WebProNews

Google has begun serving AdSense Ads via DoubleClick URLs instead of the pageads.googlesyndication.com URLs that users have grown accustomed to. Arlene Lee of the Inside AdSense Team explains:

This change in the URL where the ads are served from is due to the DoubleClick ad serving cookie that we launched on the Google content network last year. Since this cookie is on the doubleclick.net domain, we've had to update our URLs to point to doubleclick.net, as well as to give you the associated benefits such as frequency capping and improved attribution.

However, this is only an infrastructure change -- there haven't been any changes to the ads themselves. The ads you see are still coming from AdWords advertisers or third-party advertisers, just as they were before, and it's not the case that you're now receiving 'DoubleClick ads' instead of 'Google ads'.

Sidenote: AdSense publishers might be interested in the following discussion between JenSense's Jennifer Slegg and Mike McDonald of WebProNews about better monetizing content with AdSense:

Lee is also careful to mention that the URL change does not mean that the targeting of ads has been changed. She then goes on to discuss the different types of targeting offered by AdSense, and the placement and use of filters to block certain kinds of ads.

One commenter asks if they have to "change the old code adds to new code adds," and whether or not new code adds have a greater advantage. Lee responds that no action was required from publishers, and that the URL switch was an infrastructure change related to last year's announcement.