Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The bottom line is that your competitors are free to target their ads to countries other than your country of residence, and you won't be able to filter them, because you won't even know about them.
Google should show webmasters a complete list of ads that have been displayed on their site, covering all geotargeted ads.
If you are at all worried about this (I sure am!), I suggest you write to Google to encourage them to display the full list of ads to webmasters.
Tom
Basically any area of business activity has an associated risk, and some intelligence that you cant find out. Up to you to work out whether the returns are worth the risk.
Some things you can do maybe is to use a proxy server or anonymizer (though when i tried some they don't show js or iframe or whatever) or ask people in other countries to check for you..
But if you are better in your field, why worry about people finidng competitors anyway?
In fact, since geotargetting (alone with handling fraud-detection and payments) is one of the add-ons that Google provides that might be hard for a publisher to manage in direct deals with advertiers, geotargetting advertisers are arguably less of a concern in this regard.
With a simple list of all advertisers it can be easily automated, and much more cost effective.
I doubt this is much of an argument for Google. If their service was really so puny and useless that It can easily be outdone by a few direct agreements, then it won't be around for long anyways...
SN
The bottom line is that your competitors are free to target their ads to countries other than your country of residence, and you won't be able to filter them, because you won't even know about them.
AdSense was designed for content sites, and content sites normally don't have competitors that buy AdWords (with the possible exception of affiliate partners).
BTW, if you do have affiliate partners that are buying AdSense ads, you might want to consider not blocking their ads with the AdSense filter. I've found that having affiliate partners' AdSense ads on my site doesn't have any noticeable effect on affiliate revenues--probably because some readers who don't notice the affiliate links do notice the AdSense ads, and vice versa.
If you are concerned, use a proxy server based in the location you are concerned about. This will let you know what ads are being served based upon geolocation. But with ad rotations and daily limits, it might take a while to compile an effective listing.
Sure, I can use proxies located in one or two other countries, but I can hardly cover the whole world, can I?
Tom
If you are so concerned about competitors appearing on your own site, and do not have the time to check through Proxy servers, you probably shouldn't be running AdSense in the first place.
And europeforvisitors is right: "AdSense was designed for content sites, and content sites normally don't have competitors that buy AdWords "
You have to decide if you would rather have the AdSense revenue and lose some of your own in-site orders to competitors, or drop AdSense entirely so you don't have to worry about the loss of traffic. Sounds like a catch-22 to me, since both scenarios can make or lose money.
I would think that for those for whom concerns like this become major may want to consider whether Adsense is the best program for them, just based on balancing returns with risks. For many sites, affiliate agreements give you far better control of who you do and dont promote. Adsense was never designed (IMHO) for this level of detailed competitor and revenue tracking but just simply for content sites who just want to bung on the code, trust google to deliver relevant sites, and concentrate on their side of the equation - i.e. developing a great content site that will attract targeted and qualified traffic for the advertisers.
Well, I'm sorry, but apparently Google does not feel that way -- they implemented a filtering feature and the AdSense control panel explicitly says it's intended for blocking competitors. It does not say "You shouldn't be running AdSense ads if you have competitors who buy AdWords".
i know what you are saying tszny. But i think the reference to "competitor" was meant to cover all bases, as content sites sometimes do have "competitors" and competitors to site owners other businesses or sponsors, or affiliates, for varying reasons, even if they are a 100% content/info site. I agree, i was sort of surprised to see that facility and the wording, though i appreciate it being there, but i dont think google expects adsense sites to have to use this facility to a very precise or great extent. Then again i was surprised to see the nature of some of the sites that have been approved too. So i may be wrong!
The facility is limited to 200, is very simple and broad, and google does suggest that adding too many may significantly affect your revenue. It's not a major element of the program.
We DO have 2 to 3 sites we block, but its not a great disaster if these sneak through, or others we have not seen, just because there are so many ads being shown that they represent a tiny minority. I guess many would be like me.
If I had a competing content-based site, I wouldn't particularly want to send my traffic to this AdWords advertiser through my AdSense links. So this option is there, even for content sites who might find similar content sites in their AdSense links.
If I had a competing content-based site, I wouldn't particularly want to send my traffic to this AdWords advertiser through my AdSense links. So this option is there, even for content sites who might find similar content sites in their AdSense links.
What's your average clickthrough rate? Let's just say, for the sake of discussion, that it's 2%. Is it really worth worrying that an ad for another content site in the your category might turn up in a different part of the world, and that 2% of the people in that part of the world might click on it?
> AdSense was designed for content sites,
> and content sites normally don't have
> competitors that buy AdWords (with the
> possible exception of affiliate partners).
this is total nonsense!
of course everybody has competitors, moreover
if not direct then direct.
I know first class site about software for XXX, that is listed in google as hit nr 4 or 5 when you type "XXX" in google, but they don't want to go for AdSense because they have several good banners directly from vendors, and AdSense would simply discourage these vendors from having direct agreements with them, and they would rather buy AdWords... and for them this 200 addresses to block would quickly run out...
so for some publishers it is really a problem..
I wish you could block keywords, not just URLs/Links... in this way they could allow for AdSense banners that are in general about hardware, not software and thus it would not be competition to them...
As Europe said, the exception is for affiliate partners, so he has already made a disclaimer for what you describe.
In the situation of the site you describe i would only use adsense on pages which dont advertise your existing affiliates and parthers - basically as filler..
I need to ask if that site already has agreements with most of the vendors in the scope of the site (software distributors or manufacturers in the XXX area), why do you need Adsense, as it should theoretically mainly spit out ads for your existing advertisers or competitors?
It maybe is that the site is TOO specific, and you already have the poss Adwords advertisers signed up through other means. Adwords may work best for sites that have a good number of pages that dont as yet appeal to your own advertisers directly or maybe are only tangentially related to the real revenue-generating focus of your site. So you can just use the code on those pages.
Sorry if this is garbled, and not your fault, but still just a little confused.
I relly think if a site has more than 200 "competitors" it is probably not going to work well with Adsense. Esepcially in such a niche info area as "software for XXX".
I think all that is required is to be able to block keywords, say I could put "whale meat" in my keyword block list, and no ads should appear with those keywords in the url, or the ad title or ad text.
I think this is a simple answer, that means the publishers can still block ads effectivly, and google doesn't have to give a list of advertisers.
hm, it was not (!) about my site, it was site of my friend that is about software for "XXX"... why AdSense? I don't know... I was discussing this issues with him and he said "big no to adsense"...
I myself use adsense and I don't block it at all! not even one blocked site...
... but for my friend the ability to block keywords (!), not just addresses could be very helpful - because in this way he could advertise through adsense the "XXX" hardware, not software and thus he would not hurt his current advertisers...
>>because in this way he could advertise through adsense the "XXX" hardware<<
good point, good way to use adsense.
..as long as it does not distrct them from buying the software from your/his other advertisers!
NOT giving the list creates a motivation for publishers to click their own ads = fraud potential, not to mention unhappy publishers.
Displaying them will get publishers to disable irrelevant ads, and sure, competitive ads which G probably could care less about, but also allow the publishers to check out the "quality" of advertisers and report spammy publishers to Google. I've seen a site that doesn't belong in the Adwords program at all. Very "iffy" site.
Yes, it is. Because the 2% who click those "Buy Widgets from Acme Corp." ads are likely to be the same 2% who would be potentially interested in buying MY widgets.
For each customer who is diverted to Acme Corp.'s site there is a greater than zero chance that he/she will buy Acme's product instead of mine.
In other words, the presence of my competitor's ads on my site can only DECREASE the number of sales I make.
Tom
Absolutely. But you DO make a "commission" for the lead (I know I know its small!), and the buyer will remember that it was your site that had a useful ad for them, so may come back.
Alternative is not to use Adsense but to sign up acme coporation and other significant suppliers in the industry to your site yourself.
It does sound like your site is a commercial site designed to sell something that it itself sells. Tell me if im wrong. If so I doubt that adsense will work for you, unless you just keep it on tangential pages that are less related to your main products.
I might sell car modding such as hub caps and spoilers, and I'd offer my visitors a valuable service by showing ads for car stereos and alloy wheels.
SN
can we sign (virtually) some petition and send it to google to be able to block KEYWORDS and not just URLs...?
for my friend it would be enough to block word "software" so that the Ads could advertise hardware....
Of course, it's an affiliate site, so I'm already trying to sell the books on each page. Other book sellers are definite competition.
Enter AdSense. I've blocked some of the obvious competitors (ads with direct links to Amazon.com, etc...), but still have "book" results showing in AdSense on many pages. Keyword blocking would fix this.
Take a car repair manual page, for example. I don't want ads for other car repair manual sites to show, if the person found my page and were looking for that, let them buy one through me! What I want to see on the AdSense portion of the page are ads for car part sites, car magazine sites, car repair sites, mechanics schools, etc... so that if someone was looking for those and found my pages with car repair manuals, the nicely relevent advertiser content would lead them to the target of their real needs. I can take care of the car manual people, but right now if they are looking for "57 Chevy parts" and get my "Reviews of 57 Chevy repair manuals" page, they go back to the search engine or have a choice of other repair manual sites through AdSense.
In short, what's needed isn't ads for the exact content on the page, but ads for complementary content to the page content. The only easy way to accomplish that is to let the AdSense publishers block specific keywords to tune the ads to leave out the things that are redundant instead of helpful to the web surfer.
Anyone from Google listening?
I agree with chiyo. I don't see how AdSense can be a good fit for a site that is primarily designed to sell things.
If Google will give sites that are selling things the right to use adsense, it will work for some and not for others. There are millions of websites and situations and combinations. Google has to cover all the bases it plans to work with. So even if you think it won't work for "selling" sites, they have to provide for the contigency.
Either way content sites have competitors too. NYtimes has USA Today and Wall Street Journal and WA Post etc.
