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To know what’s hot on Google Video, you may opt to subscribe to the Google Video blog group, an announcement only group run by Google Video team, which is sent on a daily basis to update you the fun and interesting video clips.

The mailing list was recently exploited to send viruses to its subscribers. As many as 4 mails have managed to pass whatever checks Google has to ensure the mail is only sent by the manager of the list.

And here’s Google’s response:

On Tuesday evening, three posts were made to the Google Video
Blog-group that should not have been posted. This has now been
addressed and fixed.

Still, some of these posts may have contained a virus called
W32/Kapser.A@mm — a mass mailing worm. If you think you have
downloaded this virus from the group or an email message, we recommend
you run your antivirus program to remove it. If you do not have an
antivirus program, you can download Norton AntiVirus software for free
from the Google pack,

http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?nopers

We’re sorry for any inconvenience, and we’re taking steps to ensure
that this doesn’t happen again.

Don’t worry, you still can’t get any virus by playing videos posted on Google Video.
Continue reading ‘Google Video virus’

Good news to Adsense publishers living outside of U.S., Google has made its Firefox Referral program available worldwide.

Announced in What’s New page:

International publishers can now refer users to Firefox plus Google Toolbar through the AdSense referrals feature. As you connect your users with Firefox to improve their web browsing experience, you can generate earnings - up to US$1 for each new Firefox user who downloads and runs the product for the first time. To add a Firefox referral button to your site today, visit the ‘Referrals’ tab in your account.

If you haven’t downloaded Firefox, it’s really time for you to do so. It’s way safer than Microsoft Internet Explorer, and it’s always a smoother experience.

Download from below today:

Link.

More cool sites.

Wow, a Google Adsense optimization guru overnight! Recently my technique of placing images next to the Google ads section has been mentioned here, here and here (SE Rountable, wow!).

Ok, some disclaimers first. What I am going to discuss now is something that has not been proven to be allowed by Google. I’ve sent Google an email, and I am still waiting for the reply. Meanwhile, let’s talk about how to do it.

Placing images next to adsense section isn’t something new, and I for sure am not the first to do this. For those of you who haven’t tried that, let me tell you it does increase the CTR, and it is allowed by Google:

Publishers are still welcome to place images above the ads. The only exception is if it’s in such a way that it looks like the images are part of the ads.

When something like that comes to our attention, we’ll ask that the publisher place a visible border between the ads and the images, to make it clear that the images are not being served by Google on behalf of the advertisers. We generally do not ask publishers to remove the images completely, we just ask that they add borders to avoid confusion.

(Quoted from here)

Pay attention to the statement the only exception is if it’s in such a way that it looks like the images are part of the ads. It seems that my technique has clearly violated this term. But let’s just wait for the response from Google for the final answer. If it’s a no from Google, I would remove it the next minute.

But why would I do it in the first place? It’s quite arguable that placing images next to the ads equals tricking your readers into thinking that the ads are part of your web site. Let’s just be frank. The “Ads by goooogle” in the image clearly shows my readers that those links are ads, but at the same time, it also makes the readers think that the images are part of the ads. It brings pros and cons, both to the advertisers and the publishers. I will just let Google to decide whether this is okay.

So I am going to show you how to do it. Be careful though, since it has not yet been authorized by Google to implement this, you might end up wasting your time.

1. Decide what type of ads you are going to serve. In my case, it’s a medium rectangle, and it’s very likely to serve 3 ads in the box.

2. Design some images with the same number of ads (in this case 3). I got those nice icons from Zeldman here.

3. Get this script and rename it to rotate.php. I got it from here (down at the moment).

4. Place the script together with the images you have created.

5. Place the image next to the ads. You may load the image by calling the script directly (as in <IMG src=”http://www.example.com/images/adsenseimages/rotate.php”>).

Remember, this technique seems to have clearly violated the TOS of google Adsense. You are not encouraged to do this.