Upcoming improvements to Custom Search Engines

If you use a Custom Search Engine to power search on your site, you may already be familiar with the advanced Custom Search Element launched in 2009. Since then we’ve improved the results pages of these search engines with new features like mobile compatibility, more layout options, and new ad formats. We’re excited to announce that we’re now also taking steps to update the look and feel of traditional Custom Search Engines that embed results in an iframe on publisher sites, or that host results pages on Google.

Over the coming months you’ll see changes in the presentation of your search results pages for a richer, cleaner, and easier to use experience for your users. If you monitor the earnings from your search engine through AdSense for search, you may also see changes in your ad performance. We’re working towards improving ad relevance for users with new layouts and ad formats, while continuing to prevent accidental clicks. No action is required on your part for these updates.

If you’d like to add search functionality to your site and get started with Custom Search, sign in to your account and create a new Custom Search Engine under the “My Ads” tab of the new AdSense interface.

Posted by Michael Brandell, Product Specialist

AdSense in Your City is coming to Boulder, CO

In 2010 we kicked off the AdSense in Your City program by visiting and optimizing more than 400 publishers in six different US cities. We loved getting to meet you face to face, and are very excited to announce that our next stop is Boulder, CO.

On July 26th and 27th, 2011, a few of our optimizers will be at our Boulder, CO office to provide optimization tips and solutions.

We’d love to meet you, so please fill out this form if you’ll be in the Boulder, CO area on July 26th or 27th and would like to schedule an appointment with our team. Once we get your RSVP, we'll follow up via email with additional details if there's still room. Scheduling will be done on a first-come, first-served basis, but we’ll do our best to include as many of you as space will allow.

Hope to see you in Boulder!

Posted by Courtney Yamada - Inside AdSense Team

New insight into how users are accessing your site

Today, we’re excited to offer you a brand new report that shows you the platforms that your visitors are using to access your site. You’ll be able to see a breakdown of your earnings based on where your traffic is coming from, which you can use to then optimize your site and give users a better experience. For instance, if you find that you’re receiving a high percentage of traffic from mobile devices, we’d encourage you to create a mobile version of your website and monetize it with AdSense for mobile content.

With this feature, you’ll be able to see your performance data broken out into these categories:

- Desktop - all traffic coming from desktop users
- High-end mobile devices - includes smartphone devices
- Other mobile devices - includes low end and mid-range phones

Try out this new report by navigating to the new interface and clicking on the Performance reports tab. Choose Platforms in the left navigation.


And as a quick reminder, we’re gradually moving away from the older version as we continue to focus on reporting improvements like these. Do you have feedback about this new report, or are there other reports you’d like to see? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments field below. If you haven’t yet tried the new interface, learn more about getting started today.

Posted by Vincent Zanotti - AdSense Engineering