Optimize your mobile presence with Google Analytics 2 of 6

How does your site perform across devices? With multi-device usage growing rapidly, understanding how mobile users access and interact with your site�s pages is becoming more and more essential. You can use Google Analytics to measure mobile sites and apps interaction as well as visits from web-enabled mobile devices, including both high-end and basic phones and tablets. Check out the following tips to grow your mobile presence with insights from Analytics.

1. Use Mobile App Analytics to measure the end-to-end value of your app

Mobile is changing the way that people communicate, work and play, and much of the growing adoption and innovation is driven by mobile apps. With Mobile App Analytics, you can measure your entire user journey on your app from first discovery and download to in-app purchases and engagement, helping you make better, data-driven decisions for mobile investment. Watch this video for more details on monetizing your app with AdMob.

2. Make sure your user experience delivers across devices

Google Analytics mobile reports can be found under the Audience section on the Reporting tab. They show you statistics by location which lets you understand the current origins of mobile traffic, and make predictions about where traffic will increase. With key insights and metrics such as which devices are driving traffic to your site, bounce rates and visit duration, you can design your website to give visitors what they need on smaller smartphone screens as well as tablets and desktops.

3. Consider different strategies for multi-screen and set goals for mobile monetization

There are no rules around mobile strategies, but mobile sites need clearly defined goals in order to be successful. For example, your goals might revolve around engagement and visits. If you have location-specific content, you may want to incorporate local elements into your mobile offering. Your site goals should align with the needs of your users. Google Analytics mobile reports provide a breakdown of visitors by whether or not they visit using mobile devices. Use this information to shape your multi-screen strategy. If you�d like to place ads on a mobile site designed for users of high-end devices, use AdSense for content to create your ad units.

To help you optimize your mobile presence, we�ve created a custom Mobile Key Metrics Dashboard for you to download. Once downloaded, just select which profile you�d like to import. You can access this dashboard any time by clicking �Dashboards� under the Reporting tab in your Analytics account.

Don�t forget to submit any questions you have on the topics covered in this blog post. We�ll share a video at the end of this series answering your top questions. Next week, we�ll continue our blog series, looking at how specific Analytics insights can help you grow user loyalty on your site.

Posted by Cemal Buyukgokcesu - Google Analytics Specialist

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Busting Bad Advertising Practices � 2013 Year in Review

(Cross-posted from the Google AdWords Blog)

Advertising helps fund great web services and enables companies of all sizes to grow their businesses online. However, this economy can also attract bad actors that want to abuse online advertising tools for harmful or deceptive purposes. 

We've allocated substantial technical, financial, and human resources to stopping bad advertising practices and protecting users on the web.  Hundreds of our engineers, policy experts and others have dedicated their careers to this work.

Following up on our 2012 report, below is an overview of how we fought bad ads and bad ad-funded content in 2013.

Stopping more bad ads from fewer bad sources

We removed more than 350 million bad ads from our systems in 2013.  To put that in perspective, if someone looked at each of these for one second, it would take them more than ten years to see them all.  This was a significant increase from approximately 220 million ads removed in 2012.  This trend has been consistent in the last several years and we attribute it to several factors, including: the growth of online advertising overall and constant improvement of our detection systems.

The number of advertisers we disabled, however, dropped from over 850,000 in 2012 to more than 270,000 in 2013.  In part, we attribute this decline to scammers � counterfeiters, for example � being thwarted by our safety screens and searching for less-secure targets.

Counter-attacking counterfeiters 

We continue to see positive results in our work to combat counterfeiters.  Attempts to market counterfeit goods on AdWords decreased by 47% in 2012 and 82% in 2013.  In parallel, the volume of complaints about these ads dropped by 85% in 2012 and by another 78% in 2013.

As these numbers have declined, we�re pleased to report that we�ve also banned fewer bad advertisers for counterfeit violations.  Last year, we banned approximately 14,000 advertisers for trying to sell counterfeit goods  � a decline of more than 80% compared to 2012.

Preventing good ads from funding bad content

Maintaining a healthy ads ecosystem isn�t just about stopping bad ads and advertisers; we closely monitor the sites and mobile apps that show our ads as well.  Early last year, we outlined some of this work, with a particular focus on our efforts to stop scammy ad-funded software, like toolbars, that provides a poor user-experience.

By the end of 2013, we had blacklisted more than 200,000 total publisher pages, an encouraging decline from last year, and disapproved more than 3,000,000 attempts to join our AdSense network.  We also removed more than 250,000 publisher accounts for various policy violations.  This includes more than 5,000 account removals for violating our copyright policies, an increase of more than 25% compared to 2012.

Here�s a more complete overview of our work to bust bad advertising practices in 2013:

Click to see full size infographic

This is an ever-evolving and ongoing fight.  Bad actors are relentless, often very sophisticated and will not rest on their laurels.  But neither will we.  Nothing is more important than the security of our users and we�ll continue to work tirelessly to keep them safe online.

Posted by Mike Hochberg, Director, Ads Engineering
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20(14) Publisher Stories: Parainmigrantes migrates to new heights

As part of our �20(14) publisher stories� blog series, every Monday we�ll introduce you to a publisher and share their success story. Read on to meet this week�s featured publisher, and feel free to share your own success story with us.

Lawyer Vicente Jos� Mar�n created Parainmigrantes.info in 2007 to advise immigrants in Spain on immigration law. The site gives transparent and accessible information and currently receives over 500,000 page views per month.

Vicente first heard about Google AdSense when attending a web optimization course and began using it immediately. �It�s such a simple and easy to use tool, and on top of that it�s free�, he says. Nowadays, AdSense is an essential part of his business, that�s allowed him to hire two new employees. With these earnings, he�s been able to grow his team hiring two new people.

(You can enable English captions by using the captions button under the YouTube video)

Looking ahead, Vicente plans to promote his new site, Paraemigrantes.com, aimed at those requiring information on emigrating from Spain. He also plans to continue investing in the quality of his site content and to focus on constant innovation, all the while continuing to partner with Google. 

Read the full story here.

Posted by Alicia Escriba - Inside AdSense Team
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Online Death Records, Indexes and Obituaries - Latest Additions and Updates

The Online Death Indexes and Records website has been updated with links to the following items...

California
 - Los Angeles County: Pasadena News Index (includes obituaries; most entries are from June 1996 to recent, but there is some earlier coverage)
 - San Bernardino County: Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery Burials (City of Redlands)
 - Ventura County: St. Mary's Cemetery Records (Ventura)

Connecticut
 - Fairfield County: Wilton Cemeteries
 - New London Vital Records and Cemetery Indexes

Georgia
 - Muscogee County: Columbus Consolidated Government Public Services Department Cemetery Records (for Linwood, Riverdale, Porterdale and East Porterdale Cemeteries)
 - Muscogee County: Historic Linwood Cemetery Burials (Columbus, Georgia)

Illinois
 - DuPage County: Bronswood Cemetery Burial Index (Oak Brook, Illinois)
 - Lee County: Dixon Telegraph Newspaper Index 1851-1947 (not complete)

Indiana
 - Allen County Indiana Cemetery Project
 - Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana: Genealogy Records (includes indexes for cemeteries, funerals, probate records, vital records and more)
 - Clark County: Walnut Ridge Cemetery Burials (Jeffersonville, Indiana)
 - Jefferson County Public Library History Rescue Project - Genealogy Databases (includes indexes for deaths, Madison Courier Obituaries, cemeteries and more)
 - Howard County Cemeteries, and Kokomo Tribune Obituary Index, 1894 and 1915-2013 (update: more years added to the obituary index)
 - Miami County: Peru Obituaries Index (for assorted years beginning with 1975)
 - Tipton County Genealogy Indexes (includes indexes for cemeteries, obituaries, marriages and Civil War soldier burials)

Iowa
 - Johnson County: Oakland Cemetery Burials (in Iowa City)
 - Madison County Genealogy Indexes (includes a death index 1880-1919, obituaries, over 28,000 cemetery burials, indexes for probate records, and more)
 - Mitchell County Genealogy Indexes (includes burial notices, cemetery burials and other items)

Kansas
 - Allen County: Mount Hope Cemetery Burials (Humboldt, Kansas)
 - Grant County Cemetery District Burials
 - Harvey County Genealogical Database (includes portraits, headstone photos, obituaries, news articles and biographical information submitted by Harvey County Genealogical Society members)
 - Harvey County: City of Newton Cemetery Burials (for Greenwood and Restlawn Cemeteries)
 - Lincoln County Obituary Index 1873-2012 (update: more years added)
 - McPherson County Genealogy Indexes (includes indexes for births, marriages, deaths, obituaries and other items)

Kentucky
 - Lincoln County Cemeteries
 - McCracken County: Oak Grove Cemetery Burials (Paducah, KY)

Massachusetts
 - Essex County: Town of North Andover Old Burial Ground Database
 - Middlesex County: Lincoln Public Library Obituary Database
 - Plymouth County: Cemetery Records from the Town of Carver

Michigan
 - Calhoun County: Willard Library Newspaper Index, 1967-to March 2012 (includes obituaries)
 - Chippewa County Cemetery Transcriptions
 - Kalamazoo County: Riverside Cemetery Burials (in Kalamazoo, Michigan)
 - Oakland County Historical Resources (includes some death notices, obituaries and cemetery burials)

Missouri
 - Missouri Coroner's Inquest Database (historical) (update: more counties added)
 - Adair County Cemeteries
 - Audrain County Cemeteries
 - Boone County Probate Indexes 1819-1981
 - Ozark County Cemeteries
 - St. Louis City Wills Index, 1877-1925 (update: more years added); See: Online St. Louis, Missouri Death Records, Indexes & Obituaries

Montana
 - Gallatin County Genealogical Society Databases
 - Missoula County Public Library Vital Records Index (from early newspapers); also has a newspaper index (1970s to recent)

New Hampshire
 - New Hampshire Death Certificates, 1938-1959 from FamilySearch (images only, not indexed)

New Jersey
 - New Jersey Death Records Index, June 1878-June 1890 (update: more years added)

New York
 - Albany County: State Street Burial Grounds Index, Albany, New York
 - Queens: Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium Interment Index (Middle Village, Queens, Long Island, New York); See: Online New York City Death Records Indexes and Obituaries
 - Saratoga Springs Public Library - Index to the Saratogian, 1999-recent (indexes births, deaths, marriages and other items in the Saratogian newspaper)
 - Suffolk County: Brookhaven Cemetery Burials (also has an index for Brentwood Cemetery)
 - Yates County: Penn Yan Democrat Births, Marriages and Deaths Index 1899-1939
 - Northern New York Genealogy (includes a cemetery burials database for Jefferson, Lewis and Oswego Counties with 119,000 entries)

North Carolina
 - Randolph County: Asheboro Courier and Courier-Tribune Newspapers - Obituaries Index 1903-1995 (update: more years added)

Ohio
 - Mahoning County: Tod Homestead Cemetery Burials (City of Youngstown)

Pennsylvania
 - Allegheny County: Mt. Vernon Cemetery Burials (McKeesport, Pennsylvania)
 - Elk County Cemeteries

Rhode Island
 - Providence County: Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence Cemetery Burials for St. Ann Cemetery (Cranston), Gate of Heaven Cemetery (East Providence), St. Francis Cemetery (Pawtucket) and Mt. St. Mary Cemetery (East Providence)

South Carolina
 - South Carolina Death Index 1915-1962 (update: year 1962 added)
 - South Carolina State Hospital Cemetery Records
 - Greenville News Obituary Index 1910-current (update: more years added)
 - York County Library News and Obituary Index

Virginia
 - New River Notes: Genealogy Resources for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia (for counties in Southwestern Virginia and Northwestern North Carolina; includes cemetery burials and other items)

Washington
 - Cowlitz County: Longview Library Obituaries Index 1871-recent
 - Stevens County: Northeast Washington Genealogical Society Cemetery Indexes (includes three cemeteries in Colville, Washington)

Wisconsin
 - Wisconsin Death Records Index, 1867-1907 from FamilySearch
 - Waupaca County: Lakeside Memorial Park Cemetery Database

This is a list of the most recent additions. There are links for many more death records indexes at: Online Searchable Death Records Indexes and Obituaries