LiewCF Tech Blog

Malaysian AdSense publishers are frustrated with Google AdSense’s late Western Union payment for December 2010.

I received email from Google AdSense saying my payment has been issued, but, in the AdSense account, the Western Union payment is still “in progress” since Dec 22.

I understand that Google might had a long Christmas & New Year holiday and payments maybe got delayed.

Based on the previous payment history, payments were issued before or on 27th each month.

But, it is already Jan 3rd, 2011 now! Google, I want my money now!

Update: the late payment issued has been discussed on Google AdSense Help Forum. Apparently, Malaysians publishers are affected.

Update 2: A LowYat.net forum user “sherly” told that Western Union Malaysia closed until Jan 2nd, 2010.

Update 3 (Jan 4, 2011): Just saw a new text on AdSense payment page:

Your December 2010 earnings will be calculated on the first week of January. Please check back on January 7, 2011 for updated payment information.

Well, we have to wait few more days then…

Update 4 (Jan 5, 2011): Google employee “Bertha” responded on forum:

Hi all –

Thank you for writing in to the forum about your payments, and I apologize that we haven’t responded sooner. It appears that publishers in Belgium and Malaysia are experiencing this issue with the “Payment in Progress” message. Please be aware that we are investigating this right now and I’ll update this thread as soon as I have more information!

Best,

AdSensePro Bertha

And, we got the payments!

Google AdSense blog published 3 simple tips to optimize AdSense ad units for placement targeting so that advertisers spend on your site.

1. Implement your ad units above the fold and near your content.
2. Use top-performing ad sizes: medium rectangle (300×250), large rectangle (336×280), leaderboard (728×90), and wide skyscraper (160×600).
3. Enable your ad units to show text and image ads.

Here are the additional videos on high-performing ad units:

Don’t forget to check out the AdSense Checklist, too!

Google AdSense made a checklist to help new publishers setup AdSense account and start earning money. Visit the AdSense Checklist on AdSense U.S. Help Center.

The checklist has a total of 20 items, divided into 5 parts. Each item has a short description/tips and a link for more information. When you check an item, there’s a progress bar update accordingly.

This is helpful for beginners to Google AdSense. Existing AdSense publishers are also recommended to check if you have done all the items in the AdSense checklist.

If you ask… Yes, I got 100% at 1st check.

Google AdSense announced the new design for content ad units. The new formats are more space-efficient and visually pleasing. The redesigned ads performed “extremely well” (read: more revenue) during testing, according to Google AdSense team.

Here are the Google AdSense content ad unit changes:

• Leaderboard (728×90): the title, description, and URL are now arranged in rows instead of columns (except in the case when only one ad is showing)
• Medium and large rectangles (300×250, 336×280): the URL is now in the same line as the title

As far as I can remember, these are the first major changes to the designs of Google AdSense content ad units since it was launched.

The Google AdSense ad formats page hasn’t been updated to new designs when I checked.

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Google AdSense targetable placements allow advertisers to selectively place their ads on your site. In order to get higher chance to be selected, you have to write a better channel description. Here are some tips directly from Google AdSense official blog.

"The AdSense Code: The Definitive Guide to Making Money with AdSense" (Joel Comm)

A good channel description should tell:

1. the content of the channel.
2. the specific section of your site (e.g. a forum section, blog section, etc.), if any.
3. is the ads placed Above-The-Fold (ATF), users can see without need to scroll down the page?
4. the visitors information (gender, interests, income level, etc)

Here is an example of good channel description:

This is a 300×250 ATF ad unit on the football section of a sports blog. My audience is 75% male, age 18-35, earning between $50,000-$80,000 per year.

Point 1-3 is easy and you should already know. For the visitors information, you probably need to conduct a site survey to collect the data because no website statistic can get you the private data.

Click here to learn how to make a custom channel into an ad placement.