Impressions vs Actuals

Some changes after December 20th?

[Visi]

Used to see 85-95% of actuals show in impression counts, but recently has been +100%. Have checked for any double serving, and found nothing. Checked the server stats and they seem to be checking out okay.

Just one of those things that make you go.....ummm on a Sunday morning, and was trying to remember when adsense was down for some server changes in December

[NickCoons]

Visi,

I've been noticing a new trend as well, about the same time you mention. My Impressions:Visitors ratio used to be about 2:1 and has increased to a little over 3:1.

[Blue_Fin]

I, too, have noticed an increase in my AdSense Impressions compared to my own stats. I wonder if some software that was previously blocking AdSense ads has removed the block?

Sunday, 12/14 is the date you are referring to.

[KenB]

I've noticed a similar odd occurrence. I didn't really pick up on it until today now that my traffic has gotten back to non-holiday normal, but my AdSense impressions are running about twice what they should be.

In my case it appears that for some odd reason after one of my pages has completed loading and the onLoad events have completed; Google AdSense does an odd flicker as if it is reloading itself. I only notice the behavior in MSIE 6.0 although it could be happening in other browsers.

I sent Google an email asking about this strange behavior so maybe they will be able to shed some light. If anybody else can shed some light on this odd behavior, I'd really appreciate it.

[cyberair]

Same here, impressions are way high (not that I don't like it ;)

[KenB]

I've been doing some experimenting. I am quite certain that the artificially high impression rate is related to MSIE loading and then reloading the AdSense banner during the webpage rendering process. Other browsers I tested (including Mozilla 1.5, Opera 7 & Firebird) did not exhibit the same behavior. I thought at first it was caused by the DHTML and onLoad event I was using. I disabled the onload event and the dynamic style calls I was doing and the problem still existed.

I have a different site that also uses AdSense, but it is not exhibiting the same problem. The only major difference between the two sites is that the one that is experiencing the problem is using tables to format the page and the AdSense banner is within the table while the site that is not having problems does not use tables.

I suspect since others are noticing the same behavior I am, the inflated impressions caused by a combination of changes made by Google over the holiday and a quirk in MSIE.

[Visi]

Interesting Ken, my ads also in table.

[KenB]

Eurka! After slicing and dicing my site until the reloading of AdSense stopped in MSIE, I figured out what it is. Indeed it was a change in Google AdSense itself and it has nothing to do with tables.

I believe it has to do with on page javascripts that run when the page is loaded in addition to AdSense. In my case my DHTML JavaScripts in the onload events were not the problem. The problem with double loading is being caused by a script I use to disable eZula TextTop so that it doesn't place links in my pages (script below).

I have been using this script since around September with no problems. While I did not notice the problem until this week when my traffic patters got back to normal, I think the problem started over the Christmas holiday. It must have been caused by change made by Google around Dec 20th based on what others have observed.

Here is the code that is causing AdSense to reload. It is a modified version of the original provided by Curt Dunmire:

/*
Script Author: Curt Dunmire
http://www.thiefware.com [RidText v1.3]
Use this script for free provided that you
leave these comments intact with the script.
May your Web site be healthy :-)
*/
found = 0; 
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('WebTV')!= -1 ¦¦ navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Safari')!= -1 ¦¦ 
(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mozilla')!= -1 && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('compatible')==-1) ¦¦
navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Opera')!=-1) {
}
else if (navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer" && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Opera')==-1) {
date = new Date(); currentdate = date.getTime() + 20000
date.setTime(currentdate);
EraseTime=setTimeout("Original()", 1400)
}
function Original() {
clearTimeout(EraseTime)
if (document.body!= null) { 
Html = document.body.innerHTML
if (Html.search("ezula")!= -1 && Html.search("www.ezula.com/eZula/redirect")!= -1) {
found = 1
}
ch = /C:\/PROGRA\~1\/eZula\/images\/new\.gif/ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, "")
ch = /CURSOR: hand; /ig; Html = Html.replace(ch, "")
ch = /http:\/\/www\.ezula\.com\/eZula\/redirect/ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, ""); ch = /http:\/\/www\.ezula\.com/ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, ""); ch = /onmouseover="this\.style\.backgroundColor='yellow';/ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, ""); ch = /onmouseover="window\.status='TopText Link';return true;" /ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, ""); ch = /title=/ig; Html = Html.replace(ch, "notitle=")
ch = /onclick="top\.location\.href ='ezula/ig
Html = Html.replace(ch, "onmouseover=\"status=\'ezula"); document.body.innerHTML = Html
}
}

edit: cleaned up code

[Visi]

An interesting crosslink on this subject?

[webmasterworld.com...]

[KenB]

Might be related, but maybe not. While my AdSense impressions went up, my AdSense click thrus stayed normal.

I did confirm that the script I posted above was causing my problem. I modified it such that it only runs the modification part of the script if eZula TextTop is actually detected. To do this I simply took all of the code below the "if" statement where found=1, and put it inside of the "if" statement. I also added a little code to the "if" statement that loads a gif file so that I can find out just how many users are infected.