Distribution

Google announced today that AdSense for Domains is now using optional keyword hints more often. Keyword hints are provided by the user, who enters keywords into a field to assist Google in the targeting of ads for potentially ambiguous domains. Google’s Randy Heath explains:

These keywords are suggestions supplied to Google by domain owners about the types of content users are looking for when they arrive on an undeveloped domain. They are used to help our system determine the best ads to place on these domains. For example, with the domain www.rockstarsand.com, a publisher might suggest the keywords "bitumen" and "mining" so that ads may appear from advertisers offering oil extraction products.

Keyword hints remain optional. When keyword hints are provided by the publisher, our ad-matching systems will use them more often. As always, we aim to provide the most relevant ads for the user, the best value for advertisers, and the best returns for publishers. This means in some cases, keyword hints will be ignored when we have evidence that other targeting approaches perform better.

Keyword hints have to adhere to Google’s policy guidelines for AdSense for Domains. The company also recommends the following guidelines to maximize effectiveness:

- Limit your keywords to 3-5 phrases
- Ensure your keywords/phrases are separated by commas
- Ensure your hints are relevant to the domain
- Stick to one theme for potentially ambiguous domains.

Google says it is working on additional product improvements for AdSense for Domains, and these will be announced in the coming months.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches AdSense Product Ideas Page

> Google Makes Risky AdSense For Domains Expansion

> YouTube Videos in AdSense Could Drive Clicks

Big businesses with huge pageviews fueled by Google have emerged in recent years that exist only because of a unique SEO / Adwords relationship with Google. Google gives them a huge presence in the long tail SERPS and they in turn give Google increased revenue by being a Google Adsense partner. Not just any Adsense partner, but a Google partner that turns Google search generated traffic into billions of Adwords clicks totaling tens of billions of dollars. 

Demand Media, for instance, was created with this business model. Figure out what people are searching for, create somewhat unique content in bulk that matches the title tags and other keywords in the search terms, place Google ads all over this content and  voila … Demand Media’s eHow.com articles rank on the first page of Google search result for hundreds of thousand of searches. By the way, Demand Media is reportedly going to generate $200 million in revenue this year and may be worth a billion dollars in large part because of these Google Adwords clicks.

It is a fascinating business model; A content assembly line creates content specifically for Google searches and Google then pays millions for Google ads clicked on that content. Unfortunately, it does raise questions about whether Google has a conflict of interest in being both the main supplier of traffic and revenue for these bulk article sites while also earning substantial revenue for itself? After all, if these articles didn’t result high in Google searches this mass content production model wouldn’t work.

I have followed the SEO industry for years and our WebProNews reporters have interviewed countless Google product managers on the subject of ranking well in Google.  Google’s mantra has been for publishers to make quality content for their users and not for its search engine. Google’s position is that quality content will rise to the top of its SERPS. 

However, Google seems to be sending content creators a mixed message. Demand Media is creating as many as 5,000 articles and videos each day for the purposes of ranking in Google. If Google’s message is for publishers to create content for their readers, not just to rank in Google, then why is Demand Media’s content ranking so well in Google? 

The answer could be that for thousands of long tail searches, Demand Media’s content is quality enough. The vast majority of Google searches on any given day include a search term that will get less than a hundred searches a day. What content farms such as Demand Media do is provide articles and videos that are optimized for these rarely searched terms. The content is often mediocre, but it is unique and it has a title tag and other keywords that match these targeted searches. 

The problem as I see it is that while Google is highly ranking the content of these mass production publishers it also has a financial incentive to do so. Almost all content farms use Google Adwords for their revenue. So while Google on the one hand encourages publishers to make content for their readers and not just for search ranking, it is in partnership with sites that do just that. 

This should make publishers wonder about their business models. Should they spend thousands paying reporters and editors to create quality content for their users or should they simply create a content farm that pays little for bulk quantities of articles and videos but gets lots of Google love?  

I guess if you can make content for the purpose of ranking in searches … but make it targeted, unique and not horrible, then you might find that Google well reward you quite well.

Is this the future of online publishing?

Google announced that it has made some messaging changes in the AdSense interface. The changes concern users’ earnings.

Google has added the words "Estimated" and "Finalized" next to "Earnings" throughout users’ accounts. The company says the move was made to be more transparent. The changes in messaging do not reflect any changes to the way finalized earnings are calculated. The company says they’re simply intended to give users a clearer idea of Google’s estimations of earnings and what is actually finalized.

"As you may have noticed in the past, the earnings on the Overview and Advanced Reports pages may sometimes differ from the earnings listed on your Payment History page," says Elizabeth Ferdon of Google’s AdSense Payments Team. "This is because earnings on your Overview and Advanced Reports pages reflect initial estimations based on our records."

"We aren’t able to provide finalized earnings on these pages because they still need to be verified for accuracy, a process that takes place a few days after the end of every month. The finalized sum is then posted on your Payment History page by the 10th of the next month," adds Ferdon.

Google says it can’t say how much amounts would differ for any specific publisher, and that most publishers won’t see a significant difference anyway.

Earlier this week, Google introduced the ability to search for ads in the Ad Review Center. The option is currently available to only a limited number of publishers who are using the new AdSense interface (launched a few weeks ago). The company said, however, it will be rolling it out more widely as they invite more publishers to test the new interface.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches AdSense Product Ideas Page

> Google Ignoring Its Own Policy on Desktop AdSense?

> YouTube Videos in AdSense Could Drive Clicks

AdSense is an important fixture in a lot of people’s lives; it can represent anything from spending money (hey, little splurges do the heart good) to what pays the mortgage.  And now, individuals have a chance to shape it more to their liking, as a new Product Ideas for AdSense page has launched.

Try not to get your hopes up; as word spreads and more people contribute ideas, the odds of any one suggestion making it in front of an important Googler will decrease.  Also, there’s no guarantee that any of the recommendations will be implemented.

Still, a post on the Inside AdSense blog stated, "[W]e can guarantee that we’ll take the top ideas (as voted by you), and bring them to the AdSense Product Management team for review.  By submitting an idea, you agree that Google may use the idea to develop and enhance Google’s products and services."

So sign into the Product Ideas for AdSense page with your Google account, make a suggestion, or vote for an existing one that you like before the end of December 15th.  Just about everything’s fair game, from simple tweaks to entirely new features.

Then just maybe, as a result of participating, you’ll be able to upgrade "spending money" to "mortgage payments" or "mortgage payments" to "retirement package."

Related Articles:

> Google Ignoring Its Own Policy On Desktop AdSense?

> YouTube Videos In AdSense Could Drive Clicks

> Google Tests New AdSense Interface

It has been discovered that Google is now showing AdSense ads inside Google Earth. While it is not that surprising to see Google putting ads on another one of its properties, it has raised a few eyebrows, given that Google Earth is a desktop application.

Google actually states in its policy that it doesn’t allow developers to use AdSense ads in their desktop apps, but it appears that Google is bending the rules for its own product. The company is certainly free to do so, given that it owns the product, but some are beginning to wonder if this could lead to Google changing that policy.

Currently that section of Google’s policy reads:

"Currently, we don’t permit Google ads or AdSense for search boxes to be distributed through software applications including, but not limited to toolbars, browser extensions, and desktop applications. In order to comply with AdSense program policies, please note that Google AdSense code may only be implemented on web-based pages."

Blogger Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration appears to be the first to point out the ads in Google Earth, and he provides a couple of screenshots here. In one, you can see AdSense ads when you search for a location or business, and the ads can be found in the search results. In the other screenshot, you can see the ad in the window that pops up when you click a placemark (the red pins on the maps).

The interesting part of this find is not so much that Google is placing ads in Google Earth, but what it could mean if the company were to in fact change its policy.

"If that policy changes, we could see more and more of Office 2010 Starter or FeedDemon like applications that are completely free to the end-user but supported by web advertising," says Agarwal.

Joseph Tartakoff at PaidContent adds that "arch rival" Microsoft has already promised to introduce the ad-supported version of Office to come pre-loaded on PCs.

It is possible that there is being too much read into Google’s decision to include AdSense ads in Google Earth. It does make for an interesting conversation though. What do you think?

Related Articles:

> Google Familiarizes AdWords Users with New Interface

> Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

> Google Friend Connect Gets an AdSense Feature

Update: Google has now announced that you can buy Promoted Videos directly in AdWords.

"AdWords advertiser with video content — from a small business looking to promote a product, to a movie studio premiering a new trailer — can use Promoted Videos to make sure their videos find a larger audience," says Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Engineer. "This integration will provide a single destination for your overall Google ad buy, and will give YouTube advertisers access to campaign tools in AdWords."

Original Article: Google has decided to start including promoted YouTube videos in AdSense. This means that these videos are now an available ad unit that can be displayed on AdSense publisher sites.

YouTube promoted videos include a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, they take the user to a video or a channel on YouTube, so it’s not like there will be full-sized YouTube videos in AdSense ad spots on publisher sites.

"Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space," says Arlene Lee of Google’s Inside AdSense team. "At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we’re looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future."

The promoted videos are contextually targeted to AdSense publisher pages, and publishers will earn from them on a cost-per-click basis. They are available in the following formats:

- 300×250 Medium Rectangle
- 336×280 Large Rectangle
- 728×90 Leaderboard
- 250×250 Square
- 200×200 Small Square

"Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they’ll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages," says Lee. "When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it’ll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats."

Videos of course have to meet YouTube’s advertising guidelines and terms of use, as well as community guidelines. Publishers can prevent promoted videos from appearing on their sites by adding "youtube.com" to their competitive ad filter list. This will block all YouTube content.

It should be noted that the addition of promoted YouTube videos to AdSense has nothing to do with Google’s video ads offering.

YouTube promoted videos could be a good way to increase AdSense clicks, because the very nature of them draws the user’s attention to watch a video, and at the world’s most popular online video site. Plus the videos should be relevant to the content of the page. This could be a big money maker for AdSense publishers. It should be big for people promoting their videos as well.

Google has started adding "Ads by Google" to more of its ads around the web. The reasoning for this is that a lot more advertisers are using Google’s rich media ad formats these days, and the fact that they come from Google may not seem so obvious all the time.

"You’ll soon notice a small ‘i’ (for ‘information’) icon overlay in the bottom right-hand corner of these ads, which will expand when the user hovers over it," explains Dan Friedman from Google’s Inside AdWords crew. "This was specially designed for rich media ads. This new message will appear on your AdWords rich media ads, and will show up on standard AdSense ad units."

It will look something like this:

Just as in the past, when users click "Ads by Google," they will be taken to a page where they can learn about Google advertising. Google says tests have shown that this doesn’t affect ad performance.

Google also recently started adding YouTube promoted videos into the AdWords/AdSense mix. In addition, they have introduced a new way for local businesses to advertise, and given advertisers more tracking options.

Unemployed bloggers are apparently at risk of losing their unemployment checks (or at least having them drastically reduced) if they include ads on their blogs. That is exactly what happened to a woman named Karin, from New York, according to a recent Forbes piece.

A graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law was laid off by a law firm in New York, but was able to receive $405 a week in unemployment benefits from the state. To make a little extra money to help pay the bills, she started a blog and used Google AdSense. To make a long story short, her benefits were cut to $300 a week. It had taken her 3 months to earn $100 with AdSense.

She was sent a form to fill out and send to her "employer," and when she called the Department of Labor to get some answers about that, she was told that she shouldn’t have claimed the AdSense payment to begin with because it was considered "residual," which would not make her ineligible for benefits. Fair enough. Unfortunatley for Karin, it only got more complicated from there.

"The call prompted Karin to file another claim with the state and to attach a letter stating she was running a blog and that the Google AdSense revenue it generated was her only source of income," explains David K. Randall of Forbes.com. "A few days later, she received a letter from the DOL informing her that it had launched an investigation of her "business" to determine whether she remained eligible for benefits."

"Karin called the DOL again and says this time she was told that the state considered her self-employed, which would require her to claim earnings each time she received an AdSense check," continues Randall. "She called back to get another opinion, and Karin says this time she was informed by yet another state official that she needed to declare that she was working every time that she updated her blog."

Karin is apparently not getting benefits as long as the investigation is going on, and she hasn’t even made $250 from AdSense.

The situation would likely vary from state to state, but at least in New York, unemployment and AdSense blogs seem to equal nothing but headaches for everybody involved. Mike Masnick at TechDirt does a pretty good job of assessing the situation. "It’s really stunning how various labor departments are simply ill-equipped to handle a modern labor force," he says.

Masnick has his own horror story about out of state labor departments seeking money for an employee that his company hasn’t employed in years. They money sought after is apparently for time that this person wasn’t working there.

Google has announced a new feature for AdSense mobile publishers, which lets them serve text and image ads on their sites, specifically optimized for high-end smartphones like the iPhone, Android devices, and the Palm Pre.

With the launch of the feature, publishers can run larger AdSense ads on these phones, whereas before, they could only serve smaller ads.

"High-end mobile phones, like iPhone, Android-powered devices and the Palm Pre, continue to grow — Gartner estimates that global sales of smartphones will soar by 27% in 2009, to 177 million units. Naturally, as a result more and more people are browsing the web on the go," says Google software engineer Danielle VanDyke. "Because these devices offer a browsing experience that is similar to desktop computers, advertising on smartphones is a natural extension for any AdWords campaign."

Google says the addition of this feature will help "nurture the smartphone ecosystem," by encouraging users to create more mobile content.

To make the feature work, Google introduced a new JavaScript snippet that’s optimized for mobile "to reduce latency" on high-end mobile phones. The snippet also allows publishers to select additional ad unit sizes from common AdSense formats.

"However, if you’re targeting all mobile devices, or if you’re unable to make changes to your website, you don’t have to update your AdSense code in order to enable larger AdSense ads to show on high-end devices," says VanDyke. "We’ll automatically detect if the user is browsing with a high-end phone, and instead of serving a smaller mobile WAP ad, we’ll return a larger ad optimized for high-end mobile devices."

The new feature certainly opens up new opportunities for AdSense publishers, who have had some additional benefits announced recently. Just the other day Google announced that it would extend YouTube promoted videos to AdSense for example. Google also recently announced the addition of ad networks to the competition pool for AdSense.

Google has announced the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which it refers to as a real-time marketplace for helping online publishers and ad networks/agencies buy and sell display ad space. Prices in the marketplace are set in a real-time auction.

Google says it has three principles for its approach to display advertising:

1. Simplify the system for buying and selling display ads: For example, our DoubleClick ad serving products help advertisers and publishers manage campaigns and ad formats across thousands of websites and from thousands of advertisers.

2. Deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure: We’re building a host of new features to help advertisers to run display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network (comprising hundreds of thousands of AdSense partner sites) and on YouTube. We’re also developing better measurement and reporting technology so they can figure out what’s working and what’s not.

3. Open up the ecosystem: We want to democratize access to display advertising and make it accessible and open, like search advertising. We recently launched the Display Ad Builder to help businesses easily set up and run display ad campaigns. 80% of advertisers who use that product have never run a display ad campaign before.

AdWords advertisers can run ads with the same AdWords interface through the exchange. Ad Exchange sites are considered part of the Google Content Network. Ad Exchange placements will appear like any other Conent Network Placement in AdWords reports. Users can still use the Placement Performance Report to see where their ads have run, and which ones performed best. Google does note, however, that Ad Exchange sites can choose to remain anonymous, and in cases like that, the site will appear in your reports with an anonymized label like "123456.anonymous.google." You have the power to exclude these placements though.
 

Google says AdSense publishers will also benefit from more advertisers coming through the exchange. The company recently announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites. This is related to the Ad Exchange announcement. The Google-certified ad network capability is powered by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

"Certified ad networks are Ad Exchange participants who have gone through an additional certification process in order to be able to bid for your ad space through AdSense," Google says. "We call this feature ‘yield management’, because it offers you the most revenue for each ad that shows on your site in real time, regardless of whether it’s Google or another certified party who can offer you the highest bid."

Publishers using the Ad Exchange can use real-time data and bids to allocate ad space that pays the most at any particular second. They get access to more advertisers, Google manages billing and payments from networks, so publishers get one monthly payment.

Ad networks and agencies get access to more publishers, more ad space, real-time bidding, and a new API, which lets them integrate their own functionality and systems when using the Ad Exchange.

Google’s move is largely seen as its way of cutting into Yahoo’s share of the display advertising pie. This is one area where Yahoo has been quite successful, as Google has dominated the text ad market.

Google has introduced what they call "Web Elements," which let users add their favorite Google products to their website. The company spins it as a way for AdSense publishers to "spice up their site" and help increase their revenue. This was first announced back at the Google Developer Conference.

"Web Elements let you easily add richness and interactivity to your site simply by copying and pasting a snippet of code," explains Christine Tsai of the Google Web Elements Team. "Inspired by the convenience of embeddable YouTube videos, each Web Element is built upon existing Google products."

Users can remind visitors to their site of important dates by adding the Google Calendar element. They can let visitors post comments with the Conversation element. They can add a custom search element, a Google Maps element, a Google News element, a presentations element, a spreadsheet element, or the interesting YouTube News element, which shows news videos from YouTube.

Google has been all about some data portability lately, introducing their Data Liberation Front. That was all about being able to take your data in and out of Google Products. This is a different kind of data portability. This lets you take data from Google products and take it anywhere with you on the web.

Google shows some examples of sites that are already using Web Elements in this blog post. To use them yourself, simply go to google.com/webelements, choose your element, and copy/paste the code into the source code of your own site. It’s as simple as that.

All of the web elements are powered by Google’s developer APIs, so they can all be customized.

In August, Google announced that it was upgrading its category filtering feature for AdSense, and extending the feature into more countries (like the US and the UK). Today, Google announced that they have added two additional improvements to the Competitive Ad Filter.

These improvements would be faster filtering and increased filter size.

"In the past, the Competitive Ad Filter sometimes took up to several hours to block URLs you’d entered," says Arlene Lee of Google’s Inside AdSense Team. "Knowing you’ve wanted a faster filtering system, we’re excited to let you know that URLs added to your Competitive Ad Filter are now usually blocked within 30 minutes. We hope that this will help you quickly make changes to maintain a positive user experience on your sites."

Users have complained that they have been running out of space in their Competitive Ad filter, so Google has addressed this issue. Users can now add up to 500 sites to their filter list. That is more than twice what was previously allowed.

"As you add new sites, please continue to keep the possible revenue impact of filtering in mind," says Lee. "You might also find it helpful to review our tips for using your Competitive Ad Filter."

Google will remain open to feedback with regards to the Competitive Ad Filter, so if you have further concerns, be sure to voice them. Today’s announcement shows that they do listen.

Google announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites. This means that AdWords advertisers may end up having to pay more competitively, while AdSense publishers could reap the benefits.

What do you think of this idea? Comment here. Google explains the concept in the following video:

"You may remember that we began to accept display ads served from qualified third-party vendors over a year ago, which helped increase the number of display ads competing on AdSense publisher sites," says Google Business Product Manager Sean Harvey. "With this new change, participating ad networks can also bid in our auction to appear on AdSense sites. This new capability will help you generate the most profit for every ad that appears on your site, whether the ads come from AdWords advertisers or Google-certified ad networks."

The networks themselves are ad agencies and companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don’t own. AdSense publishers will now be able to allow advertisers from these networks to compete directly with AdWords advertisers for their ad space. The ad networks:

- Connect advertisers with publishers

- Provide access to additional inventory not currently available with AdWords

- Adhere to Google’s standards for user privacy, ad quality and speed

Reporting and payments will still run through AdSense as always, and available ad formats will remain the same as they have been for AdWords. Publishers will still have control over which networks can show ads on their pages, and they can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks.

Right now, the feature is only available to publishers in North America and Europe, but Google plans to rolling out to more places in the future.

What do you think about Google increasing competition by allowing ad networks in AdWords? Share your thoughts.