Archive for March, 2006

Back on December 12th, we released a site redesign that included user forums on each of our news pages. We were pretty psyched about this -- a chance to let our users “talk back” to the news seemed like...

One of the biggest reasons why AdWords can be so effective for your business is that it provides the ability to target your ads specifically to your prospective customers. AdWords offers a variety of targeting options, such as language, location, distribution (where your ads appear), and criteria (by keyword or by site). Today we’ll cover the first two: language and location.

English? Español? Estonian?
In this increasingly global marketplace, you may find that your customers don’t necessarily all speak the same language (literally). You can take advantage of the language targeting options within AdWords to display ads to users in 56 different languages – everything from English or French to Icelandic and Thai. You can choose your language targeting preferences when you create a new campaign, or change existing preferences under "Edit Campaign Settings." To target multiple languages in a single campaign, hold down the CTRL key and click the languages of your choice.

Note: many advertisers ask if Google will translate keywords and ad text into different languages—and no, we do not. The ads will appear just as you've written them. So, for this reason, if you have, say, German customers but don’t feel comfortable creating campaigns in German, we recommend that you seek help from professional translators in order to come up with the best ads and keywords for your customers.

Advanced example: another question we often hear is whether or not the ad text must be in the same language as the one(s) being targeted, and the answer is no. For example, if you wanted to target French-speaking prospective customers using an ad written in English, you could choose "French" in your language targeting preferences and still submit an English ad. We can't guarantee that the ad will receive a good response, but when Google detects that a user's language preference is French, and he or she types in one of your chosen keywords, your English-language ad may be displayed.

Local, Regional, National or International?
If you sell your products or services to customers in a particular area, you may want to consider creating location targeted campaigns. AdWords allows you to target your ads to potential customers in cities, regions, territories, countries, or any area that you define by points on a map. For more detailed explanations, check out our previous post about location targeting.

Homework: you can learn more about these targeting options by reviewing these resources below.

Learning Center
Language & Location Targeting

Help Center – FAQ
Targeting by language
Targeting by location: Country or Territory targeting
Targeting by location: Regional or Customized targeting

Stay tuned for part 2 of this lesson, in which we’ll tell you how to target the search and content networks, as well as explain the difference between keyword and site targeting.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

We’ve just rolled out our import tool.  You can now import your existing bookmarks from Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, or anything that supports the traditional Netscape bookmark file format.  If you like, we can even give you a bit of a jump-start by automatically applying the most popular tags.  To try it out, click on "settings", then "import".

For most users the import is pretty quick.  If you have a large number of browser bookmarks it might take some time to process; once it starts, you can leave the import page and come back later to check the status.

We took our time on this one because we wanted to make sure that your privacy was protected.  After all, your browser bookmarks and favorites have been private up till now, and nobody wants to see all those Brangelina articles you saved, anyway. So when you import your bookmarks into del.icio.us we will mark everything as “not shared”.  You are free to share them at any time – in fact, we encourage you to do so.  Sharing is really what this site is about, after all.

Eurekster has a record day of swickis genererated with the Six Apart launch!

Facts:
* George Mason is the first 11 seed to make the Final Four since LSU in 1986 and the first non-BCS team to make it since Penn and Indiana State in 1979.

* Is just the second double-digit seed to reach the Final Four, hitting six straight 3-pointers in the second half and shooting 5-for-6 in overtime to stun top-seeded and heavily favored UConn 86-84.

* This season set new school records for wins in a season (27), assists in a season (497), field-goal percentage defense (.384) and scoring defense (58.9).

Sources: GoMason.com | CBS.Sportsline.com

ps. If you find this post perplexing, you should read this article.

We caught up with one of our favorite AdSense ad formats, the 300 x 250 Medium Rectangle, to learn more about how it can help you maximize your site's revenue potential.

What distinguishes you from other ad formats?

I'm one of the ad formats that currently supports image ads. This is a strong trait because it increases the pool of ads competing to show on your site -- and the more ads competing to display on your site, the more revenue potential for you.



What are your hobbies?

I really enjoy integrating with content -- nestle me into an article and I'll be a happy camper. I also like being above the fold where I tend to perform best for you and your site users.

Do you work out to enhance your performance?

Sometimes I can get out of shape just sitting immobilized on your pages. You can help keep me sharp by testing my performance with channels to make sure I'm doing my best. Try moving me to different locations on your page to see where I'm most effective; try giving me a makeover with different color schemes to see if it boosts my revenue performance. Like people, ad units get bored if you're not constantly challenging us to do better.

So you don't bike like Mike Gutner?

No, it's one of the limitations of having corners. I think a round ad format would be better suited to that.

Posted by Suzie Dewey - AdSense Publisher Support

We’ve updated the Publisher’s Guide (http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/articles/PublishersGuide.aspx) with how IE7 detects if a file is a feed.  If you publish feeds, make sure that your site’s feed is detected and readable in IE7.

If a user browses to a feed though the feed discovery button on the CommandBar, IE7 assumes it is a feed and applies the feed reading view.

When a user clicks on a link to a feed, IE7 uses the MIME Content-Type information to determine if it is a feed.  Here is a list of recommended MIME Content-Types:

RSS 2.0 (.91 and .92): use text/xml (recommended) or application/rss+xml
Atom 1.0: use application/atom+xml
RSS 1.0: use application/xml or text/xml

For generic Content-Types (ex: “text/xml” and “application/xml”) IE7 reads the file and looks for specific strings to determine if it is a feed.  For details, please read the Publisher’s Guide.

Let us know if there are any issues with our implementation.  For sites that follow the guidelines but are not properly detected in IE7 Beta 2 Preview, please post the site on our wiki.
 
- Jane