Do Content Ads take into account negative keywords when determining where to display an Advertisement at?
This is a really good question, ugamis1.
The very short answer is 'Yes'. A more substantive answer will take awhile.
Let me try to capture the essence of it, very briefly. As I am sure you'll understand, this is an oversimplification - but I think it'll do the job.
Ok, so:
Search ads appear on the basis of a keyword search. And the influence of negative keywords is very straightforward, and well understood.
Content ads, by contrast, are placed on a page by taking an overview of all keywords in an Ad Group, considered together, to arrive at what you might call a 'concept' for the Ad Group. In other words, and in really simple terms: what is the Ad Group about?
Meanwhile the system is keeping track of the 'concept' or 'concepts' represented by every page on every content site in the network, arrived at by looking at all the elements on the page.
Then, ads from an Ad Group with a given concept will be placed on content pages with the same concept.
So how do negative keywords fit in? Well, if you can imagine the content partner pages related to your product or service, but which you don't want to appear on, and then further imagine the concepts on those pages that make them unattractive you - then you'll have your negatives.
Essentially, your negatives represent the concepts for which you do not want to show.
I can't think of a downside to using a lot of negatives arrived at in this way. But do keep in mind how they'll affect the delivery of your ad to search sites.
And, it is also worth saying that the targeting of Ad Groups to content pages is only improving over time.
Hope that gives you something to go on.
AWA
how come that you dont mention DKI nowhere within the Optimization tips at Adwords pages?
Kubano
