Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This idea translates to content sites also by keywords: if a page contains a certain number of keywords, AdSense finds ads that should appear for those keywords and displays it. This is, of course, extremely simplified.
Now Google comes out with this "new, improved" content matching which, as many of us have seen, is anything but. After a few days looking at all these irrelevant words, I'm beginning to see a pattern. I think that Google's "improved" system is trying to outguess advertisers and is now matching ads to sites based on the actual CONTENT of the ad, rather than just requested keywords.
So if an ad says "Discount Acme Widgets - low prices and big selection!" and they specify keywords "widget, Widgeco", that ad will not just appear on pages talking about widgets and Widgeco. It will now also appear on pages talking about other Acme products, and discount products in general.
So far I'm not sure whether all ad text is taken into account, or just the title. Also, it seems that this "broader matching" is currently done in rotation - some entire series of ads will match the normal required keywords, while others will instead be a broader match to keywords found in the ad copy.
This might work well in SOME situations for trying to match ads to content, especially if the advertiser can't figure out the right keywords to use, but in other situations it's a nightmare.
Me, I'm seeing completely unrelated ads that nonetheless contain a few crucial keywords in their titles that match my site overall. Since I've never seen these ads prior to Friday, I'm assuming their owners were smart enough to pick appropriate keywords. Google, on the other hand, figures those guys don't know what they're missing, and somehow came to the conclusion that my visitors would be interested.
Now, perhaps this was done in a limited basis in the past, as part of a complex formula, but I'm now seeing ads that blatently could ONLY be matched to my site based on their title... and also possibly by IGNORING advertiser required keywords.
Over the weekend, I have nearly used up all available (200) entries in the URL blocker, trying to get rid of completely unrelated adverts.
How do Google manage to relate "Wedding Stationary" to a "Database" related site is completly beyond me...
I read a quote from a Google employee in some article a while back and I remember it saying (pharaphrased) "... we try a lot of things... some work ... some don't".
There is an "ole country saying" that goes like this: Throw enough s^%! at a wall and something will stick.
This saying, when used, was not used to compliment!
when an article about Munich's Oktoberfest was displaying ads for beer kegs and the "SudsBuddy beer cooler."
These seem like eminantly good matches for the content, one might have expected matches on Munich the city and or Bavaria as well. I would be interested to know just exactly what sort of matches you were expecting to find, for an article on a huge festival...that revolves entirely around beer...
(A German resident)
Alika: That "Billionaire's Secret" ad sounds like a taunt after what's happened to my EPC and revenues in the last couple of days. :-)
which is why I've often said that AdSense should allow publishers to supply "helper" keywords (either positive or negative) in cases where the algorithm consistently does a poor job of ad matching
A good idea EFV, but a lot of work to impliment on each page. I looked at that page and can see what you mean... wayyyyyyy off target on many things.
Next time you are in Munich... sticky me... I could do with a beer after all this!
RvN
Next time you are in Munich... sticky me... I could do with a beer after all this!
Or maybe a "beer cooler"? Come to think of it, maybe that SudsBuddy beer cooler was like a wine cooler, made with beer instead of wine. :-)
For instance, on a page about classic and antique Pontiacs I sometimes (not always, thankfully) get 5 ads for new Ford trucks. This is perplexing. The words Ford and truck are not used anywhere on the page
But worse than that are the bad credit/credit repair ads that appear on similar pages. LOL... like anyone who can really afford to play in the antique and classic car hobby is going to need credit repair.
I have succeeded in getting different ads on some pages just by moving around the text surrounding the ads a bit. That's helped some, butnot enough.
EPC is still at rock bottom, at least in the morning.
