On Saturday, October 11th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT , for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have,

If you currently use or have considered using AdWords conversion tracking , we have news that may be of interest to you. Conversion tracking users are no longer required to display the "Google Site Stats" logo on the conversion pages of their web sites. Previously, a small but visible text block that read "Google Site Stats" automatically appeared on the page where the conversion tracking code was placed on your web site.

When you use keywords in your ad groups to  contextually target  your ads, we match them to relevant pages across the hundreds of thousands of sites on the  Google content network . But have you ever wanted to bid more )or less( for a specific content network site you're contextually targeting? Or write customized ad text for a precise group of pages, such as news articles or relevant discussions on social networks? Now you can.

On Saturday, September 13th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT , for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have,

In July 2005, AdWords introduced minimum bids for keywords based on Quality Score . This system allows us to show very high quality ads to Google users, while also giving advertisers control over their keywords. Since 2005, we've improved Quality Score in many ways, such as the inclusion of landing page quality and landing page load time as factors. Along the way, we've also received much helpful feedback from both users and advertisers. Today,

We'd like to give you a heads-up that on September 2nd, all reports in your AdWords Report Center created over six months ago )before March 2nd, 2008( will be deleted. We're clearing out old reports to make room for new ones. But, don't worry! All of your account data will be retained and unaffected by any report deletions. Please plan accordingly before September 1st if you have reports in your AdWords Report Center that are more than six months old.

On Saturday, July 19th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT , for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, with this week being an exception. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have,

This summer, we're offering a number of webinars covering a broad range of topics - if you're interested in learning inside tips about Google AdWords, check out our webinar calendar . Topics range from getting started with AdWords and improving ROI, to learning how to track the effectiveness of your campaigns, so there's truly something for everyone. You can register using the links provided on the AdWords Events Calendar page.

Earlier this year, we launched the  Google Business Channel , a YouTube channel that brings you the latest on AdWords and Google's other business solutions, in video format. And as part of the  Advertiser Education Series  on the channel, we've just added three videos that cover various aspects of the  Google content network . This series is meant to help our advertisers learn about, and succeed with,

Staying competitive in the online space can be hard if you don't have the proper tools at your disposal. That's why we offer solutions like Google Webmaster Tools , Google Analytics , and Google Website Optimizer to help you improve your site's effectiveness and functionality. Used individually, each product can provide valuable and actionable information about specific aspects of your site. However, by using all three together ,

The Conversion Optimizer , our free cost-per-acquisition )CPA( bidding feature for AdWords, came out of beta in January. One of the top requests we've heard is from advertisers wanting to use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API. Today, we are pleased to announce that the Conversion Optimizer is now supported by both AdWords Editor and the AdWords API . Many advertisers have told us that by using the Conversion Optimizer,

On Saturday, June 21, 2008, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT , for maintenance - as was noted in our previous maintenance update , earlier this month. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. This particular maintenance may last up to one hour longer than typical maintenance sessions.

Today at the SMX Seattle conference , the Website Optimizer team announced the launch of the Google Website Workout contest. The idea behind the contest is simple: the team wants to help four businesses "pump up" their websites so they can realize more sales, leads, and sign-ups. Our consultants will work with the four winners to increase their websites' performance by identifying and testing which combinations of page design, copy,

Our advertisers have often asked: 'What kinds of web sites make up the Google content network ?' To help answer this question, we just re-launched the Partners page on the Google content network microsite to include a more comprehensive set of examples of where your ads can appear. After all, the content network is comprised of hundreds of thousands of web sites, from information and news sites like About.com and the New York Times, to blogs like Ask the Builder.

On Saturday, May 17th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times - with this month being an exception to that rule, as previously noted in our April maintenance update.

In early March, we announced that we'd soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score , namely landing page load time - where load time is defined as the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad. Now, we'd like to post with an update. Starting today, load time evaluations will be displayed on the Keyword Analysis page , for your review. We suggest taking some time to evaluate and understand this information because,

Did you know you can use the Search Query Performance report to refine your campaigns? Or that echoing your ad text in your landing page's headline helps create a positive user experience? Have you heard about our free campaign optimizations? Our AdWords Industry Newsletters address companies in specific verticals, but enterprising advertisers in any business can often find universal, useful advice in them. For example,

We'd like to introduce Google TV Ads , a flexible, all-digital system for easily and efficiently buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. The program, which has been an invitation-only beta test since June 2007, is now available to all US-based advertisers. Television is a great way to reach new customers who might not be familiar with your product or service.

AdWords conversion tracking is a free AdWords tool to help you understand what happens after a user clicks on your ad. By knowing which clicks most often lead to conversions, you can spend your money most effectively - on the clicks most likely to lead to a conversion. We've recently improved conversion tracking. You can now define the actions that are most important to your business and track conversions on each of those actions independently.

In the recent past we've let you know of many opportunities to learn new things about AdWords, while also meeting some of the friendly and knowledgeable people on the AdWords team. Now, we hope you'll consider joining a number of such folks in San Francisco, as they discuss best practices for making the most of AdWords at ad:tech - a conference for digital marketing. If you don't already have a pass to this conference please visit the ad:tech site , by April 14th,