Social Fridays: Create a Google+ page to connect with users

Welcome back to our Social Fridays series, where we’re providing tips for getting set up optimally on Google+ each week. Last week, we shared best practices around placing +1 buttons on your site and tracking their performance. Today, we’ll move on to creating a Google+ page for your site.

A Google+ page is the hub of your site’s identity on Google, and offers a number of tools to help you reach audiences in new ways. On your +page, you can share your articles, photos, YouTube videos, and even host live broadcasts. Your +page will also include a +1 button that users can click to recommend you. Think about your Google+ page as a way to complement your site, allowing you to grow and measure user engagement before directing users back to your pages for more of your great content. Creating a Google+ page is simple and takes just minutes.

 

Once you’ve set up your own +page, be sure to set up a content pipeline and post regularly.
One great way to engage with users via your +page is to host regular Google+ Hangouts. Hangouts are free, multi-person video chat sessions for up to 10 people that can help you get closer to your users, no matter where in the world you’re located. We all know that talking face-to-face can convey much more than simply typing messages -- so consider hosting classes via Hangout if you run a hobby-related site, or invite loyal readers to discuss recent content you’ve published.

You also have the option of broadcasting your hangout to the world via Hangouts on Air. Up to 10 people can still actively participate, but anyone can tune in to watch via live streaming on your Google +page, your YouTube channel, or even your own site. Every Hangout on Air will be automatically recorded and saved to your YouTube channel, so you can edit and share the content afterwards. Whether you want to interview an expert, give a behind-the-scenes tour of your business, or just share your content live in front of a global audience, Hangouts on Air allow you to connect with your users in a new way.



To create a Google+ page for your site and get started with Hangouts, sign in to your personal profile on Google+ and then follow the simple instructions. You’ll be able to enter details about your site and upload a profile photo so your users will be able to recognize you. For more information about getting started with +pages, visit the Google+ Help Center.

Feel free to share feedback about this post and your experience with using Hangouts on our AdSense +page. Then, join us here next week for our next Social Friday post -- we’ll share a little-known best practice for posting to your +page that can help increase engagement with your users.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

PubTalk: Phillip Martin talks about becoming a full-time artist with Google AdSense

Every now and then we come across stories on how AdSense helps publishers succeed in different ways. It has helped grow small businesses like DocStoc, and also allowed people like Phillip Martin to follow their passion. Listen to Phillip tell his story below.



With AdSense, Phillip became a full-time artist creating clip art for his site and painting murals for charity in high-need communities.

Tell us your AdSense story and you might be featured in a future post. Send a photo of what you’ve been able to do with AdSense along with a quote that begins with “Because of Google AdSense….” to pubstories@google.com. Please also include your publisher ID and your main website URL as well. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

This post is part of the PubTalk series of conversations with publishers.

Posted by: Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Manager

Policy Tips: Avoiding Copyright Infringement

One of the fantastic benefits of the Internet is that it puts incredible information and entertainment at our fingertips. We can instantly watch videos, listen to music, read news articles and much more. It’s important to remember, however, that these works may be protected by copyright law.

We’d like to take a moment to explain the AdSense policies regarding copyrighted material and provide some tips on how to comply with them.

AdSense policy
It’s against our policies to show ads alongside copyrighted material you don’t have authorization to use. Simply put, you cannot run AdSense ads alongside copyrighted content that violates copyright laws, or alongside links to such content. The program policies go into more detail.

What’s copyrighted?
Generally speaking, any original creative work that appears online is protected by copyright law. There are some exceptions, such as purely factual material, or material that has entered the public domain. But in general the reach of copyright law is very broad.

Do you have the right to use the material?
In most cases, without a specific license or exception, you don’t have the right to offer most mainstream entertainment such as television shows, movies, and popular music on your website.

If you created the content entirely from scratch, chances are you hold the copyright. Generally, you’re free to monetize this kind of content any way you like. If you didn’t create the content, or you created it using other peoples’ content as source material, you should ask yourself if you have a license or if an exception applies.

You may have acquired permission from the copyright holder for the material on your web site. This kind of permission is typically called a license. In this case, as long as your use is in line with the license you have, you should be okay.

There are also exceptions to copyright law that may apply to your use. Fair use in the United States, and other similar exceptions elsewhere, allow for certain kinds of uses of copyrighted material. Common examples are criticism or scholarship. There are other exceptions to copyright law as well.

We don’t want AdSense used in ways that may support copyright violations, so we sometimes err on the side of caution if a site cannot demonstrate a clear legal basis for using or linking to copyrighted material.

Linking to filesharing hosts
It’s against our policies to show ads on the same page as links to other sites that are hosting copyrighted materials without authorization. Keep in mind that these sites come in various forms such as forums, blogs or community websites.

Reporting instances of copyright infringement
If you believe that a site which is participating in the AdSense program is displaying your copyrighted material without the rights to do so, please report it using this form or by clicking on the AdChoices icon. If you’d like to know more information about copyright issues and AdSense, we encourage you to visit our Help Center.

Posted by Ben Barkhoff,  AdSense Policy Team

Social Fridays: Help your site stand out with the +1 button

As Google+ has continued to evolve and grow, we’ve released a number of features and tools to help you engage with your users in new ways. We’ve heard from publishers that they’d like to ensure they’re getting set up in the right way on Google+, and so we’re kicking off a Social Friday series right here on our blog. Our goal is to help you make the most of Google+, discover ways to reach new audiences, and use our resources to make data-driven decisions.

Even if you’ve already gotten started with Google+, we encourage you to follow along over the next few weeks to make sure you’re using our social tools optimally for your website and business. Today, we’ll start off our series with a look at the +1 button, and show you how you can track its impact with Webmaster Tools.

The +1 button helps you expand your audience by enabling users to recommend your content to their friends and contacts. When a user clicks the +1 button on your site, they’ll be able to share your site’s link with their contacts via their Google+ stream. This can help you extend your reach beyond just your existing fans, to their circles of friends. Be sure to place the +1 button on your pages so that users can endorse your content -- we recommend locations like the header and footer of your pages, and also on pages that tend to be shared frequently, like articles or product pages.

In addition, +1 recommendations will be visible to a user’s friends and contacts on relevant Google.com search results, which can help your site stand out. For example, let’s say John is a fan of your content and he clicks a +1 button on your site. When John’s friend Sue is logged in to her Google Account and performs a Google.com search that includes your site in the results, she may see an annotation below your site that tells her John has +1’d it. This annotation may help your site stand out to Sue because it’s personally relevant to her. Overall, as potential visitors see recommendations from their friends and contacts among their Google search results, you could see more, and better qualified, traffic coming from Google.

So how is the +1 button performing for you so far? You can find out using Social Reports in Analytics.

Get started with the +1 button on your pages today -- just generate a short snippet of code and paste it into the HTML of your site, as you do with your AdSense ad code. You’ll also be able to customize the size and layout for your site. For help with the +1 button, visit our Google+ Webmaster FAQ.

Thanks for joining us for our first Social Fridays post. Next week, we’ll discuss Google+ pages for your business and how to get set up optimally. Do you have feedback or best practices to share with other publishers about today’s content? Feel free to leave us a comment on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Join us at our Pan-European AdSense In Your City event in Dublin - September 2012

We’re excited to announce that we’re organizing our Pan-European AdSense In Your City event! This event will take place in September, in our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. We're offering an option of dates on either Friday, September 7th or Saturday, September 8th, and the same content will be delivered on both dates.

We'll focus on identifying new revenue opportunities and best practices for growing your business with AdSense. Each session includes workshops on optimization tips, DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business, and mobile. Publishers who attend will also receive a one-on-one site review with custom recommendations from an AdSense optimization specialist. In addition, there will be plenty of time for networking with other publishers -- we frequently hear from AdSense in Your City attendees that one of the best parts of the event is getting the opportunity to interact with and learn from other AdSense publishers.

If you’d like to attend this AdSense in Your City event in Dublin, please fill out our interest form. Space is limited at each event and we won’t be able to accommodate all requests, so sign up quickly if you’d like to attend! We’ll do our best to include as many interested publishers as possible. In the meantime, we recommend ensuring you’re opted in to receiving ‘Special Offer’ emails so we can reach you in the future.
 
We hope to see you in Dublin!

Posted by Aude Rigaud, AdSense in Your City Team

A new look for the AdSense interface

We’ve been making continuous improvements to the AdSense interface, whether it’s adding new features or redesigning pages you frequently use.  As part of our Google-wide initiative to deliver a simpler, more beautiful experience across all of our products, in the next few days we’ll be giving your AdSense account a facelift. Your account will still have the same general structure, but you’ll notice some gradual updates to introduce cleaner design elements. If you’re also using Analytics or AdWords, you’ll be familiar with some of the updates.

Here’s a sneak peek of the new look:

One of the changes you’ll notice is the location of help content in your account, which we’re moving from the left navigation bar to a dedicated ‘Help’ link in the top right corner of your account. We’ve also added the ‘Send Feedback’ link there so you can quickly let us know if something isn’t working as intended. Please note that account support won’t be available from this link, so we ask that you continue to use our Help Center to find answers or contact forms for specific questions.

Also, when visiting the “Performance reports” tab, you’ll notice that your reports are now organized by type. Click ‘Common reports’ to access your standard reports, and then use the new date range selector. You’ll still be able to choose to either see your default report or daily account performance, just as before.

We’ll be gradually introducing these updates to AdSense accounts in the next few days, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions in the meantime. Feel free to leave a comment on our AdSense +Page, and stay tuned to our blog for additional updates. If you have questions about these updates, visit our Help Center for more information.

Posted by Arlene Lee -- Inside AdSense Team

PubTalk: Publishers discuss testing colors for their ads

We’re back with the third video from our Google+ Hangout with AdSense publishers! Have you tried our publisher suggestions of adding a third content ad unit or changing ad sizes and placements?

Another feature publishers Katie and Gene Hamilton of diyornot.com, David and Jan Moncrief of txantiquemall.com, and Voitek Klimczyk of simplyadditions.com tried was changing the text and background colors of their ad units. Experimenting with colors and tracking different ad styles provides insight on clickthrough rates and revenue uplift which will help you decide how to make future changes to your site. 

Watch this video to see how these publishers test colors and follow AdSense on Google+ to see how publishers use AdSense’s different customizable features.



This post is part of the PubTalk series of conversations with publishers.

Posted by Julia Eckstein - Inside AdSense Team

Follow our AdSense +page and catch our upcoming Hangouts On Air

We started our AdSense +page a few months ago to connect with you and regularly share information. Since the launch of the +page, you’ve provided great feedback and made it clear that you’re constantly yearning to learn more. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be hosting a series of Hangouts On Air to provide you with additional information and help you build connections within the publisher community. We’ll be covering a variety of topics, including how to:

• Fix crawler errors
• Establish a Google+ strategy
• Use DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business
• Understand your AdSense payments
• Navigate performance reports
• Implement optimization tips

Be sure to follow the AdSense +page to learn about the specific dates and times of the Hangouts On Air. We’ll also post the recorded videos to our YouTube channel, in case you’re not able to watch a live session.

We hope to Hangout with you soon!

Posted by Jamie Firkus - Inside AdSense Team

PubTalk: AdSense publishers discuss adding content ad units to their pages

Welcome to the second video in our publisher feedback series. Hopefully you’ve been able to test ad sizes and placements since our last post!

During the same Hangout, publishers Al Gross of infosports.com,  Katie and Gene Hamilton of diyornot.com, and Voitek Klimczyk of simplyadditions.com discussed how adding additional content ad units to their pages significantly helped increase their AdSense revenue. In the past, we’ve seen publishers increase their earnings by 400% by adding a maximum of three content units to their pages.

Watch this video to see why these publishers made the change and continue to check our blog for more optimization tips. To hear what other publishers have to say and to get involved in the conversation, follow AdSense on Google+.

Visit our Help Center to learn more about best practices for balancing ad units and page content, and to learn how to measure the effect of multiple ad units.

This post is part of the PubTalk series of conversations with publishers.

Posted by Julia Eckstein - Inside AdSense Team

Update on forms of payment available on our new payment system

We recently let you know about upcoming improvements to the Payments page in your account, designed to provide you with a better experience and address your feedback. These changes are part of an upgrade to our payment system, and over the coming months we’ll continue to roll out these upgrades to all publishers.

For publishers located in countries where we offer payments via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), we’ve made improvements to this form of payment to give you quicker access to your earnings. Once your account has been upgraded to our new system, EFT payments will appear in your bank account just days after posting to your Payments page. As always, EFT payments are free of charge, less error prone, more efficient and the most environmentally-friendly payment method.

With these changes, please note that the new system won’t support check payments in countries where we offer EFT as a form of payment. If you’re located in a country where we offer EFT payments and you currently receive check payments, please be advised that you’ll need to complete a few steps once your account is upgraded. However, no immediate action is required on your part at the moment. Once your account is transitioned to the new system, you’ll receive an email notification with detailed instructions on setting up EFT payments.                

For our readers who are located in countries where we don’t yet support EFT, please know that we’re working hard to improve the payments process and find ways to send you your payments as quickly and securely as possible. If you have any questions, please sign in to your AdSense account and visit the Payments section in our Help Center for the most relevant information.

Posted by Colm Keady, Partner Payments

PubTalk: AdSense publishers talk about testing ad sizes and placements on their site

Many of you have opted in to receive our customized suggestions about your AdSense implementation. Wonder what publishers have to say after they’ve implemented one of these suggestions? Now you can hear from the publishers themselves in our new Google AdSense optimization series.

Five publishers recently participated in a Google+ Hangout with AdSense to share their stories and some of their top optimization tips. In this video, publishers Gene and Katie Hamilton of diyornot.com, David and Jan Moncrief of txantiquemall.com, and Voitek Klimczyk of simplyadditions.com discuss how changing ad unit sizes and placements has increased their AdSense revenue and clickthrough rates.

Visit our Help Center to learn more about recommended ad formats and placements to help you decide which changes you’d like to make next.

Check out this video and keep an eye out for the rest of the series!



This post is part of the PubTalk series of conversations with publishers.

Posted by Julia Eckstein - Inside AdSense Team

Join our upcoming mobile Hangouts On Air

As part of our ongoing GoMo initiative, we’re hosting two more mobile Hangouts on Air to explore different mobile topics. Join us for one or both Hangouts to learn all about going mobile.

Build a business, not just an app (August 15th) on the AdMob +page
If you already have a mobile application and are interested in learning more about app monetization strategies, register here by August 10th for our ‘Build a business, not an app’ Hangout on August 15th at 4pm GMT/8am PDT. Whether you’re an AdMob newbie or simply looking to get a refresher, this Hangout is designed to show you how to make the most out of your app. In this Hangout we’ll look at:

• App business model and promotion strategies
• AdMob optimization tips and policy information

Creating a mobile strategy (August 16th) on our AdSense +page
Learn more about developing a mobile strategy and why it’s important to create a mobile site or app to accommodate your mobile users. Register by August 10th if you’re interested in joining our ‘Mobile Hangout’ on August 16th at 4pm GMT/8am PDT. In this Hangout we’ll look at:

• The importance of building a mobile site or app
• Mobile site best practices
• Where to find agencies that create a mobile site or app
• Mobile success stories from other publishers

Once you’ve registered for either of the Hangouts On Air, we’ll send you instructions on how to join the event.  We look forward to hanging out with you soon.

Posted by Dairine Kennedy - Mobile Team

Ad blocking part II: Blocking unwanted ads

Happy Friday and welcome to the second installment of the ad blocking series! In our first blog post, we talked about different reasons for blocking ads and common myths about ad blocking. Today we’ll discuss how to block ads you don’t want to allow on your site. Once you’ve identified the ads you don’t want to show, there are a few ways to block them: by advertiser URL, general or sensitive category (limited language availability), ad network, and individual ad creative. Below, we’ll bust more myths commonly believed about blocking unwanted ads.

Myth: The ‘Allow and block ads’ tab of my account is the only place I can block ads.
In addition to blocking ads via the AdSense interface, you can install the Google Publisher Toolbar to block ads while viewing your pages in a Chrome browser. The Publisher Toolbar is a Chrome extension that lets you view up-to-date information about your AdSense account, offers an overview of your earnings and performance, and provides ad overlays with in-page reporting. For more details on this new Chrome extension, visit the Inside AdSense blog post.

Myth: Because the ad is an image or rich media, there’s no way to find the destination URL without clicking the ad and violating AdSense policy.
As a publisher, you have a few options when trying to find out which URL you want to block:

• If you’re using Chrome, install the Publisher Toolbar extension mentioned above, which allows you to block ads as you’re seeing them on your site. 
• In your AdSense account, you can opt into the Ad Review Center where you can see all of the ads shown on your site, including text, image, and rich media ads. 

Myth: I don’t see any ads in the Shown Ads tab of the Ad Review Center, but I see ads on my site. The Ad Review Center doesn’t work! 
The Ad Review Center is a tool that allows you to review individual ads and choose whether or not to let them be displayed on your pages. Ads in the Ad Review Center have shown within the last 30 days. If your site has not shown any ads within the last 30 days, no ads will show in the Ad Review Center. Also, if you have very low traffic on your site, you may not see ads in the Ad Review Center. After you’ve submitted the request to opt in to the Ad Review Center, please allow 24 to 48 hours for ads to begin showing under the Shown Ads tab. Read more information about the new and improved Ad Review Center in our previous Inside AdSense blog post.

We hope that this blog post has busted some of the myths associated with the ad blocking feature. Have more questions? You can submit them by commenting on the post on the Google AdSense +page. We’ll be answering those questions in a Google+ Hangout on Air on Tuesday, August 7th at 10am PDT. We hope you can join us!

Posted by: Wesley Houser, Inside AdSense Team

Ad blocking part I: To block or not to block?

Think of your website as your kingdom. You’re in control of what will be shown. AdSense provides strong controls that enable you to allow and block ads on your website. Ad blocking shouldn’t be thought of as a means of account optimization, but as a way to make sure you’re satisfied with the ads that are shown. Over the next few days, we’ll be busting some of the most common myths associated with ad blocking that we’ve heard from publishers.

Myth: It doesn’t matter how many ads I block, they’ll just be removed from my site.
Ad blocking should be used sparingly. Displaying all ads creates the most competitive atmosphere in the ad auction, with the largest amount of ad inventory possible competing for an impression on your site.

That said, there are some good reasons for blocking ads:

• You’re sensitive to the content of a particular ad (or category of ad) and would prefer it not to show on your site (e.g., politics, sexuality, or religion).
• You want to block ads from a particular company because you already have a direct advertising deal from them.
• You want to block ads from a competitor of your business.

Myth: If I block low paying ads I'll make more money.
Even if a particular ad is only contributing a small portion to your revenue, blocking it will likely cause a lower revenue-generating ad to show. We'll always display the highest-paying ad, so if an ad appeared on your site, it meant that it was the highest-performing ad of all available.

Myth: I blocked some ads for a few days and my earnings went up. This means blocking helped my earnings grow!
Earnings in your AdSense account can constantly fluctuate. Your revenue depends on a number of variables from traffic changes on your site to advertisers changing their bids. Be careful when assuming that correlation indicates causation!

As mentioned in this Help Center article, we target ads based on your content and audience. The ads that you see aren’t necessarily the same ones your users see (e.g., interest-based advertising and geotargeting). Also, ads that may seem off-topic to you as a publisher might actually be the most valuable to the user in that browsing session.

Myth: If I block enough ads, I can essentially pick the ads that will show on my site.
As Hal Varian, the Chief Economist at Google, stated in a previous post, the ads that win in the auction are the ones that are expected to deliver you the most revenue, while ensuring a good user experience. The same ads don’t always appear on your site for a variety of reasons, ranging from changes in advertiser spend to geotargeting of users.

Now that we’ve addressed some common myths, we invite you to join us for a Google+ Hangout On Air focused on ad blocking. It’ll take place on Tuesday, August 7th at 10am PDT, and you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about ad blocking and hear answers to your related questions. To submit a question about ad blocking, simply leave a comment on the post on our AdSense +page. We also encourage you to +1 questions posted by other publishers that you’re interested in hearing the answers to.

Stay tuned for part II of our ad blocking series on Friday!

Posted by: Wesley Houser, Inside AdSense Team