Car insurance Channel

Back in June, we had Shaluinn from the Product Team tell you a bit about Google Sitemaps, which allows webmasters to directly inform Google about changes and additions to their websites. As you may remember, Sitemaps informs our "spiders," which go out and crawl the web, thus speeding up the discovery and addition of pages to our index.

Many businesses want their sites to be found in Google's search results, but did you know that potential customers may be looking for your product or service from their cell phones? Google Mobile Web Search allows people to search, from their phones, through sites that have been specifically designed for mobile devices.

We add new sites to our mobile web index every time we crawl the mobile web. And just as Sitemaps can help Google crawl your site effectively, webmasters can now use Google Mobile Sitemaps to tell us about their mobile web pages. If you have URLs that serve mobile content, help us add them to our mobile web index. More content for us, more potential traffic for you!

Posted by Arielle, Inside AdWords crew

Four score and thousands of advertisers ago, Google engineers brought forth on this continent a new form of advertising, conceived in relevance and dedicated to the proposition that all advertisers should have access to an effective marketing channel.

We recently sat down with Ross K., one of the original AdWords engineers, and got a little history lesson...

Before the fall of 2000, Google offered advertising through Premium Sponsorships, but there was no way for advertisers to set up campaigns for themselves. As we're often prone to do, we ran a limited test, showing a little link that said "see your ad here" to a small percentage of Google users.

After the link went live, we eagerly waited for the first advertiser to sign up. A few engineers kept checking the system, and within minutes, our first AdWords customer had created the very first ad through online sign up. They were a small business that sold live mail order lobsters. Less than half an hour from the time the link went up, their ad was live on Google! These guys had never considered using online marketing before, but saw our test link and signed up when they realized they could just do it themselves right then and there.

Today, of course, you can still find mail-order lobsters on Google, in addition to tarragon, garlic, and black peppercorn. And if we've made you hungry, the rest of the lobster bisque recipe is here.

Posted by Arielle, Inside AdWords crew

Thanks for sending us all your great questions. This week, we've got two more to share with you:

I know that you can now target your ads to show on specific content sites. I would like to know how I can find sites that display Google ads so I can target my ads on them. – Wesley R.

Dear Wesley: Yes, as part of our site targeting feature, you can specify URLs for sites on which to target your ads. (The sites, of course, must be part of the Google content network.) While there's not a way to get the entire list of sites available, you can generate a list of eligible sites based on a combination of URLs and/or topics and keywords that you specify.

For example, let's say that you don't have specific websites in mind, but you know that you want to advertise on sites with content about gardening, lawn care, and landscape architecture. You can enter these terms into the campaign wizard, which will show you a list of all relevant sites based on those topics. You can then choose the sites you'd like to include in your site targeted campaign.

I've noticed new people blogging on Inside AdWords. What's the deal? – "Ima Plant" ;-)

Dear Ima: Good observation! I suppose this would be a good time to make formal introductions. The Inside AdWords crew is excited to have Arielle and Sarah join the team. Arielle and Sarah bring with them many years of AdWords experience and they pretty much know the system inside and out. Look for some of their tips and insights in future blog posts.

P.S. In addition to being talented bloggers, they are also proficient artists—as demonstrated by their self-portraits below:

That's all for today! More answers to your AdWords questions next time.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Want to see how a particular keyword is performing but having trouble remembering where it's located in your account?

Here's a tip from Annie H., an AdWords specialist:

Searching for keywords within your account is as easy as searching on Google. Just type your keyword into the search box located in the upper right hand corner of all your Campaign Management pages. This tool will find that keyword (and related keywords) in your account, and you can click on a link that will take you directly to the relevant Ad Group. If you want more advanced search options, try using the Find and Edit Keywords tool located under the Tools menu of your account.

Posted by Arielle, Inside AdWords crew