When I logged into my Google AdSense control panel last night I found a new option to have my earnings listed in local currency (UK pounds) from now on.

This has been developing for some time but it’s the first time I’ve been prompted by Google to change to local currency.

What appears to be new is that, once the change has been made, it’s not possible to change back to US dollars (either reporting or payment method). Before, Google had said that “you can still choose to receive payments in US Dollars”.

Does this make any difference to international publishers? read more

Google has announced that it’s to hold a series of AdSense training webinars, based on feedback received from publishers. They’ll be interactive, allowing attendees to ask questions of AdSense professionals, and focused on improving revenue.

Topics covered will include using custom search engines with AdSense, using AdSense effectively (optimisation), a general product overview with focus on product updates that have been rolled out over the last three months, and two webinars about Google Ad Manager.

There is limited space on these so interested publishers need to sign up quickly via the AdSense help centre.

Google has announced that it’s launched limited beta testing of a new feature: the ability to filter certain categories of advertising so that they don’t appear on a publisher’s site at all.

Google says that this is one of the top requests from publishers, explaining:

Category filtering will give publishers the ability to block ads that fall into specific categories such as dating, religion, and politics. Regardless of how ads are targeted, they’ll be filtered if they’re within one of the selected categories. We’ll also show the percentage of recent revenue that ads in each category generate, so publishers can predict how filtering selections will impact their revenue.

read more

I and Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today have long been advocates of copyright protections and education, leading the way with projects such as “Ask First,” the “Year of Original Content,” “5 Content Theft Myths and Why They Are False,” and “The 6 Steps to Stop Content Theft.”

It seems that the rest of the world is waking up to the fact that stolen content is big business. Within the past two years, there are a variety of services you can use to track where your online content has gone, report and stop it. A new project is underway called the Fair Syndication Consortium that might put a dollar amount on that stolen content, paying you for others abusing your content. read more

The Google Adsense Blog helps you to get started with Google Ad Manager, Google’s hosted solution for managing your ads. Ad Manager is free to use, but if you grow big you might have to pay up, be sure to read the terms of service so that you know what you’re getting into.

Here’s part 1 and part 2 to help you get going.

So why would you want to use Google Ad Manager? read more

Over on the Blogger Buzz, Google provided a quick explanation regarding its Monetize tab which mysteriously appeared late last month upon many Blogger blogs.

(Blogger Buzz) You may have noticed that about a week ago a new tab showed up in Blogger for your blog. The tab is called Monetize, and in case it isn’t clear what that means: it’s now easier than ever to make money with your blog! [...]

The current Monetize tab allows you to apply for an AdSense account (or link your Blogger blog to an existing AdSense account). You can then choose where to place ads on your blog, and once ads start appearing on your blog, review your earnings.

Once a user clicks on the “Monetize link,” Google cleverly presents them with several options as to where they should place ads on their blog, with some extra emphasis on placing ads upon the sidebar and underneath posts. read more

Google’s general philosophy surrounding AdSense ad placement is to make them blend with the rest of a site’s content, so it’s always struck me as a little strange that publishers have had no control over the fonts displayed.

That’s just changed, with Google announcing an update which allow ads to be rendered in a number of fonts. Don’t get too excited, though, because there’s a small selection — Arial, Times and Verdana.

You don’t get much control beyond that. Obviously, you can’t alter the size of the fonts because the ad blocks are specific sizes and you’d end up clipping ads (this often happens if a user manually increases the font size on their browser). It only works on ads displaying Latin-based characters, and it won’t affect image-based adverts. read more

AdWords has been available for mobile devices for quite some time, but now you can target iPhone and G1 users specifically with your ads.

To target ads for G1 and iPhone, go to your campaign settings tab in your AdWords account. Then for the “Device Platform” option under “Networks and Bidding,” select “iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers.” As additional devices that use full browsers enter the market, your ads will show on those phones, too.

More at the Google Mobile blog. This should be good for both publishers and advertisers, since it could give better results which in turn will mean more money for everyone involved. Especially Google…

The top reasons people want to blog are all self-centered:

• I want to write a diary
• I want to make money from ads
• I want to sell products and services
• I want people to listen to me
• … and so on

That’s all fine, and I encourage anyone to persue their goals. Fact is though, if you do want to achieve goals, you need to think differently … read more

According to statistics, if you are reading this, you are probably on a broadband connection. Whether you are surfing at work on a LAN or at home on a DSL or cable modem, you are probably not on dial up at this moment.

However, there was a time not that long ago in which Webmasters were optimizing every element of their page feverishly to squeeze every ounce of speed from it. Broadband simply was not that common and, even over dial up connections, visitors had twitchy fingers on the “back” button at all times.

But in the age of YouTube, Flash ads and embeddable content, those lessons have been all but forgotten, However, not everyone has access to high-speed connection, especially in rural locations, and after spending just a few days limited to dial up, the lessons come flooding back.

So what lessons did I learn while surfing the slow Web while evacuated? Here is just a sample of what I saw. read more