Google AdSense Referral is retiring as announced by Inside AdSense blog a couple of days ago. If you are an AdSense user, I’m sure you have received an e-mail of the same subject as well.

The main reason of the retirement is AdSense Referral has not seen success for many in the long term and Google AdSense team would prefer to retire existing features so that they can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term.

Furthermore, since DoubleClick is acquired by Google, is in the same arena as Google AdSense Referral. Its DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network.

Remove the referral code from your site

Just make sure you are going to remove the referral code from your site before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space. Alternatively, if you feel lazy, you can still keep them on, but they won’t make you a single cent, you loser.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Yahoo and Google have confirmed that they are entering into a partnership for search advertising. Google mentions that the deal is not a merger but rather, Google are merely providing access to their advertising technology to Yahoo! through their AdSense program.

Check out Google’s blog post on the agreement here.

What’s your say on the partnership?

Popularity: 32% [?]

Recently, Google AdSense has accepted display ads served from qualified third-party vendors. However, at this time, only ads in English are eligible.

If you’re currently opted in to image ads, you’re already able to receive third-party ads. If you’ve disabled image ads, no
third-party ads will be served on your site. Learn how to enable or disable image ads.

To learn more about third-party ad serving, please visit Google AdSense blog post at:
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/05/introducing-third-party-ads-on-google.html and the FAQ at https://www.google.com/AdSense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14535.

I have witnessed some great-looking third-party image ads on some of my sites. What about you? What’s your thought on third-party ads?

Popularity: 31% [?]

If you are an Adsense Publisher, I am sure you have heard of the upcoming Adsense referrals changes. Google Adsense referral for countries located outside North America, Latin America and Japan will be stopped by February 1, 2008.

Please note that this only referral units promoting AdSense will be affected by this change; referrals to other products and services remain unaffected at this time.

For more information, read Inside Adsense blog.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Have you updated your Google Adsense code?

The new Google Adsense code now looks like this:

<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
google_ad_client = “pub-4xxxxxxxxxxxxxx”;
//160×600, created 1/5/08
google_ad_slot = “4001945718″;
google_ad_width = 160;
google_ad_height = 600;
//–></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js”>
</script>

google_ad_slot is the name of the particular ad. So, now instead of just having channel, you can differentiate ads with the ad slot number as well.

Previously, it used to have many lines of codes to specify the colors and other specs. The benefits of the new codes include:

1. More Manageable - With the new code, you can now manage your ad, yes, that particular ad as Google will store it in your Adsense account. You just need to go to Adsense Setup -> Manage Ads
2. Less Code, Means Faster Loading - With a shorter code, you can expect your web page to load faster. You may think 2kb to 5kb is nothing but in the world of Internet, it is something especially if one has many other ads in their web site.

Popularity: 22% [?]