CORRECTION: Sandbox Maintenance is Dec 21

We apologize for the last minute change, but the Sandbox maintenance period will actually be conducted at 2pm US Pacific Time on Thursday, December 21 (and not Dec 22 as previously announced).

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Sandbox Maintenance – December 22

We will perform our regular refresh of the API Sandbox database on December 22 at approximately 2pm US Pacific Time. Therefore, the Sandbox will be unavailable for a few hours.

As a result of this database refresh, all Sandbox user and account data will be erased. Therefore, you will need to first make a request without including a clientEmail header (call getClientAccounts for example) to create your five Sandbox client accounts.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

CORRECTION: Sandbox Maintenance is Dec 21
We apologize for the last minute change, but the Sandbox maintenance period will actually be conducted at 2pm US Pacific Time on Thursday, December 21 (and not Dec 22 as previously announced).

FIXED: October 29 Stats Retrieval Bug

The October 29 stats retrieval bug that we reported in November has been fixed.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you, and thank you for your patience.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

FIXED: AdWords API Center Mislabeling Bug

We have corrected the AdWords API Center mislabeling bug that we reported on November 3.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you, and thank you for your patience.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

API Version 8 Sandbox ‘Sneak Peek’ Release

We are happy to announce that a ‘sneak peak’ of version 8 (V8) is now available in the AdWords API Sandbox, and documentation is available in the Developer’s Guide. In order to view the V8 details, simply visit the Developer’s Guide and click on the “V8” link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

We plan to launch V8 in early Q1. Until then, please feel free to test its new features in the Sandbox.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Version Support Policy Extended to 4 Months

Based on recent discussions with our developers, we have increased our version support policy from 2 to 4 months. Therefore, when a new version of the AdWords API is released, we will continue to support the previous version for four (4) full months before shutting it off.

For example, we recently released Version 7 on November 9, 2006. Therefore, we will continue to support Version 6 through March 12, 2007.

We hope you find this change helpful and thank you again for your support for the AdWords API.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Sandbox Maintenance – December 1

We need to refresh the API Sandbox database on December 1st at 3pm US Pacific Time. As a result, the Sandbox will be unavailable for a few hours.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Reminder: Accept your AdWords T&Cs by Nov 27

Just a reminder about our September 5 post... please make sure that you and/or your clients accept the new AdWords Terms and Conditions for each account that you manage via the API by November 27. Failure to do so may result in access to these accounts being blocked after the 11/27 deadline.

If you have the authority to accept the terms and conditions for all of the AdWords accounts under your MCC, please see the Sept 5 post for instructions on how to “batch accept” the AdWords Terms and Conditions.

NOTE: These Terms and Conditions apply to AdWords account owners (regardless of whether or not they use the API), and are separate and distinct from the recent changes announced to the AdWords API beta Terms and Conditions.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

BUG: October 29 Stats Retrieval

Thanks to those of you who pointed out the issue surrounding stats retrieval for October 29, 2006.

ISSUE:
Attempts to retrieve stats for 10/29/2006 – 10/29/2006 will return an empty/null set. This affects all stats methods. However, any request that includes a broader date range that includes October 29 should return accurate data (including the data for October 29).

WORKAROUND:
If you need specific stats for October 29, request stats for October 28 and for Oct 28-29, and then take the difference between them.

We are working to resolve this issue now and will have more information as soon as it has been corrected. Thank you for your patience.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Fixed: API Latency Bug

We apologize for the delay. On November 4 we identified and corrected the API latency bug that we reported on November 3. Since then, system response times have returned to their normal levels.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

API Version 7 Now Available

We are happy to announce the release of the AdWords API Version 7 (V7).

V7 introduces three major changes to the AdWords API. This announcement highlights only the major components of the release. For complete details on all V7 changes, please see our Release Notes.

V7 Highlights

Cross-Ad Group Criteria Updates: Update keywords in multiple ad groups with a single API call

Ad Scheduling: Enable the ad scheduling advanced bidding feature

Pausing/Resuming of Keywords, Sites and Creatives: Pause/resume any keywords, creatives or sites (Sandbox-only feature)

Pause/Resume Keywords, Creatives and Sites

Based on developer feedback, we are releasing this feature in the AdWords API Sandbox prior to its availability in the API and the AdWords website. The official API and web application launch is scheduled for mid January.

V6 Sunset in March 2007

In order to avoid requiring code changes during the busy holiday season, we are extending the standard two month sunset period to approximately four months. Therefore, V6 will be turned off on March 12, 2007. Please make sure that you upgrade to V7 before this date.

And as a reminder, please remember that we will be shutting down V5 on January 24, 2007.

As with every new version, we strongly urge you to review the Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

System Maintenance - November 11

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT on Saturday, November 11, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform API operations during this maintenance period.

--Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Tips for Handling Error 129

It seems that some of you have recently encountered Error 129 (“You can't use the API until you complete the signup process and are approved”).

If you encounter this error, please check the following:

• Have you completed the API registration process? If you have not completed the process, you should see warning messages on the AdWords API Center prompting you to complete the necessary steps.

• Did you update your request header to incorporate the new developerToken and applicationToken arguments? And are the proper tokens entered for each?

• Have both your Developer Token and Application Token been approved? You can check this from the AdWords API Center.

If you answer ‘yes’ to all of these questions, and are still encountering error 129, then please send an example of your SOAP request and response for which you get this error to api-migration-help@google.com. Please keep the other headers intact in the Request XML and replace your password with "xxx". If you need help, the sample code section of the AdWords API site shows you how to get these SOAP traces in various languages.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Known Issues: API Latency & AdWords API Center Mislabeling

Thank you all for your feedback. We want to confirm two bugs that we have identified in yesterday’s build.

The first is causing an increase in overall API response times. The second may be causing the wrong API quota labels to appear on the AdWords API Center. We are working on fixes now and hope to have both of these issues resolved shortly.

We will update you again when these issues have been addressed. And thank you for your patience.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

API Changes Take Effect Today

As we first announced on April 11, 2006, today marks the start of the new AdWords API Beta program terms and conditions. Starting today, the current developer quota limits have been abandoned and developers will begin to accrue charges at the rate of $0.25/1000 quota units consumed (or local currency equivalent). We believe these changes will result in more flexible and scalable system for quota allocation and consumption.

You can find more information on the billing process at http://www.google.com/support/adwordsapi/bin/answer.py?answer=46894.

If you are having difficulty accessing the AdWords API, please verify that you have completed your registration and have incorporated your approved Developer Token and Application Token into your API request headers.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Version 4 Shutdown Today

Please take note… per our announcement on August 29, we will shutdown Version 4 of the API today.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 5 or 6 in order to ensure uninterrupted service. You can find more information about Versions 5 and 6 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

New V6 Method: getCreativeStats

When we launched V6 on September 27, we inadvertently included getCreativeStats, a beta method that allows developers to retrieve statistics for a list of creatives in an ad group.

We intended to release this new method as part of the V7 release. However, since we completed our beta testing earlier this week, we decided it would be best to simply activate getCreativeStats now so you can all take advantage of it.

If you would like more information, please review the Release Notes and Developer's Guide.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

REMINDER: V4 Shutdown on October 30

Just a reminder… per our announcement on August 29, we will shutdown Version 4 of the API on Monday, October 30, 2006.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 5 by October 30. You can find more information about Version 5 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Unscheduled AdWords Maintenance - October 17

We will be performing another unscheduled AdWords maintenance from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. PST on Tuesday, October 17, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to retrieve reports or upload image ads during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

--Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Unscheduled AdWords Maintenance – October 16

We will be performing unscheduled AdWords maintenance from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. PST on Monday, October 16, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to retrieve reports or upload image ads during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

--Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

System Maintenance Schedule Change

This weekend marks a change in our scheduled system maintenance calendar, so we’d like to update everyone on the new schedule. Starting this weekend, we plan to shift our regularly scheduled maintenance periods to occur on the second Saturday and last Saturday of each month.

• Second Saturday of the month: All AdWords interfaces will be unavailable from approximately 10am to 2pm US Pacific Time.
• Last Saturday of the month: AdWords users may experience intermittent interface downtime between approximately 10am and 2pm US Pacific Time.

Please note that these system maintenance periods only affect AdWords account management interfaces; all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

System Maintenance - October 14

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT on Saturday, October 14, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

API Version 6 Now Available

We are happy to announce the release of the AdWords API Version 6 (V6).

V6 introduces three notable changes to the AdWords API: quota reporting by account, weekly aggregate reporting, and editable campaign start dates. This announcement highlights only the major components of the V6 release. For complete details of all V6 changes, please see our Release Notes.

NEW V6 FEATURES

Quota Reporting by Account: You can now retrieve statistics that detail quota usage by client acted upon.

Weekly Aggregate Reporting: You can now retrieve weekly statistics via the Report Center for all report job types.

Editable Campaign Start Dates: You can now specify the Start Date of a campaign.

V5 SUNSET IN JANUARY, 2007

In order to avoid requiring code changes during the busy holiday season, we are extending the standard two month sunset period to approximately four months. Therefore, V5 will be turned off on January 24, 2007. Please make sure that you upgrade to V6 before this date.

As with every new version, we strongly urge you to review the Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Deadline for Registration and Billing Extended

Based on your feedback, we understand that end of quarter processes have made it difficult for some of you to meet the September 15 registration deadline. Therefore, we are extending our deadlines by a few weeks to give you more time to complete the registration and migration process and implement your new Application Tokens.

NEW DEADLINES

Registration – Developers now have until October 9 to complete the registration process, which includes entering developer and application information, accepting the Terms and Conditions, and entering billing information.

Token Implementation – Starting October 16, the AdWords API will no longer accept requests that do not contain an approved Developer Token and Application Token. If you have not completed the registration process by this date, your API access will be suspended until the registration process has been completed and we have had time to review the information.

Billing – Since we are extending the registration and token implementation processes, we are delaying the accrual and billing of AdWords API fees until November. Therefore, starting November 1, all developers will begin accruing API usage fees.

We hope this new timeline helps ensure a smoother transition for many of you. And we’ll post additional updates and reminders as these deadlines draw near.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - September 23

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

Fixed: API Sandbox Bug

We have identified and corrected the sandbox bug reported on August 31.

We apologize again for the inconvenience.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Using V4 After October 1st

Several of you have asked if you need to modify your V4 request headers on October 1st, 2006. Therefore, we would like to share the answer with our broader developer community.

If you plan on using V4 on or after October 1, you have two options:

1) Simply leave your headers as they are (using the older “token” header). Given the fact that V4 will be shut down on October 29, we're not requiring developers to modify their code so late in the V4 lifecycle.

2) Go ahead and update your headers to include both “developerToken” and “applicationToken”. While V4 users are not required to do this, the system will still accept these headers.

That said, please be aware that:

• Regardless of how you manage your headers, no V4 requests will be accepted without an approved Developer Token.
• Starting October 1, we will begin charging developers for all operations conducted with their Developer Token (regardless of whether they are using V4 of V5)
• You will need to migrate to V5 soon because V4 will be shut down on October 29.
• Once you migrate to V5, your headers must conform to the new request header format (developerToken + applicationToken).
  

We hope you find this information useful and thank you again for your feedback.

-- Jon Diorio, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Today’s Registration Deadline and Beyond

We hope you have registered your tokens and information in the AdWords API Center. If not, please be aware that your Developer Token may be disabled on October 1st if you do not complete this process by today’s deadline. For instructions on how to register, please see our August 29 post.

Now that registration is coming to a close, we would like to talk more about October 1st.

Quota Management & Billing

All quota consumption will continue to be linked to your Developer Token. However, beginning October 1, per our earlier announcement, all consumption will now be billed at a rate of $0.25/1000 quota units (or local currency equivalent). Periodically, these fees will be charged to your credit card on a threshold-basis, which means that billing will occur when your accrued fees reach specific credit limits. For more information on how and when your credit card will be charged, please review our billing FAQ.

For those of you who also use your credit card to manage AdWords ad spending, please note that the API fees will appear as a separate charge on your credit card. Your API charges will not be included as part of your advertising charges.

The New Application Token

Once the registration process has been completed, you will notice that a new “Application Token” listing will appear on your AdWords API Center page.

The Application Token uniquely identifies the application that is making requests to the AdWords API. Its purpose is solely to identify the application issuing API calls so we can better anticipate and forecast resource demand (billing is not linked to the Application Token). You will need a different Application Token for each AdWords API client that you develop. To request additional tokens, simply click the "add" link in the "Your Application Tokens" section of the AdWords API Center. Finally, please note that Application Tokens should be hard-coded into their specific applications, even if those applications are designed for broad distribution/sale.

Request Header Changes

The introduction of the new Application Token requires developers to change two elements (developerToken and applicationToken) in their request headers by October 1. These changes should be made as soon as possible. Prior to October 1, the API will accept unapproved Application Tokens (so you can add them in now), but starting October 1 the system will only allow requests made with approved Application Tokens. You will be notified of token approvals via your AdWords API Center.

Again, please make sure you complete your registration by end of day today so we have time to review and approve your information before October 1st.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

AdWords API Concurrency Policy

We’ve recently received several inquiries about our policy on concurrent connections, so we thought it would be a good time (especially with the holiday season approaching) to provide some more visibility into how we manage concurrent requests.

When we launched the AdWords API in early 2005, one of our goals was to minimize the number of API-specific policies and restrictions. Therefore, we decided not to set a fixed limit on the number of concurrent requests, and instead instituted a dynamic concurrency limit that takes effect only when total network resources fall below a certain threshold. We planned the system to operate in this way so we could provide developers maximum flexibility/scalability while still ensuring that enough network resources are always available to equitably support a broad ecosystem of developers.

To date, this system has worked well. And we’re happy to report that the limit has rarely been triggered. However, we feel it is important to let you know that if you reach this limit, the system will return one of two possible load-related errors. The first is HTTP status code ‘503’ which is accompanied by an HTTP header called "Retry-After" that contains an integer value for the number of seconds the client should wait before retrying the request. The second possible error returned is the AdWords API error code 87 ("This request is attempting to exceed the limit on the maximum number of outstanding requests allowed per developer token)." You can find this second error listed in the AdWords API Developer’s Guide.

If your application can (or already does) issue concurrent requests to the AdWords API, we recommend that you handle these errors in it, so that it gracefully adapts its behavior if the concurrency limit is reached.

We believe that allowing the limit to float provides our developers with maximum flexibility/scalability. However, we may need to implement a more predictable (e.g. fixed) limit should the AdWords API routinely become swamped with unusually large requests.

Finally, as a best practice, we encourage all developers to use list methods whenever possible (e.g. addCreativeList). These methods are the most efficient way to process large data sets.

As always, thank you for your support of the AdWords API.

-- Jon Diorio, Product Marketing

REMINDER: API Registration Deadline 9/15

Just a reminder… All AdWords API token-holders will need to register their billing, developer and application information by September 15 in order to ensure that their Developer Tokens are not disabled when the program revisions are launched on October 1, 2006.

For more information on how to register, please read our August 29 post.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

New Google Advertising Program Terms & Conditions

On August 29th we issued a revision of the Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions that will affect many AdWords accounts within the United States. Since many of you manage US-based accounts via the API, we wanted to call attention to this event as it requires account holders or their managers to physically “click to accept” the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions.

To be clear... these Terms and Conditions apply to AdWords users (regardless of whether or not they use the API), and are separate and distinct from the changes that we announced to the AdWords API beta Terms and Conditions.

Affected AdWords account holders will have until November 27, 2006 to log in to their accounts and either accept or reject the new Google Advertising Program Terms & Conditions. If an account has not accepted these new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions by this deadline, API access will be blocked until the user accepts.

We recommend that you speak with your advertisers/clients in order to determine who should review and accept/decline these terms.

Account managers (MCC users) can automatically accept these new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions for all affected accounts under their My Client Center by logging into the MCC, navigating to an affected child account, and accepting the Google Advertising Program Terms & Conditions. This action will then instantaneously accept the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions for all other accounts under that MCC. If you maintain a nested/hierarchical MCC structure, please be sure that you login to your top-most MCC when you accept the changes. This will ensure that all of your sub-accounts will automatically accept the Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions.

Unfortunately, we're unable to interpret the meaning of changes in our legal documents for you. If you have questions or you need legal advice on interpreting the terms, we encourage you to consult counsel to help you understand how these changes may affect you.

Again, please note that in order to ensure uninterrupted access to your accounts, the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions must be accepted before November 27, 2006.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Fixed: API Registration Bug

We have identified and corrected the registration process bug we reported on August 31. All developers should now be able to enter their billing information from the AdWords API Center.

We apologize again for the inconvenience.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Bug: API Registration Process

Yesterday we identified a bug in the AdWords API registration process that is preventing some developers from successfully entering their billing information and accepting/rejecting the Terms and Conditions. We have identified the issue and hope to have a fix in place in the next few days.

Please note that this bug only affects the “billing information” stage of the registration process. Therefore, all users are still able to complete the “developer and application information” stage of the process.

In the meantime, if you need to review the new Terms and Conditions, you can find a temporary copy available at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/terms_preview.html.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause you, and we will notify you as soon as this bug is fixed.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Bug: API Sandbox

Yesterday we identified a bug in the AdWords API sandbox that results in requests returning error code 131. We are working on a fix now. In the meantime, we would like to recommend a work-around.

Developers can still work with the sandbox by using the older V4 request headers. Specifically, developers should use “token” instead of “developerToken,” and they should not include “applicationToken” in their headers.

Thank you for your patience, and we will let you know as soon as this bug is resolved.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

IMPORTANT: API Registration Process Now Available

We’d like to update you on our April 11 announcement about the AdWords API Beta Program revisions.

Today we opened the new registration process that supports the AdWords API Beta program revisions we plan to launch on October 1, 2006. All AdWords API token-holders will need to register by September 15 to ensure that their developer tokens are not temporarily disabled when the program revisions are rolled out on October 1, 2006.

During the registration process you will be asked to complete three steps: review and accept the new AdWords API Terms and Conditions, enter your billing information, and apply for an Application Token. More information is available from within the registration wizard.

Registration Instructions:

• Log in to your My Client Center (the one your Developer Token is associated with)
• Access the AdWords API Center page (under the “My Account” tab)
• Follow the instructions highlighted in the yellow box
• Be sure to complete both the “billing preferences” and “developer and application information” steps

Given the size of our third-party developer ecosystem, we need several days to review and process all of your data. Therefore, we strongly urge you to complete this registration process by September 15. If you miss this registration deadline, we may need to temporarily disable your Developer Token (starting 10/1) until we’ve had an opportunity to fully review and process your registration data.

Finally, if you encounter problems during this registration process, you can submit technical support questions to api-migration-help@google.com.

Thank you again for your support of the AdWords API.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

UPDATE as of 9/27/2006

Based on your feedback, we understand that end of quarter processes have made it difficult for some of you to meet the September 15 registration deadline. Therefore, we are extending our deadlines by a few weeks to give you more time to complete the registration and migration process and implement your new Application Tokens. For more specifics, please read our post entitled “Deadline for Registration and Billing Extended.”

API Version 5 (V5) Now Available

We are happy to announce the release of the AdWords API Version 5.

Version 5 (V5) introduces four major changes to the AdWords API: improved error reporting, the removal of KeywordService, support for hourly reporting and a new getAccountInfo method. This announcement highlights only the major components of the V5 release. Complete details of all changes are available in our Release Notes.

Improved Error Reporting for Multiple Errors

Based on your feedback, we’ve made some improvements to our error reporting in order to provide greater system clarity and minimize quota impact associated with list operation errors. As you will see in the Release Notes, there are two significant changes:

• First, we will return all errors detected during an operation (not just the first one encountered). Please note that the behavior of list operations does not change: if there is at least one error, no transaction is performed.
• Second, we will only charge quota for a number of operations equal to the number of errors (previously you were charged for a number of operations equal to the size of the request). For example if you submit 100 creatives, 3 of them failing validation, you will make a first call, which will return 3 errors, for a cost of 3 x 250 (instead of 100 x 250 in the old system), then a second call with only the 97 creatives that work for a cost of 97 x 250. This makes it desirable to use the List operations (enjoy better throughput), without incurring the quota penalty that the previous semantics generated.

Removal of KeywordService

As announced in our September 20 and April 13 postings, we have removed KeywordService from V5. Therefore, all API applications will need to switch over from KeywordService to CriterionService by October 29, 2006.

Hourly Reporting

We have exposed the hourly reporting functionality currently available in the AdWords web interface (adwords.google.com). Hourly reports provide data about account or campaign performance on an hourly basis across one or more days. You can find more information about hourly reporting at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=40037.

New getAccountInfo Method

We have added a new getAccountInfo method to AccountService. Requesting getAccountInfo will return multiple pieces of account information in a single AccountInfo object, including customer ID (a field not previously accessible via AccountService).

V4 SUNSET IN OCTOBER

Per our versioning policy, V4 will be supported for two months from today, at which time it will be turned off. Therefore, please make sure that you upgrade to V5 before October 29, 2006.

As with every new version, we strongly urge you to review the Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide as this posting only covers the major additions to this release.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Updated as of Oct 26, 2006
We are going to move the V4 sunset date from October 29 to October 30, since the 29th is a Sunday.

System Maintenance - August 26

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT on Saturday, August 26, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

APIlitAx 1.0.1 Released: AJAX GUI for AdWords

We are pleased to announce that APIlitAx v1.0.1, an open source AJAX GUI for AdWords, is now available for download.

Version 1.0.1 includes many new modifications including:

• a more compact UI design, more consistent icon layout,
• a WYSIWYG creative editor,
• better support for Javascript multi-window interface,
• support for creative exemption requests, and
• better support for many browsers including MSIE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, and Camino on the Linux, Windows and Mac platforms.
• support for the AdWords API sandbox.

APIlitAx is an open source project founded by AdWords API Specialist Thomas Steiner. As with all open source projects, we encourage any and all developers to submit external contributions. For more information, or to learn how to contribute to APIlitAx, please visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/apilitax.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Correction: New Terms & Conditions

We recently identified and corrected an error on our new Terms and Conditions preview page. While there are still a few more weeks before these new Terms and Conditions go into effect, we wanted to let you all know about the correction as early as possible.

Specifically, we made one edit to section III 2a. We marked up the edits directly on the document so you can see what has changed.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

The API Sandbox has Arrived!

We are very happy to announce the general availability of our new AdWords API Sandbox. The AdWords API Sandbox is an environment that replicates the API of our production system, for developing, testing and debugging applications that use the API. Most importantly, operations performed in the Sandbox do not consume quota points.

For your reference, we have created a new “Sandbox” section of the AdWords API Developer’s Guide. You can find this page at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/adwords_api_sandbox.html.

We hope you find value in this new service, and we’ll be watching the Forum closely for your feedback.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - July 29

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 29, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

AdWords API Java Client Library updated

Yesterday we released version 0.4 of the AdWords API Java Client Library. There are very few code changes and it still supports AdWords API v4 (except a a fix to the AdWordsService interface which was lacking a few methods used for quota management).

There are many improvements in the documentation and samples.
The javadoc for the library has been updated to reflect the new architecture, and now we ship samples showing how to use all the services, and the most useful methods in the API.

In addition to that, we now have a list of client libraries and samples available on the AdWords API Open Source Projects Wiki Page.

-- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API Evangelist

Version 3 Shutdown Today

Please take note… per our announcement on May 12, we will shutdown Version 3 of the API today.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 4 in order to ensure uninterrupted service. You can find more information about Version 4 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

REMINDER: Phasing-out KeywordService

As a follow-up to our September 30 and April 13 postings, we would like to remind everyone that we will remove KeywordService from our next version of the AdWords API (due out in a few weeks).

Therefore, any API applications still calling KeywordService should begin migrating to CriterionService as soon as possible.

-- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

REMINDER: V3 Shutdown on July 12

Just a reminder… per our announcement on May 12, we will shutdown Version 3 of the API on Wednesday, July 12, 2006.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 4 by July 12. You can find more information about Version 4 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - June 24

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10am to 2pm PT on Saturday, June 24, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you may not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period. We had originally planned to skip this maintenance period, but an issue arose recently that is forcing us to schedule the downtime.

We apologize for the last minute notice, and are taking steps to provide you with earlier notification of scheduled system downtimes.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

DELAY: Revisions to the AdWords API Beta Program

Thank you all for your input and patience. We’d like to update you on our earlier April 11 announcement.

Some of you have requested more time to adapt your business models and products to the pending AdWords API Beta Program revisions. Given that many of you work on a quarterly billing cycle, we have decided to postpone our program revisions by one quarter.

Therefore, the new pricing model will launch on October 1, 2006, and the new registration pages and new Terms and Conditions will be posted in August.

Thank you again for your feedback, and we hope that you find this postponement beneficial.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

setLocalTimezone Method now Available

As a follow-up to our May 12 posting about the V4 release, we wanted to let you all know that the setLocalTimezone method has been enabled.

All new AdWords accounts are now required to specify their account’s time zone during the sign-up process. Therefore, this method should be used on existing accounts that have not yet set their account time zone.

Please note that existing account owners will have until July 30 to set their accounts’ time zones. The setLocalTimezone method will be disabled after this date.

If you would like to learn more about our new Local Time Zone support, please read our April 27 posting on the subject.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - June 3

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10am to 2pm PST on Saturday, June 3, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing "Guy"

Fixed: V4 Reporting Bug

We have identified and corrected the V4 Reporting Bug that we reported on May 18.

We apologize again for the inconvenience.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing "Guy"

System Maintenance - May 27

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10am to 3pm PST on Saturday, May 27, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

V4 Reporting Bug and Workaround

We wanted to take a minute to update you on a bug that affects V4 reporting. This bug affect all dates passed in to the v4 api.

Date parameters specified like the one below will fail with an error:

<endDay xsi:type="xsd:date">2006-05-01</endDay>

If you remove the xsi:type="xsd:date" attribute as shown below, the call will work:

<endday>2006-05-01</endday>

We are working to correct this issue as quickly as possible. In the meantime, removing xsi:type="xsd:date" from your V4 code will allow you to work around the bug.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and we will notify you as soon as this issue is corrected.

-- The AdWords API Team

Want Email Updates on the API?

Just a quick word from “The Marketing Guy” (as I’m called over here)…

If you weren't aware of it already, I wanted to call your attention to the API Announcements email list.

We created this opt-in email service earlier this year based on your requests for more proactive (or “push”) notification of major API events (e.g. new releases, bugs, version shutdowns, etc).

We will continue to make all major and minor announcements about the API on both the AdWords API Blog and the AdWords API Developer Forum. However, all critical announcements that could impact the operation of your API systems will be echoed on this email list as well.

You can opt into this list from the AdWords API home page.

Thank you again for your support of the AdWords API, and we hope you find this service beneficial.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Guy

API Version 4 Now Available

We are happy to announce the release of the AdWords API Version 4.

Version 4 (V4) introduces three major enhancements to the AdWords API: local time zone operations, reporting on a list of account logins, and an update of the traffic estimator fields.

LOCAL TIME ZONE SUPPORT

V4 includes new local time zone operations necessary for setting and retrieving account time zone information. Specifically, we’ve expanded the AccountService to include new getLocalTimezone, setLocalTimezone, and getTimeZoneEffectiveDate operations.

However, for the next few weeks, only getLocalTimezone and getTimezoneEffectiveDate will be supported. During this time, any calls to setLocalTimezone will return error code 111 (invalid time zone change). After we finish rolling out time zone support to all AdWords users, we will enable setLocalTimezone (this change will be announced on the AdWords API Blog and Forum).

For more information on how our new time zone support settings will affect API developers, please review our April 27th blog post.

REPORTING ON A LIST OF ACCOUNTS

The KeywordReportJob, CustomReportJob, AdTextReportJob and UrlReportJob objects in the ReportService have been modified so that developers can more easily report on a subset of accounts by providing a comma-separated list of account email logins. Specifically, we are replacing the clientAccounts (int[]) field with a new clientEmails (string[]) field.

TRAFFIC ESTIMATOR UPDATE

To maintain functional parity with the AdWords web interface, we are replacing three fields in the KeywordEstimate data object with six (6) new fields. These new fields represent interval boundaries instead of single values. These changes, originally implemented in the AdWords web interface, are designed to give advertisers greater insight into their keyword performance.

• avgPosition will be replaced with… lowerAvgPosition & upperAvgPosition
• ClicksPerDay will be replaced with… lowerClicksPerDay & upperClicksPerDay
• cpc will be replaced with… lowerCpc & upperCpc

ALSO…

• Zero Impression Reporting – In order to support zero impression reporting in a future release, we have added an “includeZeroImpression” field to the KeywordReportJob and CustomReportJob. Please be aware that zero impression data will not be available in V4. We will notify all developers when this functionality becomes available.
• Unique Request ID - A new response header element, requestId, uniquely identifies each request. This element allows tracking of requests by developers and the web service.
• Geo Codes – We are no longer supporting non-standard country codes, including UK and YU. This will affect any method that uses GeoTarget as well as keyword tool methods.

V3 SUNSET IN JULY

Per our versioning policy, V3 will be supported for two months from today, at which time it will be turned off. Therefore, please make sure that you upgrade to V4 before July 12, 2006.

For technical details about V4, please review the latest Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - May 13

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10am to 2pm PST on Saturday, May 13, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Make Sure to Update Your MCC logins

This is a reminder that we're finalizing the integration of the AdWords MCC login system with Google Accounts. If you haven't already updated your MCC account logins to use Google Accounts, you'll be required to do so over the next one to two weeks.

Since some of you have not yet done so, we wanted to post this final reminder. It’s important to note that if someone updates an MCC login and specifies a new account login or password, API connectivity could be interrupted.

Therefore, if you have not yet updated your MCC login, please review the best practices laid out in our October 24, 2005 AdWords API Blog posting on this subject and be sure to coordinate logins with your colleagues and clients.

You can learn more about the Google Account login integration processes at the following FAQ: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=24823 about this process.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Version 2 Shutdown Tomorrow

Please take note… per our announcement on March 9, we will shutdown Version 2 of the API tomorrow.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 3 in order to ensure uninterrupted service. You can find more information about Version 3 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Reporting Bug Fixed

We have identified and corrected the ReportService bug we reported yesterday. The ReportService has been functioning normally for the last several hours.

We apologize again for the inconvenience and are working hard to ensure that this type of situation does not happen again.

-- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

AdWords Support for Local Time Zones

This May we will enable AdWords and MCC account owners to set their accounts' time zones. This means that all metrics returned for a given account will be reported in that account's time zone (currently all accounts are reported in US Pacific Standard Time (PST) – the time zone for Google's headquarters in California). In addition, billing and budgeting cycles will be based on each account's time zone.

Advertisers and MCC managers will be invited to set their time zones in May, at which point we will release a new version of the AdWords API that includes "set" and "get" time zone functionality. We plan to release more detailed/technical FAQs (via the AdWords API Blog) as we get closer to the launch date.

In the meantime, we'd like to give you a high-level overview of time-zone related functionality and implications for developers.

What is Time Zone Support?

Advertisers can select any time zone in the world for their AdWords account. All reporting, ad serving, and billing will be based on the time zone set by the advertiser. Advertisers or MCC managers who choose not to establish account time zone settings will continue to have their accounts managed in US PST, as they have been in the past. It is important to note that each account's time zone may only be set once, so advertisers should be careful when setting their time zone.

What will change in the web application?

Starting in early May, existing advertisers who login to the AdWords website will receive an invitation to set their account’s local time zone. New advertisers will be asked to specify their local time zone during the account setup process.

How will Time Zone support impact AdWords API developers?

The interfaces for submitting and returning date/time values already support local time zones (even though all data is currently submitted/reported in US Pacific Standard Time). Therefore, the impact should be minimal.

• You will be able to get and set your local time zone through new methods in AccountService, as well as get the effective date of the most recent time zone change.
• Statistics will be collected at standardized times within each account's local time zone boundaries. For example, if a customer in Tokyo sets her account for Japan Standard Time (JST), that account's stats will be collected from midnight to midnight, JST. Likewise, accounts set to PST will have their stats collected from midnight to midnight, PST.
• The start and end time specified in report jobs sent to ReportService will be interpreted in the account's local time zone.
• Where appropriate, date parameters will be used instead of date-time (xsd:date instead of xsd:dateTime). This includes the start and end day of a campaign, the start and end period for stat methods, and the start and end day of report jobs. The day will automatically be interpreted in the account's local time. If a time zone is specified along with the day, it must match the account's local time zone.
• If you schedule a single report to aggregate data across multiple accounts (and those accounts are in different time zones), the report will aggregate each account’s local daily data.
• If you schedule a single report to aggregate data across multiple accounts (and those accounts are in different time zones), the report will aggregate each account’s local daily data.

Will this change be backward-compatible with V3?

Once you begin setting time zones for your accounts, you will still be able to use the current version (V3) of the API. However, there will be one difference. In V3, all API calls will still return account statistics in PST (regardless of each account’s specified time zone) except for reports, whose day boundaries will be calculated in each account’s local time zone.

Once you migrate to the new version (V4), all API calls will return statistics and reports calculated in each account’s local time zone. However, we understand that some developers may want to return all account statistics in one time zone. Therefore, you will be able to access all account statistics in PST by passing in a flag to the stat methods. The coming release notes will have more information on this.

We hope you find this information helpful, and we promise to release further technical details as soon as possible.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Known Bug with API Reporting

Yesterday we identified an issue with our ReportService that is causing some reports to return incomplete or no data. We are working quickly to resolve this issue.

As this is a non-systematic (and therefore unpredictable) issue, we recommend that you double-check your reports in order to ensure that they are complete. You can diagnose incomplete/truncated reports by checking if the report’s XML is valid.

This bug is specific to the AdWords API and does not affect the AdWords web interface (http://adwords.google.com). Therefore, you can still pull complete reports via the web interface.

We apologize again for the inconvenience, and will notify you as soon as we have more information.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - April 22

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10am PST to 2pm PST on Saturday, April 22, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Version 2 Phase-Out on May 2

Just a reminder… per our announcement on March 9, we will shutdown Version 2 of the API on Tuesday, May 2, 2006.

Please make sure you have migrated your applications to Version 3 by May 2. You can find more information about Version 3 (including the release notes) at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/developer/index.html.

-- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Phasing-out the KeywordService

We’d like to update you all on our planned phase-out of KeywordService (originally announced on 9/20/05).

Based on developer feedback and usage levels (and in light of our Feb 27 CriterionService enhancement), we’ve established a timeline for shutdown of the KeywordService.

• June 2006 – We will release a new version of the API that does not include the KeywordService.
• August 2006 – Per our two month version support policy, we will turn-off the previous version of the API (the last version to include KeywordService).

Therefore, all API applications will need to switch over from KeywordService to CriterionService by August, 2006. Once we launch the new June version of the API, we will be able to set an exact date in August for the shutdown.

Thank you again for your support of the AdWords API.

-- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Revisions to the AdWords API Beta Program

First, I want to thank you all for your feedback, support and patience over the last several months as we worked to redefine the AdWords API in a way that would better meet everyone's needs.

Back in November we formed an internal task force to re-examine the API beta program’s structure and quota allocation system. Our goal was to come up with a revised system that better aligns the needs of all developers with our own needs as an organization. Over the last few months this group has gathered developer feedback from multiple sources including your emails as well as feedback provided via the AdWords API Developer Forum.

As a result of our task force review process, we've decided to change the overall structure of the AdWords API Beta program. We believe these changes will better balance the needs of developers and advertisers with our own system and resource needs.

Based on our interactions and conversations with you, we have identified four key issues that needed to be addressed as part of any new API plan.

• Flexibility and scalability: Our developers need a more flexible and scalable API program that can address each developer’s needs, but that also can be applied equitably to all developers in order to maintain a level playing field for everyone.
• Commercialization terms: The terms and conditions need to be modified so all developers have the opportunity to commercialize their applications.
• Usage and functional standards: We need to maintain certain usage and functional standards that increase overall advertiser returns.
• Incentives for efficiency: We need to implement incentives for developers to design more efficient applications. This, in turn, will ensure greater system availability for all.

Based on these needs, we will implement two major changes to the AdWords API Beta program on July 1st, 2006.

• Revised quota allocation system & pricing model: We are changing the quota allocation system and pricing model to create a more flexible and level playing field that encourages efficient coding and application design. Effective July 1, 2006, the current free quota system will be replaced by a usage-based system. Under this new model, AdWords API token holders will be charged a nominal $0.25/1000 quota units consumed. As a result, current developer quota caps will be removed in order to provide a more flexible and scalable system for quota allocation and consumption.
• Modified terms and conditions: We are modifying our terms and conditions in order to simplify developers’ abilities to commercialize their applications while at the same time ensuring that advertiser returns are maximized through the promotion of certain functional standards. These new terms also will go into effect on July 1, 2006. Prior to that date, you will be able to view an advanced copy of these terms and conditions at http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/terms_preview.html.

In June we will launch an API registration micro-site that provides more details on these new billing processes and procedures. Please note that certain developers, such as those who design proprietary applications to advertise their own businesses, may be exempt from a portion of these fees and terms. The registration micro-site will provide more details on these exemptions.

Thank you all again for your feedback and patience over these last few months. We'll be in touch again shortly to provide you with more details.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

UPDATE as of 6/21/06
Based on developer feedback, we have decided to delay these revisions by one quarter. Therefore, the new pricing model will launch on October 1, 2006, and the new registration pages and new Terms and Conditions will be posted in August. For more information, please review our June 21 posting.

UPDATE as of 9/06/06
The new AdWords Terms and Conditions (referenced above) are now available on the AdWords API website, or by visiting http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/terms.html.

System Maintenance - March 24

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 8pm PST to 10pm PST on Friday, March 24, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

API Version 2 Support Extended to May 2nd

Per my earlier post about our Version Support Policy, we will now support Version 2 of the AdWords API through Tuesday, May 2, 2006.

Please make sure you have upgraded to Version 3 by this date in order to ensure uninterrupted service.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Version Support Policy Extended to 2 Months

Thank you all for your feedback on our recent release of API Versioning.

Based on your feedback, we have increased our support period for older versions from 1 to 2 months. Therefore, when a new version of the AdWords API is released, we will continue to support the previous version for two full months before shutting it off.

For example, we recently released Version 3 on February 27. Therefore, we will continue to support Version 2 through Tuesday, May 2, 2006.

We hope you find this change helpful and thank you again for your support for the AdWords API.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - March 10

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 8pm PST to 10pm PST on Friday, March 10, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

updateCriteria doesn't have to blush anymore

In v2 when calling updateCriteria with destinationUrl values of null or "", the result is actually those values respectively. In v3, null really means don't update destinationUrl, and "" means set the destinationUrl to null (i.e. clear the destinationUrl).

This oft requested change of semantics allows you to use updateCriteria in order to change maxCpc of a Keyword without needing to know the destinationUrl, which was the only issue that obliged developers to still use setKeywordListMaxCpc.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Launching Versioning, Content Bidding & More!

We are happy to announce the re-release of API Versioning and the AdWords API Version 3 (V3).

And… since we had an extra two weeks of development time, we were able to include the AdWords Keyword Tool.

So to recap…

Version 3 includes support for our new Content Bidding functionality. For background information on the Content Bidding feature, please see our earlier post entitled “Exposing Content Bidding via the API in January”.

In addition, we have exposed the AdWords Keyword Tool via a new KeywordToolService.

Finally, the campaignNegativeKeywords field is deprecated. Please use setCampaignNegativeCriteria and getCampaignNegativeCriteria requests in CriterionService instead.

Per our earlier stated policy, V2 will be supported for one month from today, at which time it will be turned off. Therefore, please make sure that you upgrade your code to v3 before March 27, 2006.

For technical details about V3, please review the Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - February 24

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 8pm PDT to midnight on Friday, February 24, 2006. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Namespace Issue

Two days ago we started redeploying our “versioned” services on a few servers. We will make an announcement when the deployment is complete. Only then can you start taking advantage of version 3.

This redeployment should not disturb your software (which still uses version 2), However… there is one issue…

We now enforce strict namespace checks. Because we introduced versioning, and because the schemas for the payloads are different in the two versions, the URLs used to qualify the AdWords API namespace now matter.

For version 2 use => https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/v2
For version 3 use => https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/v3.

This should be of no consequence to developers who use a SOAP toolkit to generate their language bindings, since the toolkit will pick up the correct namespace URL from the WSDL. However, this could cause issues for some developers who handcraft their XML: we have seen requests coming in with namespaces such as https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/v2/KeywordService. This worked before versioning was introduced, but it won't work anymore now.

This is explained in the Release Notes.

If you start getting errors like "The request namespace is invalid for the service URL," you should check that your software generates the correct namespace for your request payloads.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

Update on our Recent Roll-Back

I wanted to follow-up on the Feb 2nd roll-back of Versioning and Content Bidding.

We are wrapping up the bug fix for these two releases and will test them over the weekend. Therefore, we are planning to re-release sometime next week.

We apologize again for any inconveniences this may have caused.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

Yesterday’s release has been rolled-back

We have identified a bug in yesterday’s release and are working to correct the issue. In the meantime we have rolled-back the latest release so your future operations will not be affected. Once the bug is fixed we will notify you and re-release the code. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Because of that the new versioning feature that we announced yesterday is not available until we push the release again.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

API Version 3: Support for Content Bidding

We are pleased to announce the release of the AdWords API Version 3.

Version 3 includes support for our new Content Bidding functionality. For background information on the Content Bidding feature, please see our earlier post entitled “Exposing Content Bidding via the API in January.”

In addition, the campaignNegativeKeywords field is deprecated. Please use setCampaignNegativeCriteria and getCampaignNegativeCriteria requests in CriterionService instead.

For technical details about v3 and Content Bidding, please review the Release Notes section of the Developer’s Guide.

Per our new versioning system, version 2 of the API will be supported until March 1, 2006, at which time it will be turned off. Therefore, please make sure that you upgrade your code to v3 before then.

And for more information about versioning, please see today’s post entitled “API Versioning is Live.”

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

API Versioning is Live

We are excited to announce that we have launched global support for API versioning.

This afternoon we released Version 3 of the AdWords API. The AdWords API v3 contains new support for Content Bidding.

So what is changing?

First and foremost, this should reduce the need for you, our developers, to conduct just-in-time upgrades based on our release schedule. When a new version of the AdWords API is released, we will continue to support the old version of the API for 4 weeks before deactivating it. This four week period provides you with a full month to familiarize yourselves with the new WSDL, test changes, and update your production code.

Therefore, the version that everyone is running today (Version 2), will be deactivated in four weeks on March 1, 2006. All developers running v2 should make sure that they upgrade to v3 by this date. As a precaution, a warning will be posted to the Blog, Forum and API Email list one week prior to deactivation of v2.

Secondly, we’ve added a 'release notes' section to the Developer’s Guide. This will help bring you up to speed on the latest changes and differences between the versions.

And finally, the Developer’s Guide has been updated to display full details for all supported versions, as well as the diffs between them. By default, the pages you view will display information for the latest version. However, you can now toggle your view between versions by clicking on the links that we’ve added to the upper right-hand corner of the Developer’s Guide.

So what version are we on now?

The version that you have all been using for the last several months is “Version 2”. The new version that we have released today is “Version 3”. If you ever have any doubt as to what version you are using, you can always determine the version number by examining the web services URL that you are currently using.

Today you are using:
-- https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/v2/ServiceNameService?wsdl (note the “/v2/” in the middle of the URL).

When you re-code for the latest version, you will have to change this URL to:
-- https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/v3/ServiceNameService?wsdl.

What should we do if we have questions?

We feel strongly that our new versioning system will make testing and upgrading easier and more stable for all. However, we do understand that this is also a big change. Therefore, Patrick, our API Evangelist, will be paying extra-close attention to your versioning posts on the AdWords API Forum for the next few weeks.

And, as always, please feel free to check our API Help Center for more information on Versioning.

We hope you find this new versioning system helpful and thank you again for your support of the AdWords API.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

System Maintenance - January 27

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance starting at 8pm PDT on Friday, January 27, 2006, and ending at approximately 2am PDT on Saturday, January 28. While all AdWords advertisements will continue to run as normal, you will not be able to perform any API operations during this maintenance period.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

API Versioning Is Coming

Happy New Year to you all.

While I’m not thrilled that we kicked the year off with a quota calculation bug (which has long since been fixed), I am very excited to pre-announce the release of API versioning.

API versioning allows Google to release new functionality, and modify existing functionality, without disrupting our developers' code. Therefore, you will no longer have to worry about "breaking" releases and just-in-time upgrades. You simply write your code for a specific version of the WSDL and it will continue to operate as normal even after we release new versions. You then will have several weeks to update and test your new code before you officially upgrade to a newer version.

We plan to release versioning later this month in conjunction with our new Content Bidding functionality. At that time we will update our Developer's Guide to reflect the technical details and policies regarding versioning.

And please note: since Content Bidding will be included in a new “version” of the API, this release will not disrupt your current API clients.

We hope you find this new functionality helpful, and we’ll share more details on this release as soon as possible.

-- Rohit Dhawan, Product Manager

AdWords API PHP Library (APIlity) 1.1.0 released

Thomas and the APIlity team released a new major version last week, with CPM bidding support, AdGroup, Campaign and Report enhancements: congratulations to the team!
Go download it if you're using PHP to access the Adwords API.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

FIXED - Quota Calculation Bug

This morning we corrected the quota calculation bug that we reported on January 3, 2006. All quotas should now reflect the appropriate number of units based on December 2005 account spends.

We apologize again for the inconvenience.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

API Quota Calculation Bug

Thank you all for your feedback.

We have recently discovered a bug that is causing some developers' API quotas to be miscalculated. Those affected have likely seen an unusual fluctuation in their quota limit over the last few days.

We are working to resolve this bug as quickly as possible. We will update you as we learn more.

We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.

--Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist