Unofficial Google Products Help Centre

We're excited to let you know that we've just launched a 7th international AdSense blog -- Inside AdSense: AdSense 日本版 公式ブログ . There, you'll be able to read up on the latest feature launches and find answers to your AdSense questions, all in Japanese. Going forward, our Japanese support team will provide optimization advice to help you maximize your earnings, and will also feature Japanese-speaking publishers who have found success with the AdSense program. Visit the new blog today, and don't forget to subscribe to receive posts directly via email! Posted by the Japanese AdSense blog team

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of click-to-play video ads . To that end, we thought it'd be fitting to introduce three new members of our click-to-play video ads family: the 728x90 Leaderboard, the 120x600 Skyscraper, and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper. Previously, video ads were only enabled for the 300x250 Medium Rectangle, the 336x280 Large Rectangle, the 200x200 Small Square, and the 250x250 Square. Just like before, users will see a play button on these three ad formats when a video ad is available - this play button will appear on the right side of the Leaderboard and in the upper half of the Skyscraper formats. Once a user clicks the play button, the video ad will begin to play within the ad unit. Here's an example: Generating earnings with videos ads in these new formats will also remain the same. If the advertiser has chosen to display the click-to-play video ad as a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) ad, you will be paid for every valid impressio

As most of you know, our program policies state that publishers are not permitted to click on their own ads for any reason. For this reason, we've received many emails from publishers letting us know that they've accidentally clicked on their own ads. If you're one of these publishers, we truly appreciate the efforts you've made to monitor your account and keep it in good standing. However, we do understand that an accidental click may occur from time to time, so there's no need to contact us each instance this occurs. Because we closely monitor all account activity using engineering systems and thorough human analysis, chances are we've already detected your clicks on your ads and discounted them. While these clicks still show in your reports, we filter out their associated earnings so that advertisers aren't charged. However, please keep in mind that we don't ignore the clicks completely; if it appears to us that a publisher has been clicking on his o

You've heard the expression "Content is king." We completely agree, and we also realize that these days website content is much more than just text -- it's also video. That's why we're excited to announce that this week, we're launching a pilot with a small group of publishers to test streaming video ads in their online video content. With this pilot, publishers control when the ads play in their videos and choose which videos get the ads. We know there's a lot going on in the world of video, and you may be wondering how this relates to other video initiatives we've announced in AdSense. Here's a brief clarification: Click-to-play video ads : This is a video ad type on our content network. Any publisher opted into image ads and using one of the supported formats may see these click-to-play video ads on their sites. AdSense video distribution and sponsorship : We ran 2 pilots that allowed publishers to choose video channels (short-form video c

In this week's 'Policy Thursday' post, we'd like to follow up on one of Mike's previous posts to highlight a more specific example of encouraging clicks that we often receive emails about. Many publishers have asked if they can place text on their sites which states that all or a portion of the earnings generated through AdSense will be donated to charity or another third party. While we do appreciate your charitable efforts, this practice is not permitted by our program policies. We want users to click on ads because they are interested in the products or services offered by the advertiser, not because they are interested in supporting a site or a charity. Using this type of language can draw undue attention to the ads, and we aren't able to verify whether earnings are actually donated to the third-party mentioned on each site. As a result, we don't allow publishers to offer these types of incentives. However, please know that once you've received you

A number of publishers have asked us about phone verification and indicated that they're having difficulty with the process. After investigating these reports, we've discovered that our system is currently experiencing intermittent outages. We're working hard to fix the issue as soon as we can and appreciate your patience in the interim. Not sure if you need to verify your phone number? Find out by visiting your Payment History page - if you've reached $10 in earnings and see the 'Please verify your phone number' prompt shown in the image below, keep reading. If you don't see this message on your Payment History page, you don't need to verify your phone number. If you're required to verify your phone number, you can initiate the process by clicking the 'Please verify your phone number' link and following the instructions. We'd also like to offer you a few tips for completing the phone verification process, based on publisher feedback. Fir

Mom always said to go out and play on the weekends. Well, we hope you take her advice especially on this Mother’s Day weekend while our engineers perform routine maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT on Saturday, May 12th. You won't be able to access your account during this 4-hour window, but rest assured that your ads will continue to run and that your reports will still track all activity. Here's the maintenance start time converted for a few cities around the world: London – 6:00 pm Saturday Bucharest – 8:00 pm Saturday New Delhi – 10:30 pm Saturday Jakarta – 12:00 am Sunday Tokyo – 2:00 am Sunday Thanks for your patience, and Happy Mother’s Day! Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

We understand that there's been some confusion surrounding our recent post about accidental clicks . Specifically, many of our publishers feel that we've been sending mixed messages about placing ads near navigation controls, particularly where site optimization is concerned. For those of you concerned about our optimization tips, we still recommend integrating your ad units and link units with your page content or navigation, in order to offer your users relevant ads in addition to the content they normally see. Here are a few examples of acceptable implementations: However, in some instances we've found that publishers have placed their ad units so close to interactive (clickable) content that users accidentally click on the ads instead of the site content. While this type of ad placement may not inherently violate our program policies, it could increase the risk of invalid clicks being generated on the ads, which would be in violation of our policies. You can understand

Are you looking to make the most of your AdSense account? If so, then you need to attend our upcoming webinar, Taking It to the Next Level: Improving Your AdSense Performance . It'll be held next Wednesday, May 16th at 10:30am PDT. During this one hour overview, our support specialists will provide you with tips and suggestions that we’ve found to significantly improve AdSense performance. Topics covered will include: - Using channels to track your ad performance - Optimizing your ad placement, design, and layout - Noticing trends and making proactive improvements to your site - Keeping your account in good standing We’ll also leave time at the end of the webinar to answer any questions or concerns regarding your ad performance or other account issues. To register, click on the link below or paste it into a new browser window: https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?d=574860052&t=a Instructions for participation will then be sent to you via email from WebEx. I

Recently, a number of concerned publishers have let us know that they're seeing ads in foreign languages in the 'preview mode' of their HTML editors or on pages that haven't been published to the web. We'd like to reassure you that this is normal. Before our system can display targeted ads on your pages, our crawler first needs to access your pages. While you're building your pages within your HTML editor, your page hasn't yet been crawled, so you may sometimes see less-targeted ads or even ads in foreign languages. However, after you've published a page to the web, you should start seeing ads in the appropriate language. Please also keep in mind that it can sometimes take 1 to 2 weeks for our crawler to revisit your site after you've made any changes, but your ad relevance should improve over time. As always, we appreciate your patience as the crawler continues its work. Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

As you may know, our tips and guidelines mention that "users should only click on Google ads if they're interested in the services being advertised". While there are many precautions a publisher can take to avoid encouraging clicks on their ads, we've found that some implementations of the ad code can lead to accidental clicks that the publisher may not have been able to predict. Some implementations that could lead to accidental clicks include placing your ads: - In close proximity to Macromedia Flash games - Under pop-ups or download prompts - Near site navigation controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links Generally, we ask that you not place your ads near features of your site that your users may interact with by clicking. If your site contains elements that increase the number of ad clicks without increasing business results for the advertiser, we may consider these clicks to be invalid. "Business results" can range from an online sale to

Following the facelift we gave our ad units at the beginning of April, we've now started the same process for the AdSense homepage. You may have noticed recently that when you sign in, it's taken on a different appearance (at least sometimes). Over the next few days, you can expect to see this new homepage design more frequently as we roll out this change. If you haven't yet caught a glimpse of the new layout, here's a sneak peek: We hope you'll find this new homepage to be more visually appealing. However, please be assured that your AdSense performance and the layout of your internal account pages won't be affected in any way by this change. Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Spring is a time for change, when couples fall in love, the trees bloom -- and swallows and AdSense publishers both begin their migration. That's right, we've just started our first Google Account migration tests for older AdSense accounts. When you log into your account, you may be greeted by a screen like the one below, asking you to upgrade your login to a "Google Account". We're rolling out this migration slowly, so please don't be alarmed if you don't see this wizard in your account yet. If you like the email address you're already using, in most cases you'll be able to upgrade it to a Google Account and keep the same login and password. However, if you use another email address for other Google products like Gmail and Picasaweb, you already have a Google Account and you can finally use the same login for AdSense. Please note, however, that at this time it's not possible to update your login to an email address that is already being used