While logging into my AdSense account today I was greeted with an option to update my AdSense and AdWords login to a single Google Account login. AdSense publisher accounts were upgraded in the US last week, but it now appears that Google have started to roll this out in the UK.
Here’s the screenshot (click image for full-size):
This is something that was previously available for AdWords but until now the AdSense login has remained separate from Google accounts. There have been many requests in the past for transfering money between AdWords and AdSense accounts so it will be interesting to see if this is a step towards making that feature available.
I spotted today that LinkedIn is currently displaying a plain text advert at the top of it’s homepage which is provided by Google AdSense, containing no sponsored links or Ads by Google notice!
Here is a screenshot’s of an advert which is currently being displayed (highlighted in red box), this is generated by Google AdSense JavaScript and links to a pagead2.googlesyndication.com URL, clicking on the image shows a full-size screenshot where I’ve hovered over “SEO Compare The Definitive Top Five SEO Websites” so you can see the URL at the bottom of the browser.
2 example AdSense ads displayed on LinkedIn homepage:
It looks like LinkedIn is a Google search network partner so they will have more ad formats available to them than regular AdSense publishers, but until now AdSense ads have always been marked as sponsored links even if the Ads by Google notice isn’t always displayed. An example of another Google partner displaying ads without the Ads by Google notice is MySpace but all ads have been clearly marked as sponsored links instead.
LinkedIn do display an additional Google AdSense block on this page which is clearly marked, but it seems surprising that they would list a plain advert without marking this as an ad because they’ve always been clear about making sure their ads are differentiated from natural search listings or regular links.
I’m not quite sure where to start this week as my FeedReader seems to have been overflowing with news from Search Engine Stategies over the last few days. I’ve picked out the main PPC stories from SES New York in addition to the rest of this weeks pay per click news.
Search Engine Strategies
This Weeks other PPC news:
Google AdWords
Microsoft adCenter
General PPC
Here are the main stories from the world of PPC over the past 7 days:
Google AdWords
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Microsoft adCenter
General PPC
There may be a couple of items I missed as I’m catching up at the moment after getting back to the UK yesterday. After going back 17 hours from Sydney to LA and then forward another 8 hours to GMT I’m still trying to work out which timezone I’m in at the moment, up at 4.30am today so I probably should be somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic at the moment! 
While searching Google Groups today I noticed some “Related Pages” links appearing as part of an AdSense ad block, this displayed a section of sponsored links with related pages listed underneath, as pictured below.
Image on left is from Google Groups and right-hand-side is from GMail
It looks like Google are currently testing related content as they have recently made changes to their robots.txt file, disallowing access to the /relcontent folder. In addition to Google Groups I’ve also noticed related pages appearing in GMail, this was actually first spotted in June 2004 but I’m not sure if it’s been active since then, I don’t use GMail too much! 
I would assume this won’t become available as a new AdSense ad format because they’re not paid ads and Google will just use this within it’s own network of sites. It’s unclear at the moment how these links are chosen, some seem to be generated from recent news stories as many of the listings are dated and from within the last few weeks, while other sites are selected somehow as related to the page content, most likely via an organic search algorithm.
While researching this weeks PPC links I noticed that the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has several posts which are republished identically on the Yahoo! Publisher Network blog. I understand that there’s probably a lot of information which is relevant to both site’s readers but surely it would make more sense to use the story on one blog and then post a link to this item on the other, rather than duplicating the post on each blog?
The example I found was this post on YSMBlog.com which is duplicated here on YPNBlog.com. Similarly Google’s method also may not be ideal as the Inside AdSense blog this week had a post which was also relevant to Google AdWords but not featured on the Inside AdWords blog, so in this case AdWords readers who don’t subscribe to the AdSense blog may have missed this.
Here is this weeks roundup of pay per click news:
Google AdWords
Pay-Per-Click Beta Test - Inside AdWords
Google Launches Pay Per Action Ads - Search Engine Land
AdWords Optimization Tips: Part 3 - Account Structure - Inside AdWords
AdWords and AdSense: a perfect pair Inside AdSense
Google’s New Text Link Ad Unit - Search Engine Roundtable
Adsense to be Completely Replaced by Pay-Per-Action? - Search Engine Roundtable
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Panama Ad Ranking Algo Explained - Search Engine Watch
Yahoo Steps Up Click Fraud Efforts - Search Engine Watch
Quality is His New Job, For One - Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
Microsoft adCenter
Get Help Uploading Your Campaigns into Microsoft adCenter with QuickLaunch - adCenter Blog
New adCenter tool for determining page sensitivity - JenSense
General PPC
Buy Branded Keywords? A Case Study on Traffic, Conversion and RPV - Jonathan Mendez
It’s quite possible I missed a couple of stories from the world of pay per click as I’ve been away for most of this week, so please feel free to post any links in the comments section.
I noticed this morning that the Google AdWords ad variations now have an option to create a new Click-to-Play video ad. The Click-to-Play video ads have been available since May 2006 in the US, Canada and Japan (feedback news here) but have yet to appear in the UK until now.
For more information please view Google UK’s new learning center page.
“Google AdWords now supports click-to-play video ads – ads that combine the power of sound and motion with the precision of Google in order to provide users with a relevant and engaging advertising experience. Video ads join our line-up of text, image and flash ad formats and will be displayed on sites that are part of the Google network.”
This is pure speculation but CanWest are currently considering offers for their 56.4% stake in Australian TV company Ten, is it possible that Google could be ready to make a bid?
I’m the first to admit I know nothing about these sort of things and probably should leave this to sites like Techcrunch who actually know what their talking about, but this kind of makes sense to me. In Australia the other two top television networks Channel 7 and Channel 9 have partnerships with Yahoo! and Microsoft to form Nine MSN and Yahoo!7 and with TV advertising seemingly high on Google’s list of priorities at the moment maybe I’m not just speaking rubbish, although there is a good chance!
In December Google agreed a broadband and TV ads deal with BSkyB (Robert Murdoch is also rumoured to be keen on a channel Ten bid), here are some details of the agreement from The Guardian:
“Under the BSkyB deal, Google will be able to move into TV advertising. Google is looking to use information about viewing habits, which can be obtained through the broadcaster’s set-top boxes, to produce more targeted TV advertising. Eventually, marketing experts could tailor campaigns to specific viewers, even storing adverts on the set-top box itself.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Google are looking to continue forming partnerships with television companies, maybe ITV will be next considering that Google are now the UK’s 2nd biggest ad earner, anyway back to the search stuff now!
