Expiration date extended

The deadline to pick up your payments is extended from a mere 35 days to 60 days. So, you don't have to be worried about missing the deadline since you have ample time to comfortably complete the Western Union cash out.

If you haven't picked up your payment within 60 days of issuance, the payment will be credited back to your account and a payment hold will be placed on your account. You'll then see a notice in your account with more details on how to proceed.

Split payments

This is definitely a very good news to publishers who making thousands of dollar out of Adsense. Previously, if your earnings exceed payout limit (different from one country to another), you will only receive your payment via check which usually takes ages to arrive and to cash out.

With split payments you don't have to worry about receiving snail check anymore, you can always receive your payment via Western Union.

Now, if your payment exceeds the maximum payment amount, we'll divide up the amounts but still send them via Western Union. For instance, if the payout limit in your country is $3,000 USD and your payment for the month is $5,000 USD, we'll send you two payments: one for the limit of $3,000 USD and another for the remainder of $2,000 USD. If you're sent multiple Western Union payments, you'll see multiple 'Payment issued' lines on your Payment history page, each with the corresponding MTCN associated with it. Depending on your local Western Union agent, you may need to pick up multiple payments on subsequent days. We recommend consulting your local Western Union agent for further details.

Technorati Tags: western union, adsense, split payments

Adsense has been taking aggressive approach to further expand Western Union to more countries and recently Western Union was introduced in Panama.

Don't have Western Union in your country? What Adsense says?

Not located in Panama? We've been reading your comments on our other recent payment-related posts, and understand that many of you are looking forward to new payment options in additional countries. Please know that we aren't able to provide details about when new options may become available, as setting them up can take time due to factors like compliance with local laws and tax regulations. However, we're working hard to find more convenient ways to send you your earnings, and we'll definitely announce any new options here. In the meantime, please feel free to keep leaving your feedback, and we appreciate your patience!

Give your feedback, Google is listening to your wishes :)

Technorati Tags: western union, payment option, adsense publisher, adsense earnings, western union in panama, earn money online

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears. You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

Technorati Tags: adsense ads, advertisements, publishers, visitors

We've also added some specific requirements that make it necessary for publishers to post and abide by a transparent privacy policy that users see. According to this policy, publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertisers' use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future.

In order to be fully compliant with the current Adsense Terms and Conditions, Adsense publisher is required to put up a privacy policy across the domains and networks under which Google Ads operate to advise visitors about the presence of cookies and web beacons.

To those who have already learnt about these changes, you can simply ignore this post but if they just come into your knowledge, be prepared to setup privacy and please disseminate this information to others as I'm sure many people are not aware of these changes. Regarding the privacy policy, you might find difficult to setup a Privacy Page but rest assured as Jennifer over at Jensense provides AdSense-friendly privacy policy sample for AdSense publishers to use.

Technorati Tags: privacy policy, adsense tips, publishers, advertisements, cookies

What about the old code?

Your old codes will remain active and unaffected. However, it won't be included in the new ad management. If you want to update your codes, simply generate new code and at the end of the process you will be required to fill in the name of you ads. Be descriptive as possible so that you won't get confused which ads belong to which sites.

This feature might or might not be in your account yet but it will be there soon. Below are some questions that might be asked by some of you (from Inside Adsense)

How has the process of generating new ad code changed?
On the 'Get Ads' page of the 'AdSense Setup' tab, you'll find the same code generation wizard you've used before. At the end of the wizard, you'll now be prompted to provide a name for the ad unit you've just created. We recommend using a descriptive name so that you'll remember where you pasted this ad unit. For instance, use names like "Homepage Leaderboard, example.com" or "Top 300x250, Sports pages." You can find more detailed instructions in our Help Center.

Why do I need to name my new ad units now?
With this new feature, all your new ad code will have a name and an unique ad slot ID. This will help you remember them so you can make changes to them later directly on the 'Manage Ads' page. As noted above, please be as specific as possible when naming your ad units and include information such as location, ad size, and domain.
Will the old ad code on my sites still work?
Any ad code you've generated in the past will continue to work as normal. However, please note that the old ad code will not automatically be updated to include this feature. If you'd like to apply this new feature to your old ad units, you can import the code and save the new settings.

Why don't I see anything after adding a new ad unit to my site?
If you're implementing a newly created ad unit on your site, the ad unit may not appear for up to 10 minutes while our servers are informed about the settings for the new unit. Don't feel like waiting? Simply use the Preview function on the 'Manage Ads' page to check out your updated pages immediately.

I made some changes to my ads, but nothing changed on my site. What happened?
Just as noted above, any changes to the ad unit may take up to 10 minutes to be visible. Feel free to use the Preview function to see your changes immediately.

How do I change the size of my ad units on the 'Manage Ads' page?
Unfortunately, size is one of the few things you can't change with this new feature. To change the size of your ads, you'll need to visit the 'Get Ads' page to generate a new ad unit.

How do I delete some of the ad units I created?
Right now, it isn't possible to delete ad units from within your account. This is designed to help avoid instances where an active ad units might be accidentally deleted. However, ad units that have not generated impressions for 7 days will become 'inactive' and will automatically be hidden. You can check the 'Show inactive AdSense units' box to unhide them.

Technorati Tags: adsense tips, simplified ad management

In order to activate this feature, a confirmation email will be sent to you, where you are required to grant access for Feedburner to access your Google account. Rest assured, the access is only required to make this feature to function sufficiently and Feedburner is not given access to your bank and personal details. More importantly, you may terminate the access at any time.

The installation is easy if you had "FeedFlare" running in your website and if you don't, Feedburner will walk you through the process. There are two size of ads provided that are 468 x 60 pixels and 300 x 250 pixels. I do not activate this option as I prefer to use Mighty Adsense which gives user greater control over the ads size and the placement of the ads.

Technorati Tags: google, adsense, feedburner, pay per click

How do I pick up my Western Union Quick Cash payment?

In order to pick up your payment by Western Union Quick Cash, please complete the following steps:

Visit http://www.payment-solutions.com/agent.asp to locate a Western Union Agent.
Call the Western Union Agent to confirm that they offer the Quick Cash service.
Bring the following information with you:- a valid government-issued photo ID (Passport, Driver's license, National ID etc)
- sender's information: Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California 94043, USA. Phone Number: 650-253-4000
- amount of your payment, which you can find on your Payment History page
- your unique MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) which you can find by clicking on the 'details' link next to the Payment Issued line on your Payment History page

When you go to the Western Union agent, please let them know that you would like to pick up a Quick Cash payment. Additionally, please remember to pick up your Western Union payment within 35 days of the payment date, or the amount will be credited back to your AdSense account.

Learn more about Western Union and this method of payment here.

Technorati Tags: western union, GA, Adsense earning, method of payment

The Allowed Sites list, which you'll find by clicking the Allowed Sites link under your AdSense Setup tab, is the place for you to list sites or URLs where you want to allow your ads to appear. Sites that aren't on your list can still display ads using your ad code; however, impressions and clicks for these sites won't appear in your reports, advertisers won't be charged, and you won't receive any earnings from them.

In order to activate this feature, go to Adsense Setup > Allowed Sites and choose the radio button (Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account). Make sure to keep the list updated.

Technorati Tags: adsense tips

AdSense Referrals:

• When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.
• When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment, you will be credited with an additional $250.
• If, in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).

AdWords Referrals:

• When an advertiser you refer spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee) you will be credited with $5.
• When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.
• If, in any 180 day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payments are limited to 1 per year).

Me: I'd rather concentrate on the "AdSense for content".

Technorati Tags: adsense policy update, adsense tips, adwords referral

I found an interesting finding on few sites where they have been using pictures as background images for Adsense ads. Let's take a look at the following example, which ads catches you attention. It's pretty obvious graphics catch the eye more than text right?

How effective Adsense background towards clickthrough rate (CTR)?
Well it pretty much depends on the visitors, the layout of the website where these ads reside, the images used and few other factors. As internet folks say test, test and test. You might be getting better result or maybe the other way round but it's worth a try.

Does it violate the Adsense TOS?
Personally, it does if images and ads are directly associated in deceitful way. If you have any info about this, please share with us.

See more example of adsense background images in AdBackground and AdsenseCreator

Technorati Tags: adsense tips, images, background

The following is the excerpt from Adsense blog.

Ad and image placement: a policy clarification

We've recently received a number of emails from publishers asking how we feel about the placement of images near Google ad units. There's been some confusion on this issue, and so we turned to our policy team to set the record straight.

Can I place small images next to my Google ads?

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn't actually being offered. That's not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?

No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.

Does this mean I can't place ads on pages with images?

You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images -- just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. For example, if you run a stock photography site with a catalog of thumbnail images, don't line the ads up with the thumbnails in a way that could be misleading. Consider using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example.

What do unacceptable implementations look like?

Here are some examples that wouldn't comply with our policies.

[via] Problogger.net

Technorati Tags: adsense policy, google ads

Here is Luke's experience and quick tips to improve CTR rates.

One thing I’m learning and experiencing at the moment is Web, SEO, Technology, Webmaster readers are a real Tech savvy bunch. Why will this make me have a low CTR (Click Though Rate) you ask? The more Tech savvy the user is, the more chance that the user can identify what’s Advertising and what’s not. Chances are unless the Advertising is super relevant they won’t click on the Advertisement. What can be done to curb this?

- Advertisements that pay per impressions instead of clicks
- Blend your Advertisements to look like they are a part of your site
- Adding a donation button. Many Blogs that don’t make much from Advertising will have a donation button. No one will donate I hear you saying!. Even if 1 in 1000 people donate 5 dollars, it can pay for the hosting
- Other methods of revenue such as Paid Posts, Selling Links, Donations.

Me: Currently, I've 3 websites up and running, it seems to be true that the more tech savvy a user is, the less the chance of you getting a click.

Technorati Tags: adsense tips, improve CTR rates

I found that if you post an article on your blog very late at night, maybe at midnight or a little later, the revenue per click generated during the next day is higher, by almost 50%

Why? I thought about that question for a few days, and the best theory that I could come up with was that the advertisers with the highest per click budget show up on top of all the other ads early in the day, but their budget limit is reached quicker.

By the afternoon the higher paying ads shut off untill the next day, while the cheaper ads now show up on top of the ad block.

His observation is done based on U.S. eastern time (-0500 GMT). This tips might not work to everyone as it depends on the niche and visitors but it's worth to give a try.

Source: Problogger

Technorati Tags: tips, higher adsense clicks, blogging

From the following screenshot, it can be seen that a YouTube video is nicely placed next to the AdSense advertisements and the chosen video suits to the page content - wedding. It might give you better impression because very few sites using this layout (This is the first site I came across to put video next to Adsense ads.)

The YouTube video can be easily resized to fit the page layout by manually changing the width and height of YouTube code.

Source: LiewCF

Technorati Tags: improve CTR, adsense, youtube, blog, video, ads

Two weeks ago, I discovered a great site showing the MFA sites' url. I added the links to my Competitive Ad Filter since there was no url before. I check my AdSense revenue daily and found out that my earnings were increasing.

Basically these MFA sites consist of massive number of google ads and lack of content and they promote their sites via google adwords at low bidding prices (i.e. 7-topsites.com).

One way of preventing these sites from appearing in your sites is through Competitive Ad Filter. Yes, it is time consuming to go through all of your sites but it really pays off. This site (Ads Black List) is worthy to be visited as it compiles a lot of MFA sites. You can submit your websites url and keywords of your site to find the MFA sites that are associated with your website.

Personally, I rather monitor my websites on regular basis as I can precisely filter out the MFA sites that frequently appear on my sites and for what it's worth, Competitive Ad Filter only permits 200 submissions. So, you need to be selective not to choose MFA sites that might not harm you adsense revenue at all.

Technorati Tags: adsense, revenue, mfa, google, pay per click