Google answers the "Why the Content Network is crappy now" question

Wondering why your content conversions are low....here is why

[heyday]

Login to your adwords account and read the message at the top....

Keyword status change: 'Inactive' now applies only to search
AdWords has revised the 'inactive' status for keywords. Inactive keywords do not trigger ads on Google or the search network, but from now on they may continue to trigger ads on content sites if your campaign has the content network enabled. This change will help the AdWords system target ads more effectively to content network sites. Keywords formerly marked 'inactive' will now be marked 'inactive for search.'

Time to dig through the keyword lists and do some house cleaning......

This could be good in the end but bad if you have just garbage keywords sitting in your account in inactive status...

heyday

[rjames]

that doesnt explain the sharp decline in hits from the content network that we're noticing

[heyday]

I'm sure there a lot of factors involved but many have stated in the last weeks that Content coversions are just way down and clicks are up......

[humblebeginnings]

It's all part of Google's permanent campaign to make their clients pull out their hair and bite their fingernails.

Inactive keywords that trigger ads? What the...?
Next is deleted campaigns that generate pageviews.
Or even better, disabled accounts that are charged for clicks anyway. Wait, why not bill the entire Internet community right away, sooner or later they will be Googles' customers anyway.

On the other hand, if keywords are inactive cause you're bidding to low... this might lead to clicks for low bids, who knows.

[Clark]

that doesnt explain the sharp decline in hits from the content network that we're noticing

Publishers are as frustrated as you advertisers sound. A lot of us have pulled out adsense pages en masse.

[pompousjohn]

From what I've been reading your lower hits from the content network may be partly to do with everybody switching to YPN, YPN seems to be making payouts on the high side in orer to attract participants to its beta program, and G on the other hand is looking for ways to pay content publishers less, so alot of people are moving to YPN if they can get in on the Beta.

[limitup]

Why does G need to pay publishers less? They made about 500 million dollars last quarter from AdSense. Isn't that enough? Sheesh ...

[Clark]

If you are an advertiser who likes the AS content network, this is a great time to join overture. I'm thinking of putting a note similar to Google's Advertise on this Site underneath my YPN ads. Just need to ask Y! if it's ok with their TOS.