Changes in rankings of smartphone results

As the number of smartphone users continues to surge globally, many of you are responding quickly with mobile-friendly sites. Regardless of the device a user views your site on, their experience should be rich and consistent. With this in mind, the Google Webmaster Team is making some changes to the way they rank search results on smartphones. In particular, these changes will address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users. Read the original post and learn more about common configuration mistakes as well as recommendations from the Webmaster Team on building your mobile-optimized website.

Posted by Suzanne Headon - Inside AdSense team
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Make faster and better decisions with new Ad Review Center features

We know that having fast access to the right information is important for decision-making. In particular, having quick visibility over similar ads and a broader range of insights is important when deciding whether to allow or block ads on your site. As we continue to celebrate 10 years of AdSense, we’re excited to announce some new changes in the Ad Review Center this week.

Find and take action on related ads

Our new ‘Related Ads’ feature in the Ad Review Center gives you a quicker and more efficient means of identifying similar ads that you would like to allow or block. Related ads are those that have a similar destination page, and you can directly view, allow, or block these ads in the Ad Review Center.

Derive new insights with additional metrics

To help you make informed decisions around whether to allow or block particular ads, we’re giving you better insights with the following new signals:

• Impression score indicates whether an ad has a high, medium or low number of impressions per day compared to the other ads on your site. As always, we recommend that you consider the potential impact on your revenue before choosing to block ads with high or medium impression scores.
• Serving status identifies whether an ad is active or not. An active ad is defined as one that has recently received impressions. If an ad is active, it’s more likely to still appear in the next few days. If an ad is inactive, it could still show again, but the longer it remains inactive, the less likely this will occur.
• Historical trend shows whether the number of impressions per day for an ad has recently increased, decreased or remained stable, according to our historic data. This trend is not a projection of any future performance of an ad, but provides you with additional context while reviewing ads.

Finally, to improve your experience in the Ad Review Center, we’ve made some enhancements to the interface. We’ve now redesigned the Ad Review Center tiles to make the controls more clear and intuitive. In addition, we’ve incorporated new widget styles and an improved layout. Learn more about the Ad Review Center in our Help Center and share your feedback on these new features on our AdSense+ page.

Posted by Fiona Herring - AdSense Product Manager
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The AdSense story: Looking back at 10 years

Earlier this week, Susan Wojcicki kicked off our 10th anniversary celebration in a live Hangout on Air and shared her thoughts on the future of AdSense. As we mark this important milestone, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on just how far we’ve come together.

AdSense started out offering only contextually-targeted text ads in 2003, and has evolved significantly since then. We’ve developed new features and products to help you earn with display, video, mobile web, in-game and custom search ads. With your feedback in mind, we’ve also added new reports, controls, and even a new interface to make it easier to manage your account.

Let’s take a look back at how much we’ve grown together in the last 10 years.



Thanks for all the support and feedback you’ve provided us along the way. In the years to come, we’ll continue to focus on creating an AdSense that can do even more for you. You’ve already seen that AdSense is becoming smarter, helping you improve your ad performance; in the future, we’ll bring you new features like automatic optimization of your ads in AdSense if you choose.

Please do continue to share your suggestions via our AdSense+ page, and we’ll keep innovating (beyond just a hidden anniversary game!) so that you can focus on creating great content.

Posted by Allan Livingston - Group Product Manager, AdSense
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Understand and improve your site’s performance with the new publisher scorecard

We regularly hear that you look to us for benchmarking information on how your site is performing relative to the sites of other AdSense publishers. If you tuned in to yesterday’s Hangout on Air, you heard Susan Wojcicki talk about a future where AdSense does more of the heavy lifting for your ads, so you can focus on creating great content. Today, we’re happy to introduce the publisher scorecard, a new benchmarking feature in your AdSense account.

The scorecard can be found on the Home tab of your account and provides you with a summary of how well your ad settings, webpages and content are performing relative to other AdSense publishers. It’s organized into different categories, such as revenue optimization and site health, with each category scored on a scale of one to five blue dots indicating your performance.

You can further understand your performance and the steps you can take to improve it by following the suggestions and improvement tips in each category. Items that you should fix will be flagged by a red or yellow exclamation mark and once fixed, may help to increase your traffic and/or revenue. You’ll also be able to see updates to your score as you make improvements. In case you’re wondering if Google will take any action on low scores, the answer is no - this in an informational tool only to give you greater insights into how your site is performing.

We hope you find the scorecard a valuable tool in maximizing user experience on your site and further growing your online business. Read more about the scorecard in our Help Center and share your feedback on the AdSense +page.

Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager
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Celebrating 10 years of shared success

Ten years ago we launched AdSense to help publishers earn money by placing relevant ads on their websites. I can still remember the excitement and anticipation as AdSense went live that first day. Our small team huddled together in a cramped conference room, and right away we saw that publishers were as excited about AdSense as we were.

Fast-forward ten years, and AdSense has become a core part of Google’s advertising business. The AdSense community has grown to include over two million publishers, and last year alone, publishers earned over $7 billion from AdSense. AdSense is a community that thrives because of all the content creators we are so fortunate to partner with. So whether you’re a publisher that's been with us for ten years or ten days -- thank you!

Your stories inspire us to do our part to make AdSense great. On this occasion, it’s especially inspiring to hear the stories of partners who have been with us since the very beginning.  Like a retiree in New Zealand who was able to pursue her dream of writing about her garden, a tech support expert in Colorado who can spend more time with his kids, and a a theme park reviewer who sends employees around the world to test and review rides -- all thanks to money earned from AdSense.

As part of our 10th anniversary celebration, we hope you’ll tune into our live Hangout on Air today at 10am PDT (5pm GMT) on the AdSense +page. I look forward to joining several of our partners to share stories from the early days of AdSense, talk about how we’ve all grown since then, and discuss the future for publishers and online advertising. And if you want even more 10th anniversary celebration, just visit our AdSense 10th anniversary page at any time.

Thank you again to the entire AdSense community. We look forward to partnering with you for many more years to come!

Posted by Susan Wojcicki - SVP, Ads and Commerce
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Papilles et Pupilles finds a recipe for success

This week marks the last post of our ‘10 for 10’ success story series, which we’ve been sharing in the weeks leading up to AdSense’s 10th anniversary. Thanks for following along and submitting your own stories. Read on to meet this week’s featured publisher, and be sure to check back next week when we’ll be celebrating AdSense’s official 10th anniversary!

Eight years ago, Bordeaux resident Anne Lataillade launched French culinary blog PapillesetPupilles.fr, a site where she shares classic recipes and also recipes for people with food allergies. As the mother of two children with food allergies, Anne had already been conducting culinary research and creating her own recipes for some time. Papilles et Pupilles has grown significantly, and today generates an average of over one and a half million page views per month.


(To enable captions in a number of languages, click on the ‘Captions’ link in the bottom right corner of the YouTube player once the video starts playing.)

Earlier this year, Anne attended a Learn with Google event in Paris to learn more about optimization. After trying out the 336x280 Large Rectangle format and changing her ad units to allow both text and image ads, Anne saw an increase in her revenue. AdSense now generates 20% of the revenue from the site, which Anne uses to cover the cost of maintenance, hosting, and development.

What’s next? Anne’s goal is to continue building traffic to the site by developing new content. She’s also growing awareness of her content through her Google+ page, where she engages with over 34,000 followers.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Introducing the AdSense 10 Challenge

In celebration of AdSense’s upcoming 10th anniversary, we’re hosting a free 10-week masterclass to help you become an AdSense expert and grow your revenue. This upcoming Learn with Google for Publishers series, the AdSense 10 Challenge, starts on June 25th and we’d love for you to join us!

What is the AdSense 10 Challenge? 
Over the course of 10 weeks, we’ll equip you with the tools and insights you need to make the most out of your online business with AdSense. We’ll cover a range of topics and show you ways to increase your revenue, uncover new information in your reports, and set up experiments to determine the best layouts for your site. You’ll meet members of the AdSense community like optimization specialists and experienced AdSense publishers. In addition, we’ll host office hours each week on Google+ to answer your questions on the topic of the week.

At the end of each week, let us know how you’re doing by filling out a short check-in survey. Check-in all 10 weeks and you could be featured on our Google+ page as a Challenge Finisher and receive a limited edition AdSense 10 t-shirt.

When is the Challenge and what topics will it cover? 
The AdSense 10 Challenge will take place online from June 25th - August 30th. We’ll cover a wide range of topics designed to encourage AdSense success. For more information, check out the schedule below and add it to your Google Calendar.

• Week 1, 6/25 - 7/1 - Welcome to the AdSense 10 Challenge
• Week 2, 7/2 - 7/8 - Understanding Your Performance Reports
• Week 3, 7/9 - 7/15 - Optimization Opportunities 
• Week 4, 7/16 - 7/22 - Make Better Decisions with Google Analytics - part 1
• Week 5, 7/23 - 7/29 - Make Better Decisions with Google Analytics - part 2
• Week 6, 7/30 - 8/5 - User Experience: Understanding Your Users
• Week 7, 8/6 - 8/12 - User Experience: Engaging Your Users
• Week 8, 8/13 - 8/19 - User Experience: Testing What Works Best
• Week 9, 8/20 - 8/26 - Mobile: The Time is Now
• Week 10, 8/27 - 8/30 - Grow and Engage with Google+

Where do I sign up?

Click here to register

As we get closer to June 25th, we’ll share more information about the Challenge on our Learn with Google for Publishers community on Google+. So be sure to join the community and check back soon for updates.

See you at the Challenge!

Posted by Laurie Shiau - Inside AdSense team
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Getting the most from your 336x280 ad unit

To ensure you are always getting the best results from your ad units, we recently introduced some updates to our ad serving process enabling our larger ad units to serve similar-sized display ads. We’ve already updated this for our 300x600 and 970x90 ad units and now we’ve extended this flexibility to our 336x280 ad unit, allowing it to serve a 300x250 ad when doing so will maximize the performance of that ad unit for the publisher.

With this change you may now occasionally see a 300x250 ad served in your 336x280 ad unit when that unit is opted in to showing image ads. 300x250 and 336x280 image ads will both compete for your 336x280 ad unit with the most competitive ad served thus maximizing the earnings on your ad unit. When a 300x250 image is served it will be centered in the 336x280 ad unit as illustrated below.

300x250 display ad served within a 336x280 ad unit

Aside from ensuring that you’re getting the most from your ad units, this change gives advertisers the opportunity to expand their reach with their existing ad creatives. To maximise your earnings potential with this change, don’t forget to enable both text and image ads for your ad units. You can opt out of having similar-sized display ads served in your ad units but remember this may impact your earnings. When you opt out, this applies on an account level and not just on an individual ad unit. To opt out, go to the Allow & block ads tab in your account, click the Ad serving tab in the top horizontal bar and select the block option under the “Similar Sized Display Ads” header. Tell us what you think about these new changes on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Amit Mhatre - AdSense Software Engineer
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Northlight Images develops a successful photography business

In each of the 10 weeks leading up to AdSense’s 10th anniversary on June 18th, we’ll be sharing a new publisher success story. Read on to meet this week’s featured publisher, and feel free to submit your own success story to our team. 

Meet Keith Cooper, a commercial photographer based in Leicester, England. He runs Northlight Images, a site that was originally intended to promote his business, but which has grown to include hundreds of photography-related articles and reviews. The site has now become one of the world’s top 40 photography sites, receiving over five million unique visitors a year.



Keith signed up for AdSense in 2005 after exploring a number of options. The income from the program has enabled him to focus on the areas of photography he’s interested in. “AdSense is solid and dependable,” he says, “and it earns me 80 to 90 percent of my advertising revenue.”

To maximize the site’s effectiveness, Keith also uses a variety of other Google products. “Google+ is the one that really does it,” he says. “It brings in people who are interested in the topic and looking for specific information, so they spend more time on the site and ultimately increase my revenue.”

If you’d like to read more of Keith’s story after watching the video above, check out the full case study. There’s only one more post left in our ‘10 for 10’ series -- be sure to join us back here next week for our final story!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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