Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Would it be possible for the URL displayed in ads to be automatically "normalised" in some way either by the Adwords or Adsense back-end?
The problem I'm seeing is some relatively "scammy" merchants which I've filtered out as "www.widgetwodget.com" are placing new ads as "www.WidgetWodget.com" or "www.WIDgetWoDget.com" (or any other weird and wacky combination of UC/lc letters) and these are not caught by the Adsense URL filter option.
So what I'd like to see is:-
A) All URLs automatically converted to lower case when they're input into Adwords
and/or
B) All URLs added to the Adsense filter list automatically filter for all possible case combinations of an identical domain name (so that a single filter entry would catch all the example URLs above, and every other combination as well)
Did you check to see if the other advertisers might be affiliates?
In any case, it looks like you have to go in and negative-ize them manually.
Post this in the AdWords forum, you'll probably get faster feedback as ASA seems to have disappeared..
ASA seems to have disappeared...
Sorry, I did disappear for a while - I'm looking forward to catching up on all of these topics!
Edwin, as far as I know the URL filter is not case-sensitive, so you shouldn't have to add all variations of a URL into your list. I'll talk to my technical resources and confirm for you, though.
Also, if you're dealing with many subdomains of a particular domain, you can block them all in one go by entering domainname.tld in your list (without the subdomain, such as www., mail., or widgets.)
ASA.
For longer URLs which contain multiple words, making them readable by adding uppercase letters to the beginning of the words I think help the user know where they're going.
It increases brand awarenes, as its easier to remember MyWidgetWorld.com than to see mywidgetworld.com for the average user.
This practice also increases CTR rates, and I think thats something AdSense people would like to see.
There may be cases where MyWIdgeTWorld.com is a bit odd and confusing, that I'd agree you might wish to change.
Don't mean to sound ****y here, but, you get paid by G, but I'm actually footing the bill, and if I found AdSense programs that were changing my ads, I'd report them and ask my ad to be taken off that site as they are not displaying what I'm paying for.
Always two sides to the coin.
Also, it won't let both versions exist at the same time.
if I found AdSense programs that were changing my ads
That's not the issue here. Someone wants to block certain ads, not change them.
If someone thinks your ad is a poor match for their site, their ability to block it should not be stymied by how you might capitalize your URL.
city-WORD.com
With the current adsense filter there is no way i can block them all.
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These are affiliates. Not only are the links misleading (they go to registration pages sometimes, yikes), but they are also duplicates.
It's a bug with Google which I am sure will be fixed soon. Hopefully ASA can forward this onto the appropiate people..
Blaze, technically they aren't misleading (well, the first one wasn't labeled w/ aff, so if that's an affiliate, then it is misleading) IF the display URL is similiar to the destination URL.
I agree that it's annoying to see 10 ads for eBay/Amazon on a search term, but I don't see G changing the affiliate policy any time soon.
It's definitely case-sensitive at the moment since the ad that I had to re-block yesterday (because of a capitalisation change within the domain) has been on my block list for at least 6 months.
Icedowl, you mentioned that you were also experiencing the same issue - would both of you mind emailing the AdSense technical support team with the URLs in question? They'd be able to look into your specific issue, and help you to resolve it better than I could. It would also be interesting for us to get to the bottom of this :)
ASA.
Icedowl, you mentioned that you were also experiencing the same issue - would both of you mind emailing the AdSense technical support team with the URLs in question? They'd be able to look into your specific issue, and help you to resolve it better than I could. It would also be interesting for us to get to the bottom of this :)
Done deal. It will be interesting to know if they can fix it.
Due to the geo targetting we're doing this blindfolded already.
Another thing might be a filter to limit the level of controvesial ads we want to get.
I'm thinking about euligy ads, gay advertising and the like [on sites that have nothing to do with those things].
I'm not all that against it, but it's upsetting some of my visitors, and I'd rather keep a nice and clean G rating.
