Unofficial Google Products Help Centre

Over the past few months, we've drawn attention to the value of video , and specifically, of embedding video on your sites. We're happy to announce that Google Video is now available for Australia ! Our Australian friends can search for the most popular videos in Australia and embed them on their own sites, all within a localized (or rather "localised") interface. Not only is there the usual treasure trove of footage uploaded by individual users already on Google Video, but the AU team has worked closely with great partners like ABC , AFTRS (the Australian Film, Television and Radio School), Channel 10 , Film Australia , Fairfax and SonyBMG . We're sure you'll find some great content amongst these partners and others to enhance your website. In addition, there are now many ways for you to customize the video player itself and the surrounding page. This way, the player is integrated with your content and will help engage your users. You can: Resize the playe

Provide a great user experience, and the money will follow. We've found this to be true time and time again with our own products and services. For publishers like you, this starts with offering content that's meaningful to your visitors. The more you can focus on your core asset -- your site's content -- the more successful you can be with AdSense. We just launched a service that can help you spend less time, energy, and money on one of the biggest distractions for publishers: maintaining IT systems. Google Apps for Your Domain lets you offer powerful communication and collaboration tools including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk to everyone with an account on your own domain, people within your organization and/or members of your community. You can private-label the interfaces to make them your own, and best of all, everything is managed on Google's scalable, secure systems, just like AdSense. No servers to install or maintain, no spam upgrades to think about,

Here's an AdSense mystery worthy of intrepid detective Veronica Mars: Why are increases in clickthrough rate (CTR) sometimes accompanied by decreases in earnings per click? Occasionally, we hear from publishers who are perplexed that their earnings don't change despite an increase in CTR. This phenomenon can seem inexplicable, and when it happens, publishers may suspect that 'smart pricing' has taken effect, or that Google is making revenue share changes. What's really going on? AdSense is unique because it's designed to maximize eCPM for our publishers, taking into account both the advertiser's cost-per-click (CPC) bid and the likelihood that the ad will be clicked. Some ads are attractive to a broad range of site visitors and will be clicked on more frequently. While this can be great for your CTR, advertisers are often bidding less for these kinds of broadly targeted ads. Other ads are attractive only to a small niche of users. Advertisers will typical

In honor of Fashion Week , this Saturday, AdSense will be workin' it out. No, not on the runway -- we'll be doing regular system maintenance from 10am-2pm PST. Even AdSense needs its beauty rest! ;) You won't be able to access your account during this time, but don't worry, dahling - we'll keep serving those fabulous ads and recording all those stunning impressions they make on your visitors. Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

This week we bring you two key improvements to AdSense that came about directly from publisher feedback. First off, you'll be happy to hear that we've completely revamped the Channels page under your AdSense Setup tab. Besides cleaning up the design by housing each product on its own sub-tab, we've also made it easier for you to take action on your channels. Just select the checkbox next to a channel and then choose to activate, deactivate, remove, or rename the channel you've selected. You can also find more information about getting started with channels in our Help Center . We're also launching the new 200 x 200 size ad format, better known as the small square. This ad format supports text, image and video ads, and we hope that you'll find it a useful option when integrating your ads into your site. If you have other suggestions for future product features, we'd love to hear them ! Posted by Nikhil Achwal - AdSense Publisher Support

A few weeks ago, we told you that publishers can display AdSense for search results within their own sites . Now AdSense Product Manager Shirin Oskooi explains the benefits and provides a short demonstration in this video. Interested in implementing search results within your own site? Just visit our Help Center for instructions. Posted by Dobromir Montauk - AdSense Publisher Support

We're excited to let you know about the launch of a new AdSense blog: Portuguese-speaking publishers can now read the latest AdSense news and announcements at Por Dentro do AdSense: o blog oficial do AdSense em português . From São Paulo and Dublin, the AdSense Portuguese team supports publishers in countries including Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, and of course Portugal. The new blog will feature local case studies and information just for Portuguese-speaking publishers, as well as optimization tips and feature updates to help you make the most of your AdSense account. Subscribe to the new blog today and start receiving posts directly in your inbox! Posted by the AdSense Portuguese blog team

In March, we asked for your feedback on referrals . With the launch of our new button design and the option to display referrals in more products and languages, the referrals team would love to hear more from you. Feel free to give us any type of feedback – whether it's how we can further improve the referrals program, or if you've seen great success with the new button design. We always enjoy receiving mail from you! Posted by Laura Chen - AdSense Publisher Support

We're happy to tell you that Pack referral buttons are now available in additional languagues such as German, Portuguese, and Japanese. Don't forget -- when a Windows user you've referred to Pack downloads and installs it for the first time, you'll receive up to US$2 in your account. To begin displaying Pack referral buttons on your site, simply choose Referrals from the AdSense Setup page of your account, then select Pack as the product to which you'd like to refer users on your pages. Posted by Laura Chen - AdSense Publisher Support

I'd like to share this earth-shattering news with you: David Hasselhoff (of Knight Rider and Baywatch fame) has come out with a classic new music video that should not be missed. How did I find out about it? I saw a dynamically generated link to it from Google Related Links at the bottom of my blog. (And I've found some other gems that way that have to wait for another post.) Let me give you what the MBAs call the 8-second elevator pitch (our buildings are not very tall around here) on Google Related Links. The idea is you surf over to http://www.google.com/relatedlinks/ and start creating a Google Related Links unit for your site. You pick the color, size, and types of content (related news, videos, searches, web pages) that you want to appear in this Related Links unit, and then copy the JavaScript over to your site just as you would do for an AdSense ad unit. Google crawlers will then crawl your site, see what type of content is there, and then dynamically show links in t

As membership in the English AdSense Help Forum crosses the 4,500 mark, we're very pleased to announce the launch of two new Help Forums: AdSense 支持论坛 in Chinese, and the AdSense Forum for German speakers. In these communities, you can help other publishers optimize their sites, ask for troubleshooting advice, or just chat about AdSense features and your experiences with the program. 現在 就向其他 AdSense 发布商学习吧! Lernen Sie von anderen AdSense Publishern! Posted by Jordan Blackthorne - AdSense Publisher Support

Then take a rest this holiday! After working hard to optimize your site during the past month, it's time to take a break and enjoy the fruits of your efforts. Our U.S. offices will be taking a break this weekend as well, so you can expect that our responses to any messages you send us will take slightly longer to arrive. We'll be back, relaxed and rejuvenated, on Tuesday. If you're too excited about all the optimizations you've made to take it easy, then take some time to browse our Help Center or Help Discussion Forum over the long weekend. Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support