Mountain View, California-based Internet giant Google has added font choices to its AdSense advertising  network, for the first time allowing webmasters using the popular Web site monetization program the ability to select from among three fonts, Google announced Thursday. Google AdSense users can now use Verdana, Arial or Times fonts to change the appearance of the small text-based advertisements the widely-used program places within portions of their Web sites. Google AdSense Change Could Give Webmasters Better Integration With Site Designs Google said that the new font options, which affect mostly Web pages using Latin-based languages and characters, were added due to requests that it had received from AdSense users. "You've been asking for more control over the appearance of the ads on your sites," Google AdSense publisher support employee Arlene Lee wrote in a message posted Thursday to the Internet search leader's AdSense blog. "You can now change the font face of the text in ad units on pages in Latin-character languages," and "choose between Arial, Times, and Verdana font faces," Lee noted is the message announcing the new AdSense font options. Some webmasters using AdSense, particularly those who operate or maintain Web sites that use one of the three fonts made available Thursday, could use the new font choices to better make Google's text-based ads match the look of their sites. "We encourage you to test these new font options to find the best combination for your sites," Lee wrote in the message, and noted that AdSense users could now "try matching the font face of your ads to that of your sites." SearchEngineWorld images showing the new AdSense changes are shown above and below. Verdana, Times And Arial Added For AdSense Users Prior to Google's decision to offer its AdSense users font options, some Web sites using the Google program had no choice but to display ads in a default Google font that could interfere or clash with the font design schemes being used. "By default, your ads are currently set to 'Standard AdSense font family', which we've found has performed well across browsers and displays," Lee noted. Google said that the new font control options have been added for all AdSense users, but noted that the  changes would currently only work for Web sites using Latin-based character sets. "While font options will appear in every account, they'll currently only be applied to ad units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters," Lee wrote in the Thursday message. Google announced the AdSense font options one day after Yahoo blurred the line between the graphical banner advertisements known as display ads and traditionally text-only ads, with its new Rich Ads in Search program that shows images, videos and user-input boxes amidst Yahoo search engine results. New AdSense control panel management options were added to help users of the Google program select which fonts to use for each participating Web site. "To quickly change the font settings for every ad unit generated from your account, visit the 'Ad Display Preference' section of your Account Settings page to select a new account-wide font face," Lee explained. Google Expands AdSense Program With Font Options "This will affect all units you've created in the past, regardless of whether you used the Manage Ads feature," Lee added, and noted that AdSense users could also "select custom font faces for specific ad units that you've created with the Manage Ads feature." Among members of the popular online discussion forums operated by WebmasterWorld, a community of mostly technically savvy webmasters and search engine marketing (SEM) professionals founded by chief executive Brett Tabke, the changes to Google AdSense were mostly met as a welcome addition to the program. "Excellent! The ads match my sites much better now," wrote one WebmasterWorld member, using the handle "robzilla," while another, using the handle "sonjay" wrote that they were "very happy to have this option." Related Links:
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11:02 pm on Feb. 20, 2009 (utc 0)
