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:

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.

Now if you got to find a workaround and there’s no spare mouse in the cupboard, consider using MouseEmu – it emulates mouse movements as well as clicks via the keyboard.

MouseEmu, short for Mouse Emulator, is a free Windows utility (~10kb only) that lets you control the mouse pointer using the keyboard. Simply run the program, and it will show a list of keys that you may press to move the mouse cursor in whatever direction you like.

It maps the Numpad Keys to mouse movements. So 8 is mouse-up, 4 mouse-left, 6 mouse-right and 5 mouse down. Numpad Keys 1,2 and 3 double up as Left-Click, Right-Click and Scroll-Click. Numpad 7 and 9 are used to scroll up and down. Also see:

• Onscreen Keyboard for Emergency Situations
• How to Clean a Mouse for Smooth Movements
• Click Links on Web Pages without Mouse

There are three sections in the quarterly reports that are interesting from the perspective of AdSense publishers like you and me.

1. Google Network Revenues – This is total advertising revenue generated through AdSense program on sites that aren’t owned by Google (like blogs, NYT, etc.).

2. Traffic Acquisition Costs – This is primarily the amount that Google distributes among AdSense publishers.

3. Paid Clicks – While Google will not share the exact percentage of ad clicks on their network, this column will help you figure out if the number of clicks per impression are increasing or heading south. More clicks mean more revenue both for publishers and Google.

Now let’s compare this earnings data for Q1 2008, ̬ 2008 and ̭ 2008:

	Q1 2008	Q2 2008	Q3 2008
1. Total Revenue earned by Google from AdSense	$ 1.69 billion	$ 1.66 billion	$ 1.68 billion
2. AdSense Revenue that Google shared with publishers	$ 1.49 billion	$ 1.47 billion	$ 1.50 billion
3. Percentage of revenue share	88.16 %	88.55%	89.29%
4. Paid Clicks	n*1.04%	n*1.03%	n*1.07%

So what does this mean for AdSense publishers. While I am no expert, these numbers clearly say:

1. More people are clicking on Google Ads as is evident from the growth in %age of ad clicks (see #4).

2. The amount of advertising revenue generated from AdSense publisher sites has more or less stayed the same throughout the year (see #1) but Google is distributing a slightly larger share of the pie among AdSense publishers (see #3).