Get Goghing on with AdSense for search

Few months ago, a number of AdSense for search optimization tips with you. Here's the story of one AdSense publisher who recently tried some of these techniques and saw substantial results after making a few small changes.

VanGoghGallery.com is an art resource site that provides information about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Site owner Greg Alexander runs the Van Gogh Gallery to educate and share information about the artist, and has also used the site to explore new Internet marketing techniques. Greg joined AdSense in 2007, and although he didn't know much about the program at first, he found it "a great opportunity to generate some revenue without spending the effort to sell ads." He also tried other ad providers, "but none of them yielded the results that AdSense did. In addition, AdSense was the only one that provided relevant ads for our visitors."

To help users navigate through the many pages of the Van Gogh Gallery, Greg added an AdSense for search box to the right column of his pages. By enabling SiteSearch and displaying search results on his own pages, he was able to help users find what they were looking for while staying on his site.

As an optimization experiment, Greg recently moved his search box to the center column of his pages and extended it to twice its original width.

In addition, Greg made slight changes to the search results pages -- he removed the borders from the ads and search results, and added a new search box to the search results pages. According to Greg, "altogether, these changes took less than 15 minutes to do."After making these updates, Greg noticed a dramatic and immediate increase in the usage of search on the Van Gogh Gallery. He found that "the number of queries performed each day increased 8 to 10 times, and search ad clicks and revenues increased even more." His search earnings quickly grew from less than a dollar a day to double digits since his optimization test. "Now we frequently receive more search ad clicks than our total number of searches pre-optimization," says Greg. "I'm still amazed at how simple changes can have such an incredible impact."

Greg has started using the earnings from his AdSearch optimization efforts to build and host additional websites about other artists. "Ultimately," Greg says,"we hope to use the earnings to fund research trips to Europe to see the works of the masters and expand the quality of information we offer visitors to our sites."

Adsense launched a brand new English Help Forum to make it easier for publishers to ask questions and share advice. Now, we're happy to announce that this Help Forum platform is available for publishers in seven additional languages: French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. To start posting on these forums, sign in with your Google Account.


If you're using the new platform for the first time, some of the new features you'll notice include the ability to vote on a best response to each question, receive answers to your posted questions by email, and subscribe via RSS feed. We've also introduced more community-building aspects to the forum, such as a customizable profile page and a rating system that rewards you for your contributions. Finally, we've integrated a CSE search box on each page, which will allow you to find answers to your questions across the Forum, Help Center, and the blog.

Our Help Forums are also available on Google Groups in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Slovak, and Turkish -- we'll be sure to let you know when we're able to migrate these languages to our new platform.

Payments by Western Union now available in Indonesia-Adsense

If you're located in Indonesia, you can now sign up to receive your AdSense payments in cash using the worldwide Western Union money transfer service. This payment method is quick, easy, and free -- that means no more waiting for checks to arrive in the mail or to clear at the bank.

A few things to keep in mind that:
Payments follow our normal payment schedule and will be available for pickup at your local Western Union agent the day after they are issued.

You'll need to present a government-issued ID that matches your AdSense payee name when picking up your payment. If you need to update or correct the payee name listed in your account, please follow the instructions listed in our Help Center.

Payments must be picked up within 35 days of issue or they'll expire. If this happens, a payment hold will be placed on your AdSense account and the payment will be credited back to your account.

Payments will be made in US dollars, but depending on your local Western Union agent, they may be picked up in your local currency.

Follow these instructions if you're interested in signing up for payments by Western Union. You can also find useful information in our Help Center about exchange rates and other countries where this payment method is available. We hope you enjoy using this new payment option in Indonesia!