Google’s contextual advertising platform, Adsense, is introducing a new feature - “Category Filtering”. This feature allows users to block any advertisements that are unrelated to what they are searching. This is done by blocking any ads that fall under a particular category such as religion or politics.
This feature is currently in testing mode and is being tested by a small group, so you won’t be seeing anything at the moment unless you part of the test group.
Let’s take a look at the screen show of how the feature looks:
A post on the Inside AdSense blog has announced the latest in what truly is becoming a “list” of initiatives by the search giant’s various arms, legs and appendages to be axed.
As you may know, we frequently review our products and features to ensure their effectiveness. After reviewing our AdSense video units feature, which allows you to show YouTube content and ads on your pages, we’ve found that it hasn’t had the impact we had hoped for. As a result, we’ve decided to retire this feature at the end of April so we can focus our resources on other opportunities to help publishers earn from their sites.
I.e. “We are not making enough money, so those few of you that ARE making money from it… well… too bad.” However, as this refers only to the placement of video units in your pages, rather than the display of video ads through AdSense image ad units, or AdSense for video that is available to video content creators, the impact should be quite minimal. I myself know that I’ve not made squat from this after trialling it on a couple of sites - however comments left on the Inside AdSense post would indicate that some users were indeed making some cash and will miss it.
One commentor had this to say;
failure of the video units happened because of googles lack of guidance on how to use them..and for the few who figured it out on there own like me did make some money
In August we heard rumblings that maybe Google AdSense & Analytics were going to work together. Well we don’t have to wait much longer because AdSense publishers will be happy to hear that Google has finally integrated Google AdSense into Google Analytics. Therefore allowing you to see which pages, referrers are the most profitable and more. This new feature will really open publishers to knowledge they have been asking for from Google for years.
Check out the video below to get a taste of what you can expect.
If you don’t already, you’ll soon have access to these new features as they are rolled out.
ReadWriteWeb reports that the first series of these cartoons has now launched and can also be viewed on YouTube on a special channel. This series is sponsored by Burger King and a cartoonmascott has been created along with the dedicated “bk” channel on YouTube. Revenue will be split a few ways - between the production company, Google, Seth, and of course the publisher whose site the video is displayed and played on.
Advertisers will be able to choose between pre- and post-roll ads, “brought to you by” messages, or banners at the bottom of the screen. Burger King has opted for a 15-second pre-roll ad that is drawn by MacFarlane. These pre-rolls are similar to the opening sequences of the Simpsons and, thanks to MacFarlane’s signature humor, don’t feel as annoying as typical pre-roll ads do, even though the content of the ads has nothing to do with the actual cartoons.
Google has hinted that it will soon be increasing its DoubleClick integration; technology it had paid billions for.
Among the planned additions are frequency capping, frequency reporting, and view-through conversion measurement capabilities. None of the enhancements is available yet, and none will be for “a few months,” according to a Google spokesperson. Still, it’s clear the firm aims to ensure advertisers, publishers, and company observers that it’s working at incorporating DoubleClick into its ad operation.
More details of when the features will be provided will be available in the coming months. Google expects all of the additional features to boost ad quality. For more information, check out ClickZ
On Wednesday Google made the official announcement on the AdSense Blog that the “next” and “previous” arrows that have been randomly popping up on AdSense ad units since late last year are now a permanent fixture. The arrows allow users to scroll more ads than would normally be displayed within the contraints of the ad unit and are said to increase the advertiser value and make it much more likely that a user will click through on your ads. (more…)
In a few days, Google will be launching a new advertising technology that will allow publishers the ability to incorporate text ads into online videos, a move that will see video creation and distribution become profitable for people who create the content. (more…)
Google’s AdSense plans to exclude from it’s program those domains that are repeatedly registered and then refunded a few days later in an effort to reduce the profitability and hopefully discourage the practice that sees millions of domain names tied up and unavailable to those who legitimately want to register them.
“We believe that this policy will have a positive impact for users and domain purchasers across the Web,” Google spokesman Brandon McCormick said.
The process, known as domain name tasting, takes advantage of a 5 day grace period given on new domain registrations in order to register a domain on a popular topic and monetise it only to gain a full refund after the buzz has died down. The move by Google (something that Yahoo already attempts to do) should represent a signification blow to the bottom line for people undertaking this scheme.
Google Adsense have recently made a change to their Terms of Service (TOS) on the Google Adsense blog. It affects the way in which affiliates can earn money for people signing up for Adsense through their blogs.
The current setup works like this:
If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $5 within 180 days you get a payment of $5.
If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within 180 days you get $250
If you refer 25 people who make $100 within a 180 day period you get a bonus payment of $2000
However the new setup will work differently, by that if you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within a 180 day period you get $100.
As Darren Rowse of ProBlogger states:
“This removes the incentive to refer anyone who is a small publisher and it removes the incentive to work hard at referring multiple publishers. In fact it removes quite a bit of incentive to use the program at all.”
If this hasnt infused some negative feedback from Bloggers worldwide, than the following will.
Adsense Referrals are now not allowed for Publishers outside of North America, Latin America and Japan.
By the sounds of things, some of the worlds most prestigous bloggers are not happy one bit. It will be interesting to follow this as it develops to see whether Google will retreat on their new policies.
