About Tax

This is a friendly reminder that we're currently preparing and mailing tax forms to eligible U.S. publishers and will be sending them out by the end of January. Please keep in mind that not all U.S. AdSense publishers will receive a tax form from Google.

How do you know whether to expect a tax form? We'll send you one if:

* You submitted a Form W-9, are not a corporation, and were paid at least US $600 in 2008, OR
* You indicated that you are subject to backup withholding and had taxes withheld

If you qualify for a tax form, you can expect it to arrive at the address listed in your account by early February. We recommend checking your account to ensure that your mailing address is up-to-date; you can make any necessary updates by following the instructions in our Help Center. Please note that payments dated in 2008 will be reported in 2008. This means that unpaid earnings from 2008 that are rolled over to 2009 (for example, December 2008 earnings paid in January 2009) will not be included.

If you won't be receiving a tax form, but you still have questions on how to report the payments you received from AdSense, please consult your local tax advisor.

Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Payments Team

Creating The Web

Do you regularly work with your webpages and AdSense implementation, tinkering with HTML or PHP and creating images and code on the fly? If you do, Firefox add-ons can help streamline the process of creating webpages. Here are some in particular that you may find useful:

ColorZilla
This extension tells you which RGB or hex color you're looking at, to help you make sure you created that logo for your business with just the right shade of blue, for instance. The tool also creates custom color palettes while you're browsing, so you can use them in your designs.

MeasureIt
Like the name says, use this add-on to measure the width and height in pixels of any element you see on a webpage. It's very simple to use, and you can define how much space you have left for that AdSense ad unit on the right-side. :)

IE View
Do you frequently use Internet Explorer to check how your website renders on that browser? This add-on allows you to view the way any page would look if it were opened in IE, without the hassle of opening another browser. You can also see pages that aren't Firefox-friendly much more easily.

WebDeveloper toolbar
This all-in-one toolbar gives you quick control over things like JavaScript display, form and CSS elements, screen resizing (so you know what your website looks like in smaller resolutions), HTML validation, and much more.

Hopefully, we'll soon have a similar set of add-ons for Chrome, and we'll be sure to share them with our readers.

What are your favorite add-ons for web developing? Leave us a comment below.

Posted by Laura Prado - Inside AdSense Team

The Competition of AdSense

Here on the AdSense blog, we usually kick off each new year with a list of suggested AdSense resolutions for publishers. Although we still think using more 300x250 medium rectangles and setting up ad placements make great goals for the year, we'd like to change things up this time and share our resolutions with you.

In 2009, we resolve to continue improving the blog based on your needs and suggestions. We heard positive feedback and saw increases in readership last year in response to our themed campaigns, videos, and easier navigation to important posts. Beyond that, we want to continue looking for ways to ensure that this blog is a useful resource for you, whether you're looking for new feature releases or oldie-but-goodie optimization tips.

We also resolve to bring you more information from our team in new ways. In the new year, you'll hear more from the Product Managers who develop the AdSense features you use, and specialists on the AdSense team who will share their expertise with you. We've heard from many publishers that they want clearer, more transparent communication from our team, and we resolve to provide as much information as we can to address your questions and concerns.

Do you have suggestions for improving the blog, or types of content you'd like to see more of? We're all ears, so please feel free to leave us a comment below. It's a brand new year, and we're ready to get started!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Beginning of AdSense

As 2008 winds down, we'd like to follow tradition and close out the year with a look back at a few of the biggest happenings in AdSense.

In 2008, we introduced new features like AdSense for feeds and an improved version of AdSense for search to help you generate additional forms of revenue. We brought Google Ad Manager out of beta to help publishers with smaller direct sales teams more efficiently sell, schedule, and deliver their ad inventory. At the same time, we worked towards providing more information within AdSense accounts. In April, we enabled the Ad Review Center in all accounts to help you review ads placement-targeted to your sites. And in response to requests for more insight into your reports, we launched link unit reporting and began inviting publishers to link their AdSense accounts with Analytics.

Internationally, we launched AdSense for content in Thai and also expanded Western Union payments to a number of new countries such as Egypt, Taiwan, and Panama. To help more publishers find answers to their questions, we launched AdSense Help Forums in Hebrew, Czech, and Slovak.

On the English Help Forum, we celebrated our 50,000th member and then unveiled a new platform with additional capabilities. Now, forum participants can vote on the best answer to their questions, subscribe to individual discussions, and receive replies to their threads via email.

In news closest to home here on the blog, the Inside AdSense family continued to grow with the launch of blogs in Russian and Traditional Chinese. With your support, our 13 global AdSense blogs received 3.8 million pageviews from 2.4 million visits this year. Through our blogs, we brought you a Newbie Fridays series, 'Optimisation Essentials' videos from our Australian team, and began distributing AdSense stickers. Check out the sticker requests, postcards, and notes we received in the photo on the right :)

Last but not least, the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for this year's most visited post goes to our April Fool's joke, 'Introducing AdSense for conversations'. Co-author Julie Beckmann had this to say: "A lot of hard work went into omega testing the product for this post. While I found the hat fit snugly, I was disappointed to learn the effect my Orange County upbringing had on my chats -- 17 'like's' sprinkled into a two-minute conversation? My chats aren't fit to be placement-targeted."

Thanks for helping to contribute to an eventful 2008 -- we're looking forward to an even more exciting 2009. Happy New Year!