Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I also notice them as well. The funny thing is, I have noticed them off and on since I started the program in July. And whenever I get them, I see CTR and revenue drop. This usually lasts from a few days to a couple of weeks
And then out of the blue, I start getting better targeted ads, and sure enough CTR and revenue increase. So I believe sometime around mid-April Adsense will start sending better targeted ads my way.
I don't know how many tourists lease fleets of cars (well, maybe if they're traveling in a group!).
OTOH, my clickthrough rate is higher than normal (higher even than pre-April 1 normal), so maybe things are improving on some of my other pages during what appears to be a constantly changing beta test in a production environment.
I think that there is only so much that the Algo can do. After reading some of the stories, I think that the real problem with the whole targetting might not be in the Algo, but instead on the editorial review of some of the adword ads and their associated keywords.
I have advertising accounts both in Google and Overture and I can tell you first hand that Overture is much more strict. "Some of the same keywords that were being used in Adwords were not permitted in Overture".
Now showing ads for "Adul* Toy*" on my website would upset me.
I agree with EFV, I think Google is beta testing a variety of changes in production. I do see some pages that seem to have better targeting than before. Pages that used to have ads for general widgets now have ads targeting the specific widget the page article is about. That seems to be an improvement.
It seems though that as part of this, they may have also introduced some bugs leading to some of these wacky targeted ads. The good news it, it is in Google's best interest to fix this, so I am sure they are working on it.
For my experience, Google's new so-called "better targeting" has been nothing short of total failure.
Additionally, particularly for those who complain that CTR isn't changed even though ads are "irrelevant", the CTR is probably the most objective measure of the ads relevance to any given viewer. That CTR is also going to weigh into the AdSense algorithm for future ad placement, perhaps making it less likely that ads will be on topic for the page (even if they remain sufficiently relevant to the viewer that the CTR isn't affected).
On a page that explains how to deal with popped nail heads in a plasterboard wall, we're showing a whole strip of ads for, um, beautiful long nails ... French nails ... nail polish ... and designer nails.
But, it could be worse, I guess. A similar story on a competitor's site is showing a strip of ads on electric shavers.
Methinks the folks at Adsense haven't quite got this new algoritm nailed yet.
On a home page of site related to television programs, I'm getting all five ads for "digital voice recorders" (and I don't even mention PVR's VCR's or even the words voice or recorder anywhere).
A page specific to Swiss television has three ads for flower delivery - and so on.
I'm not too worried about this, though, because Google does seem to have a good record of listening and responding to complaints (or 'suggestions', perhaps I should say) from Webmaster World.
I just got their response, basically saying they are constantly revising the content-targeting algorithms in order to deliver the most relevant ads to web pages.
And that occasionally, changes they introduce to the system may adversely affect the relevancy of ads displayed for a small number of publishers.
I suppose that's about all I could have hoped for.
I'm going outside and work on my 68 VW for a while, maybe that'll help with my mood.
Does anyone think that Google is pricing Adsense ads based on a site's content and not the actual content on a page? Are all ads getting penalized (even those on commerce and review pages) because a majority of the content pages on the site as a whole are informational?
I doubt it. That would be too simple for the PhDs at Google. :-)
In the example I used earlier (dry eyes ads running on a sports medicine page), I noticed this AM that that page was back to showing sports medicine ads as it should. I thought that perhaps things had been fixed. Checked again this afternoon, and it is back to the ads for dry eyes. The page, nor anywhere on my site, is there a mention of dry eyes. Very odd.
In any regards, it seems that perhaps ads are being targeted at different times by different algorithms. Perhaps Google is mixing a variety of different algorithms and comparing how they perform, and hence this apparently frequent switch from well-targeted ads to wacky stuff that has no connection to the pages at hand.
Also, I use the default colors on my Adsense code (i.e. I never selected a color setting). This displays Mother Earth I believe by default. However, last night, I noticed a variety of colors coming up, all over the rainbow. Some even had graphics in them, small little logos for Google, etc. I assume Google is testing these as well, as they would come up perhaps 1 out of 20 impressions or so.
I noticed a variety of colors coming up, all over the rainbow. Some even had graphics in them, small little logos for Google, etc. I assume Google is testing these as well,
Yes they have been testing these. But you only get them on pages where you are running only the default colors.
In any regards, it seems that perhaps ads are being targeted at different times by different algorithms.
I've noticed the rotating of ad batches, too. My site's topic is European travel, and even when things aren't screwed up, at any given time I'll typically see either:
- General ads for European flights, tours, etc. (which are a good fit for my home page), or...
- Four ads for river cruises (not such a good fit for my home page, but peripherally related to it because I very occasionally mention river cruises in a news blurb).
Google seems to have decided that my home page's theme is either general European travel or river cruises, and the leaderboard switches back and forth between those two themes from day to day--or sometimes more than once during the day.
I've tried that, too, but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of irrelevant ads for certain topics.
I have two sites on widgeting history and AdSense works pretty well for them. Any other topic I've tried AdSense on has been a disaster.
I put AdSense back on a site on related to creativity the other day hoping with the new algo it would pinpoint the topics of each page better. It seemed to do better for a day or two but now it's waaaay off and I'm getting next to no clicks. I may just expand my Amazon links instead of using AdSense on that topic. At least I can be sure the ads are related.
I wonder how they think this would explain ads for videos or ad*lt t*ys on a site/page about classic cars.
Lordy, I hope I don't get that. Schools use my sites a lot and I don't want to lose my kid safe rating.
I wonder how they think this would explain ads for videos or ad*lt t*ys on a site/page about classic cars.
Hmm. Depending on how broad their new keyword matching is... what are the middle letters of "classic"?
I think there should be some GLOBAL options:
"Disable adult content ads"
"Disable gambling content ads"
Well, if nothing else, I learned something new today - I hadn't realized artificial eyes had advanced as much as they have.
I think there should be some GLOBAL options:"Disable adult content ads"
"Disable gambling content ads"
You won't have to worry about the latter one of those after April 30.
As to the former, speaking as someone who has one ad*lt site, I don't want my ads in the wrong place, and as a publisher I sure don't want such ads on my pages, so I think this would be a great improvement for everyone.
MQ
I don't expect Google to do anything about the problem. Trying to tell them they did something wrong is like talking to a brick wall that has an arrogant attitude.
Last night I changed the appearance of my ads in hopes of getting the media-bot to run around again. Crossing my fingers but not holding my breath.
For 8-mos I have seen the same absurdly targeted ads on some of my sites, for example a Nebraska real estate listing agents website with adsense from a Florida real estate agent looking for listings in Tampa FL., or an LA California Realtors site with ads on it from a real estate firm located in Atlanta Georgia, or ongoing charitable organization ads on a site listed in Google with good traffic regarding business communications.
This poor ad targeting seems to often have no relationship at all to the website content, keywords, site content, title, description or domain name. It is simply incredible this happens so often and why Google does nothing about it.
Anyone know if Google's Sergie Brin or Larry Page know about these issues, or ever visit here, or know how to write them directly?
I don't use adwords to advertise, but I think they call this "broad matching"
Yeah..... we seen some great examples of "broad matching" posted here the last week or so... :)
Adsense Advisor is curiously missing in action too it seems.
Jim
