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When talking about optimization here on Inside AdSense, we frequently encourage readers to use the 300×250 medium rectangle. But we’ve also talked about how bigger ad units tend to perform well, so a few publishers have asked us, “Should we be using the 300×250 medium rectangle or the bigger 336×280 large rectangle?”We took this question to our Optimization Team, who gave us insight into the strengths of each ad format:The 300×250 medium rectangle is a widely supported format that advertisers often use when designing their branding and rich media campaigns. Using this ad format and opting in to both text and image ads may generate more placement targeting opportunities, which will help drive up competition for your ad space and should lead to higher earnings over time.The 336×280 large rectangle tends to have a higher clickthrough rate due to its larger size. It often performs well on text-heavy pages where it’s integrated into the content.Our optimization specialists noted that performance of these two ad formats can vary from site to site, so they can’t definitively say that all publishers should always use one format over the other. Just like with all other customization options, they recommend experimenting with each ad format for 3-4 weeks and measuring performance using custom channels.What’s your opinion? Feel free to leave us a comment and let us know how the medium and large rectangles have performed for you.Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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One of the methods I employ for both SEO and Adsense optimization is keeping things simple. Simple text based sites that make the Adsense and Google bots jobs easy to navigate and index my sites for…

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You may remember that last year, we added arrows to the bottom of cost-per-click (CPC) ad units. These arrows allow users to browse through additional relevant ads, helping them find exactly they’re looking for. We’ve been testing slight updates to the look of these arrows, and our experiments have shown improvements in the user experience. As a result, we’ll soon be making a few minor aesthetic changes, including darkening the arrows to make them more visible and orienting all arrows to point left and right. In addition, to help users understand what the arrows do, hovering over the arrows will soon show the labels ‘previous ads’ and ‘next ads’. You’ll see these changes appear in CPC ad units in all languages gradually over the next few days.Posted by Amy Wu - AdSense Product Manager

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With tools like Street View, Google Maps is altering the way people interact with their surroundings, letting you see the facade of the store you’re about to visit, plot directions, and find a place to park before you even leave the house. Google Maps has also changed the way information is being presented across the web. Since 2005, web developers from around the world have begun to overlay their content on Google Maps, mashing it all up and presenting it in extremely creative ways. As this trend evolves, maps are becoming the backdrop or canvas for many webpages. We’ve been hearing from the over 150,000 Google Maps developers eager to monetize this growing screen real estate, so we’ve worked to ensure that Google Maps embedded on external websites can be properly monetized. If you’re a Maps developer, you now have two options for your embedded Google Maps API implementations to earn revenue using AdSense.Maps Ad Unit - This new Google Maps API feature overlays AdSense ads on an embedded Google map on your site. The ads are targeted to the map’s current view and update as the user moves around the map. For example, if the user is looking at Napa Valley, California, the text ads will likely display ads for wineries, hotels, and/or restaurants. As the user moves the map, ads continue to change by location and you’ll generate revenue from every valid ad click. To see an example of this, take a look at ZipMaps, an external Maps API site that presents U.S. zip code boundaries:GoogleBar Local Search - The GoogleBar feature within the Google Maps API overlays a search box onto your map which lets the user perform a local search on the map. When results are shown, an ad is displayed that you earn revenue on when clicked. Feedback from sites that have implemented the GoogleBar reveals that users are happy to be able to search Google while on their map, and the site owners are happy to be able to monetize this additional service.Here’s an example of the GoogleBar in action on another Google Maps API site called Google Sightseeing: If you’re a developer with an existing Google Maps API implementation and an AdSense account, take a few minutes to add it to your maps to see how it performs for you. Interested in embedding Google Maps on your site? Take a look at the new Google Maps site to learn about all your options!Posted by Mike Pegg - Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps

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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.

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We recently announced that AdSense would start allowing Google-certified ad networks to bid for your display ad space in order to help you find new ways to generate revenue. You may have seen today’s post by Neal Mohan on the Official Google Blog announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and we’d like to take a moment to let you know how these two announcements fit together. The Google-certified ad network capability is powered by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange that we announced today. Certified ad networks are Ad Exchange participants who have gone through an additional certification process in order to be able to to bid for your ad space through AdSense. 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. You don’t need to change any of your account settings to start allowing these ads to compete. Also, you can continue to use the Ad Review Center to control which certified ad networks can appear on your site. Opening AdSense to certified Ad Exchange participants means that more advertisers will be able to bid on your ad space. We believe this will ultimately help you earn more revenue for your sites. Posted by Sean Harvey, Business Product Manager, and Scott Spencer, Group Product Manager

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If you’ve ever argued over where the pavlova was first invented and are currently enjoying the first signs of spring, the Australia and New Zealand AdSense team is holding a webinar specifically for you! We’ll be presenting our techniques for improving your AdSense for content performance, as well as handy tips on making your AdSense implementation more user-friendly.We’ll be running two free sessions that you can choose between; both are exactly the same and will run for approximately one hour. Register for the one you’d like to attend by visiting one of the links below — even if you’re not located in Australia or New Zealand, you’re still welcome to register!Webinar Option 1: 12.00pm AEST Monday 21st of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)Webinar Option 2: 5.30pm AEST Tuesday 22nd of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)Once you’ve registered, you’ll receive an email from messenger@webex.com to confirm your time and give you instructions on how to attend the webinar. We recommend that you register in advance.If you’re new to webinars (or web seminars), they’re online meetings that you can attend using any computer with an internet connection and speakers or a headset. This Help Center entry will provide further details about what you’ll need to participate. You’ll also have the chance to ask questions based on the presentation through the interactive chat panel. Here are a few more details about next week’s webinars.Presenters:Victoria, Mel, and Disha from the Sydney-based AdSense TeamContent:Introduction - The Google Australia & New Zealand AdSense TeamGoogle AdSense – AdSense for content optimisationAd Formats – Opting in to image and textPlacement – Position and sizeDesign – Colours and bordersGoogle Custom Search Engine - Best practicesWorking with Google - AdSense account essentialsWe’ll also be showcasing some real-life examples of how other publishers have optimised their AdSense implementation.We hope you can make one of the sessions, and we look forward to sharing our best AdSense optimisation techniques with you.Posted by Mel-Ann Chan - AdSense Optimisation Team, Australia & New Zealand

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Looking for ways to spice up your website with dynamic content? You may know from our optimization tips that you can help increase your AdSense revenue by incorporating other Google products into your site. We’re happy to introduce a new, easy way for you to do just that with Google Web Elements. Web Elements let you easily add richness and interactivity to your site simply by copying and pasting a snippet of code. Inspired by the convenience of embeddable YouTube videos, each Web Element is built upon existing Google products. For example, the Google News element, introduced on this blog earlier this year, dynamically pulls in content from Google News based on news topics you select and displays within an embed on your site. With the official launch of Web Elements, you can choose to include Web Elements from products like Google Custom Search, Calendar, Docs, Friend Connect, and more.Need more inspiration on how to integrate Web Elements into your site? Here are a few ideas:If you’re using a Custom Search Engine on your site, the Custom Search element can help you integrate search results much more seamlessly with the look and feel of your pages. You can continue to earn revenues from searches while offering a better user experience to your users with better results styling. Who’s using it: The Mayo Clinic uses the Custom Search Element as their main search function. The look and feel of the search results blends in smoothly with the rest of the site. To enable your visitors to post comments and links on your site, use the Conversation element. The element also lets visitors participate in conversations via Friend Connect. Who’s using it: St. Simons Blog uses the Conversation element to let users in St. Simons Island and Georgia’s Golden Isles connect with each other. The YouTube News element displays the latest YouTube videos from a number of news content partners including the Associated Press, CBS Online, Washington Post, Bloomberg, NY Times, Russia Today, Al-Jazeera English, and more.Who’s using it: CitizenTube is YouTube’s official news and politics blog. They display the YouTube News element on the right-hand side of the homepage labeled as “Latest News Videos”.The Spreadsheet element allows you to display a table of information to your users which pulls from any Google Spreadsheet you choose. Whenever you update the Spreadsheet, the element will also update automatically. This is an easy way to keep dynamic content on your site fresh. Who’s using it: Metal Italia is an Italian heavy metal fan site. The site uses the Spreadsheet element to display album information for heavy metal artists. To get started, all you need to do is go to http://www.google.com/webelements, select the element you want on your site, and copy and paste the resulting code into your website source code. If you’re interested in tinkering further with the Web Elements, you can further customize any of the elements as you please, since they’re all powered by Google’s developer APIs.Using a Web Element on your site (or two, or seven)? We’d love to hear what you think and how they’ve been working for you. Just leave a comment on this blog post!Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Web Elements Team

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This Saturday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You’ll be unable to log in to your AdSense and Ad Manager accounts during this time, but we’ll continue serving ads to your pages and tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad targeting won’t be affected.We’ve converted the maintenance start time for a few cities around the world:Ottawa - 1pm SaturdayLondon - 6pm SaturdayKolkata - 10:30pm SaturdayManila - 1am SundayAuckland - 5am SundayIf you’d like to learn more about what goes on during these maintenance periods, check out this Inside AdSense post.Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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Let’s cut to the chase: I was making $100 a day with Google Adsense and I blew it. Here’s how it happened, and how you can use my mistake to increase profits on your own blog.

The “contest blog” concept is old hat today, and you can find dozens of sites that post about contests that are being held across the Blogosphere. I started the whole craze with Contest Blogger a few years ago, and I had stumbled upon a goldmine.

After encouraging mentions from big players like ProBlogger, Contest Blogger had hundreds of RSS followers within a few short weeks. My daily visitor count took off like a rocket, and the site amassed tens of thousands of incoming links. By the end of the year, Contest Blogger had a Page Rank of 5 and was earning me about $20 a day just from a single Adsense banner in the sidebar.

And the profits only increased when I decided to transform the site from a blog into a forum. I was receiving a dozen requests to review blog contests every day, and I simply couldn’t keep up with it (I was an officer in the U.S. Army then, and my duties kept me away from a computer for days at a time). I decided to install the Simple:Press Forum plugin on Contest Blogger to let readers post their own contest announcements, and it was immediately obvious that I had made the right move.

Thanks to the fact that Contest Blogger ranked in the top three Google results for lucrative keywords like “contests” and “sweepstakes,” the site was getting close to a thousand visits a day. The Contest Blogger Forum quickly grew in members, and Adsense banners at the top of the site started to pull in as much as $100 on high-traffic days.

That’s when I made my big mistake: I got greedy. Combine that with the fact that I simply couldn’t monitor the Contest Blogger Forum on a regular basis, and the results were disastrous.

An SEO acquaintance recommended a plugin that posted fresh content on your blog every day, written by hundreds of contributors and then “scrambled” by an automated program that made each article “completely unique.” It seemed too good to be true, but I moved the Contest Blogger Forum to an internal page and started auto-posting pre-written articles on the homepage to test it out.

During the first month of my new approach, I was happy to see that the unique post plugin actually increased my traffic and profits as new articles got indexed. In response, I increased the number of article topics that would post on Contest Blogger every day. Many of the new articles had absolutely nothing to do with contests or sweepstakes, but I didn’t see past the higher revenue.

And then the floor fell out from under me. I woke up one morning to check the Contest Blogger stats, and discovered that I had been hit with every webmaster’s worst nightmare: the site had been completely de-indexed by Google.

Although Google doesn’t give webmasters a reason for why their sites get de-indexed, I was pretty certain that it had everything to do with my use of the auto-posting plugin. I immediately uninstalled it, spent days deleting thousands of posts that it had created on Contest Blogger, and sent a reconsideration request to Google.

All to no avail. Months later, and after several reconsideration requests, Contest Blogger is still completely absent from the Google index. It has an active forum community and sees some daily search visitors from Yahoo and Bing, but loosing the Google juice made its traffic and profits fall by nearly 90 percent. I might submit another reconsideration request in the future, but I don’t have much hope that the site will ever show up in the Google SERPS again.

Getting Contest Blogger de-indexed was my own fault, plain and simple. But here are a few lessons from my mistake that you can use to increase your own traffic and profits:

1. Don’t underestimate how smart the search engines are.

If you try to game the system, Google will figure it out eventually. The key to your blog’s success is simple: original, interesting content that is relevant to your visitors and keeps them coming back for more. If you think there’s a magic shortcut that will let you do no work and watch your traffic and profits increase, then you’re just plain wrong.

2. If something is working, don’t change it.

Contest Blogger was doing just fine when I decided to replace the forum with auto-generated articles. Sure, I had responsibilities that kept me away from the computer for a few days at a time, but I could have easily hired someone to monitor the forum while I was gone. You should always look for ways to improve your site, but not at the expense of your readers’ experience.

3. Go for slow growth rather than quick gains.

Building a successful website or blog takes time and dedication. If your visitor count and profits are steadily increasing over time, don’t get impatient and start looking for a lazy way to speed things up.

4. If something seems too good to be true, it is.

I suspected that the auto-posting plugin that I installed on Contest Blogger was shady, but I ignored my reservations when I saw how much it increased my profits. If you’re thinking about using any tactics that let you sidestep hard work and originality on your blog, then your traffic and revenue will suffer in the end. Take my word for it.

5. Let your blog evolve, and listen to your visitors.

Converting Contest Blogger from a blog to a forum was a big change, but it was an evolution that allowed the site to better serve its visitors. Removing the forum and auto-posting irrelevant articles, however, was not in the best interests of our audience. Don’t be afraid to let your blog evolve if it makes it more useful, but never go after a quick profit if you know it will disappoint your visitors.

Oh, and by the way: if anyone out there knows any Google employees, I’d love to find out how Contest Blogger could get re-indexed!

Phil Van Treuren works in the field of search engine optimization, social media strategy and Internet marketing. You can subscribe to his blog at VanTreuren.com.

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As part of our continued efforts to give you more control over the ads that appear on your sites, we’d like to share two additional improvements to the Competitive Ad Filter:Faster filteringIn the past, the Competitive Ad Filter sometimes took up to several hours to block URLs you’d entered. 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. Increased filter list sizeAt the same time, a growing number of you have let us know that you’re running out of space in your Competitive Ad Filter. Now, you can add up to 500 sites to your filter list, more than double the previous limit. As you add new sites, please continue to keep the possible revenue impact of filtering in mind. You might also find it helpful to review our tips for using your Competitive Ad Filter. We’re continuing to work towards enhancing your ad controls, and we’d love to hear any suggestions you have. Feel free to leave us a comment below.Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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We’re happy to announce that publishers located in South Korea can now receive payments via Western Union Quick Cash. You won’t need to wait for your checks in the mail, and AdSense won’t charge you any fees to use this payment method. Please note that payments can only be picked up at the International Bank of Korea (IBK) and are only available in South Korean Won (KRW) currency.Sign up for payments by Western Union today by following these instructions. Two important things to remember: we can only send Western Union payments to individual publishers at this time, and the payee name on your account must exactly match the government issued ID card that you’ll bring to pick up your payments. We also encourage you to review the information in our Help Center for more details about this payment method, including how you can pick up your payments and when you’ll need to pick them up by.Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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An ad serving issue yesterday, August 31st, from 4:30pm PDT to September 1st, 2am PDT caused less relevant ads or public service announcements (PSAs) to appear on some publisher pages. This was mostly limited to regions of Asia. Our engineers have now resolved the issue, and ad targeting has returned to normal. We apologize for the inconvenience, and are working to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

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