The last week of every month is quite exciting for AdSense publishers because that's the period when Google issues payment for the preceding month.

There's a surprise element as well particularly among foreign AdSense publishers as they get to know the exact payment made in their local currency using the prevailing exchange rate.

Now last month, a bug was discovered in the AdSense system that showed the currency exchange rate as 1:1 meaning 1 US $ is equivalent to 1 Indian Rupee. So if you earned $500, the amount in local currency would be reflected as INR 500.

Luckily, it was merely a reporting error because Google issued checks using the correct rates but it still took about a week for Google to update the online dashboard.

A month has passed but that 1:1 exchange rate bug is not fixed yet. Your status may have changed from “Payment in Progress” to “Payment Issued” but the amount in local currency would be the same as what you earned in US dollars.

Not sure if this bug is too complicated to fix or has a low priority status. Either way, AdSense publishers are not too happy about it as this snapshot says:

So the rumor was true. You can now integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics. The feature is being slowly rolled out but until then, this YouTube video will give you enough hints of what's in store for you or check the screenshots. Good times.

Remember those Gulf Hurricane Relief ads on the Google network? They were PSAs

When Google is not able to serve relevant AdSense ads on a web page, the system will display Public Service Ads instead of the regular ads to promote organizations like Red Cross, Direct Relief, etc.

Unlike the regular AdSense ads, web publishers do not get paid for clicks made on Public Service Ads and even Google doesn't make any profit by running such ads.

In their own words - “PSAs are non-profit organization ads that are served to pages when targeted ads are unavailable, or when Google is unable to gather content from the page.”

Wikipedia too defines a public service announcement as “a non-commercial advertisement broadcast for the public good.”

Google launched their own 2008 U.S. Election site in August that, like a portal, links to information about US elections available on other Google Sites like YouTube, Knol, Google Maps, etc.

Now if you happen to spot an AdSense PSA on some site (like here), chances are that it will be about Google's own Elections website as in the screenshot above.

This is surprising because this “ad”, though a PSA, doesn't fit in Google's own definition of PSA (non-profit organization ads) nor that of Wikipedia (non-commercial advertisement).

Here's what ABC News has to say about Google's elections page - “the new applications are part of their effort to enhance the search giant's involvement in U.S. politics and, ultimately, to become as central to the electoral process as Google and YouTube have been to media usage.”

All the unfilled AdSense inventory is helping Google promote their elections page but am not sure if these ads classify under PSAs or “free advertising” because Google does have “commercial” interest here.

AdSense publishers will soon have access to extremely detailed stats about ads via Google Analytics reports.

You'll know about web pages that get more clicks, revenue generated per page, CPM rates, top referring sites, etc.  For more, check this story on AdSense and Analytics integration.

The screenshots were inadvertently published on TheGoogleCache.com and were cached by different newsreaders. Here are more screenshots from the same source that give exciting hints about what's coming next. (click to enlarge)

AdSense Overview

There's a new AdSense section added to the Analytics Reports that displays complete statistics about how visitors interact with Google Ads on your site and how have the ads performed over time.

Top AdSense Content

This report gives a consolidated view of AdSense earnings made along with information like clicks per page, CTR, CPM and total number of ad impressions.

AdSense Trending

This Analytics report will give an overview of how your AdSense earnings have changed over time (like your site traffic in Google Trends).

AdSense Revenue Per Page

This report is similar to the 'Top AdSense Content' report but that was for the entire site and this is on the page level.

Top AdSense Referrers

Let's say site abc.com and xyz.com have linked to a page on you are website and you are getting referral traffic. With the AdSense Referrer report, you'll know the exact revenue that you are making from visitors that are coming to you via two different sources.

Great for AdSense Revenue Sharing Sites

All these new AdSense - Analytics reports will also be very useful if you plan to have a site / blog with multiple contributors and their payment is a fixed percentage of AdSense Revenue generated from articles that they have written. No complex Excel sheets required anymore.

If you are using Google AdSense on your website, here's some very good news.

You will soon be able to track visitor clicks on your AdSense ads using Google Analytics reports.

These new reports in Analytics have enough details to help you exactly measure AdSense performance on every single page of your website.

Google dropped hints on AdSense - Analytics integration some two years but the program has finally entered the beta phase as revealed by a post on GoogleCache (offline now).

Luckily the story remained in FeedDemon's cache and picking from there, following is a summary of AdSense related data that you'll be able to track via Google Analytics:

1. The number of times AdSense ads were clicked on any given web page.

2. AdSense revenue generated per page for clicks mentioned in #1.

3. You'll also know the CTR and CPM for all web pages - no need to create individual URL channels in your AdSense dashboard.

4. “Top AdSense Referrers″ - this is the most interesting report as it helps you know about revenue made per referring websites.

Let's take an example. Assume two sites - digg.com and cnn.com - have linked to a page on your website and are sending some referral traffic. Now Analytics will tell you exactly how much AdSense revenue you are making through traffic from each of these sites.

This report has enormous potential as it lends a “measurable” value to each incoming link. Some sites could even use this as a replacement for affiliate programs.

All the above information is based on screenshots that were shared by Google Cache but that story is no longer available on the web.