Generic ads on phpBB on New Topic Pages

Shouldn't I see PSAs Instead?

[24fan24]

I am using AdSense on my phpBB forum and I have noticed that when I make a new topic, generic ads are instantly displayed and are usually irrelevant to the content of the post. Shouldn't PSAs show up (at least temporarily) after a new topic is started because google has not indexed that page yet?

[martinibuster]

What is a generic ad?

[24fan24]

I get hosting ads and RSS ads, basically the same ads I get on all of the topics of the forum. I tried to combat the irrelevancy by using section targeting and changing the "Powered by phpBB" text to an image.

Basically, I don't think google is indexing all of my topic pages individually.

[Cakkie]

Well, it does :p

Anyway, if you have the skills you can always modify phpBB to also insert the title of a thread in the url. Appearantly AdSense uses the url to find matching keywords, expecially when no relative ads are available.

Just do a test, go to a page with shows irrelevant ads, say

http://www.example.com/viewtopic.php?t=123

change the url in

http://www.example.com/viewtopic.php?t=123&title=somewidget

chances are that it's now showing ads regarding somewidget.

Of course, you will need to alter the code for that

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:13 am (utc) on April 14, 2006]
[edit reason] See TOS [webmasterworld.com]. [/edit]

[martinibuster]

Of course, you will need to alter the code for that...

No, that is not necessary to accomplish what you want to do.

1: How long have you been running AdSense on the forum?

2: How long do the Generic Ads last on the the new topic pages?

[24fan24]

I have been running AdSense for about a week and a half and have had the problem for almost the entire time.

[martinibuster]

That's what I thought.

That happened to me also when I first put up any forum. My AdSense is stable now, but that used to happen when I first put AS on the forums, any of my forums. None of my forums get the generic PHP and Web Hosting ads anymore.

So it might be you need to sit tight for a couple weeks or so until Google figures out what your site is about.

In the meantime while you're waiting you may want to check out PHPbb Hacks for stuff to optimize your forum for the search engines so that you can rank better, receive more unique visitors, and more clicks. It's very simple to do.

[24fan24]

OK then. Thanks a lot!