Embed and enjoy

Over the past few months, we've drawn attention to the value of video, and specifically, of embedding video on your sites. We're happy to announce that Google Video is now available for Australia!

Our Australian friends can search for the most popular videos in Australia and embed them on their own sites, all within a localized (or rather "localised") interface. Not only is there the usual treasure trove of footage uploaded by individual users already on Google Video, but the AU team has worked closely with great partners like ABC, AFTRS (the Australian Film, Television and Radio School), Channel 10, Film Australia, Fairfax and SonyBMG. We're sure you'll find some great content amongst these partners and others to enhance your website.

In addition, there are now many ways for you to customize the video player itself and the surrounding page. This way, the player is integrated with your content and will help engage your users. You can:

• Resize the player to fit the design of your site by editing the pixel width and height
  
• Set the player to autoplay on page load, or start playing at a specific point in the video
  
• Get creative in the way you design the area surrounding the player (there's a great example here)
  

There's always something new on Google Video, so keep users coming back to your site by varying the videos you use on your site. Happy embedding!

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Go go Google Gadgets

Wouldn't it be great to get your content in front of people while they're visiting Google.com or other webpages? More eyeballs on your site means more opportunities for your content to reach visitors, along with, of course, your AdSense ads. Google Gadgets enables you to do just that.

Gadgets are miniature devices that offer cool, dynamic content ranging from games to news clips to weather reports to just about anything you can dream up. They've been around for a while, but their reach got a lot broader last week when we made it possible for anyone to add gadgets to their own webpages. That means you! Here's an example of a flight status tracker, for instance, that can be placed on any page on the web.



You can search for free gadgets to add to your own webpages in our directory of gadgets for your webpage. To display a gadget, just pick the one you like, set your preferences, click "Get code," and copy-and-paste the HTML onto your own page. Add some 'bling' to your site and 'wow' your readers!

Creating Google Gadgets from your own content for others to use isn't hard, either -- anyone with even a bit of web design experience can make a simple one in HTML, and more advanced programmers can create really snazzy complex applications. But remember, it’s also quick and easy for people to delete gadgets and add new ones to their own pages. To help you make sure your gadget will be popular across the web, we provide a few guidelines to keep in mind. The more valuable visitors find your content, the longer they'll keep your gadget on their pages, the more often they’ll visit your site -- and the better that can be for your AdSense performance.

Here are a few other suggestions for successfully distributing your own content on the Google homepage or other pages across the web:

• If your website has a feed, visitors can put snippets of your content on their own Google homepages quickly and easily -- you won't even need to develop a gadget. However, you'll be able to customize your visitors' experience much more with a gadget than with a feed.
  
  
• By putting the "Add to Google" button in a prominent spot on your site, you can increase the reach of your content, because visitors who click to add your gadget or feed to Google can see your content each time they visit the Google homepage. Promoting your own gadget or feed can also increase its popularity, which contributes to a higher ranking in the Google personalized homepage directory.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

What's up, Docs & Spreadsheets?

Have you ever struggled to keep track of different versions of your documents or site layouts while collaborating with other webmasters? If so, you'll find Google Docs & Spreadsheets the best pain reliever ever -- it's our new web-based word processing and spreadsheet program to help manage your site's content and easily share it with others.


With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you can edit and save in HTML to create mock-ups of your webpages. You're also able to access your files from any computer via a web browser, and easily send them to collaborators to review and edit. Even more exciting, you can view all past revisions to your file, so if you change your mind about that bright purple highlighting after you've put it into your document, simply revert back to a previous version.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets also provides an easy way to distribute content. Your users won't need to download anything from your site; just create your content in Docs & Spreadsheets or upload an existing file, publish it, and then link directly to the file from your website.

Aside from all the web publishing benefits Google Docs & Spreadsheets offers, it's also a great tool for managing a small business. You can collaborate and share information about your online ad activities, draft proposals and budgets, and keep track of your Google Analytics tags all in one place. Many of the entries on this blog wouldn't have turned out quite so well without team collaboration on the content using Docs & Spreadsheets.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is free, secure and easy to try out. Get started by uploading your desktop files. Check out the product tour for an overview of how the product works, or just sign up here.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

A word on ad quality

We know that you’ve worked hard to create quality content for your sites, and that you look for the same quality in the ads you’re displaying. That’s why we’re happy to let you know about a change in AdWords that will improve the quality of ads.

Recently, we have begun incorporating the quality of an ad's landing page into the determination of what ads appear on your site. The quality of the ad's landing page now affects the Quality Score that the ad receives -- this score helps to determine the amount an advertiser must bid to appear on your site. The lower the Quality Score, the more "expensive" it is for the advertiser to show up on your site. As a result, you should see fewer ads on your pages which lead to low-quality sites.

And what defines low quality? We've published a general set of landing page and site guidelines. We encourage advertisers to offer relevant, substantial content so that visitors can find what they are looking for when they click on ads. Ensuring that the ads that appear on your site are high quality is an important part of our efforts to make sure that we provide the best experience for your visitors.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Your search engine, your way

We've heard it time and time again: as publishers, you want to give your users a relevant search experience on your websites. You want the power of Google search, and you want to make it your own. And then, of course, you want to make money from this search engine, not spend time and money building it. Well, here's news you can use -- now you can do all this with Google's Custom Search Engine (CSE).

With CSE, you can create a highly customized and (free) tailored search experience for your users that reflects your knowledge and expertise. You place this search engine on your site and, if you've got an AdSense for search account, you can link your CSE to it and make money from the resulting traffic. In a few simple steps you can create a CSE that looks and feels like your own, prioritizes or restricts content based on what you specify, as well as open your search engine index to trusted members of your community so they can contribute to its comprehensiveness and relevance.

Here's an example from Macworld. In the first screenshot, you'll notice a search box in the upper righthand corner of the page. After performing a search with the query [macbook], the search results page shown in the second screenshot appears. The search results are integrated smoothly with the site layout and the Macworld publisher earns revenue from clicks on the ads in the "Ads By Google" section.





It's easy to build a CSE -- no Ph.D. in computer science required. Here's how it works:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ and select the websites you'd like to include in your search index.
   
2. Then choose to restrict search results to include only those pages and sites, or you can give those pages and sites higher priority and ranking within the larger Google index when people search on your search engine.
3. From the CSE site, you can generate the code to place on your site and make the search engine, through an IFRAME, look and feel like your own. If you choose, you can easily link to your current AdSense account so you have a centralized place to manage your Google AdSense relationships.
   
4. Last but certainly not least, you can invite members of your community to contribute to your search engine index, in real time. Simply enter email addresses of people you'd like to contribute and an invitation along with Google Marker will be sent to your invitees.

You can check out a few more CSEs in action by visiting our featured examples page. You'll see some created by industry experts, bloggers, educators and techies. We're continuing to add customization and advanced features to the CSE too. We hope you'll try it out and let us know what you think.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Embed a photo gallery with Picasa Web Albums

As webmasters (and web users), you know that images can liven up text-heavy pages and help engage readers. Maybe you keep a personal blog and you'd like to share a holiday photo album. Or maybe you manage a knitting tutorial site, and you'd like to post photos with step-by-step captions. Well, Picasa Web Albums can help you do all of these things. Just upload photos to your own Picasa Web Albums page, then embed a link to that album on your site. Because your photos will be stored on a Google server, you can let us worry about hosting your files while you concentrate on creating a great looking gallery that will enrich your site.

After signing up and creating a web album, simply click the Embed in Blog/MySpace link in that album. Just like with AdSense, you'll then need to copy and paste the provided HTML into your site's source code. Republish your site, and the cover photo of that album will appear on your site, already linked to your web album. When embedding your photos, please keep the AdSense image guidelines from last month in mind.



Your Picasa Web Albums account is free and comes with 250 MB of storage space -- enough room to store about 1000 photos (at 1600 pixels each). It's also possible to upgrade and order additional space (up to 250GB) as your photo storage needs grow. And unlike some other photo sharing sites, Picasa Web Albums retains the quality of your images so you and your site's visitors can download those same high resolution photos off the web and to their computers.

Finally, you can now also upload video into any web album -- a nice touch to really make your content come alive. And while you can't currently customize the look of your Picasa Web Albums page to match your site, we hope you'll find that its clean, uncluttered look complements your site's design.

Need help using Picasa Web Albums? Visit Picasa Support.

For more articles about different markets please visit my articles and links directory.

http://googlelinksdirectory.com/

Thanks for yours time have a good day :-)

Google Groups re-groups and revamps

If you're a participant in the AdSense Help Forum or if you read AdSense blog posts on Google Groups, you've probably noticed that Google Groups has a completely new look. But it's not just the colors and the layout that have changed; there are also a number of exciting new features you can take advantage of.

First, we've added more customization options for Group owners. As the owner of a Group, you now have the ability to change the look and feel of your pages by specifying a color scheme and logo. You can also collaborate with your members by creating web pages together -- members can then view and edit the pages.

In addition, Group members can interact with each other in new ways. You can now upload and share files such as photos and word documents with other members. Want to let other members know more about you? Create a profile complete with a bio, a picture, and a quote.

The new version of Google Groups is available in more than a dozen languages -- visit today to join or create your own Group.