adsense losing relevancy

decay of relevancy

[giga]

When adsense was first rolled out we noticed it did a decent job of assigning the correct ads correlating to our pages unique content. However over the past month or 2 i have noticed a significant decrease in relevancy on all of our sites, and ads which are in similar industries are displayed next to industry specific ads. Is the algorhythm getting worse? Or was this done by google engineers on purpose to squeeze more profit out of more popular categories by merging the two together?

[birdstuff]

The targeting has been very good on my sites for the past month.

[annej]

It seems to depend on the topic. I do very well with my major topic but have sites on other topics and the ads don't match up nearly as well for them.

[europeforvisitors]

For my site, targeting is fine on most pages. For some reason, though, certain pages nearly always display off-topic ads. Example: I've got a six-page article about a luxury hotel in Venice that has relevant ads on three of the six pages. BUT:

- On a page that has the phrase "Murano glass chandelier" deep in the body text, AdSense insists on displaying ads for Murano glass and the Nissan Murano.

- On a page about restaurants and dining that mentions the hotel's own smoked salmon, there are ads for smoked salmon.

- On a page about suites, the ads are for hotels in New Orleans and New York.

In other words, 50% of the pages in that article are displaying mistargeted ads. The only explanation I can think of is that the Mediabot is sometimes plucking keyphrases at random from body text while ignoring titles, headlines, and other obvious clues that it thinks a publisher might try to manipulate. The best solution I can think of would be for Google to:

1) Allow publishers to supply helper keywords (positive and/or negative) to help with targeting on evergreen pages that consistently show mistargeted ads; and/or...

2) Pay more attention to page titles, headlines, and similar clues except in cases where heavily abused keywords and keyphrases come into play.

[yoyo8]

To add to what EFV wrote, this is the exact thing that is happening to me. Except recently this is happening on some of my most important pages, thereby dragging down both CTR and EPC. For example, I'm seeing ads for Brazlian flip-flops. This must have been plucked from some text on the page, even though the page and site have nothing to do with shoes.

[valeyard]

Relevancy for me varies on different pages, different sites and different days.

I guess that AdSesne uses a similar algorithm to the main Google SERPS in deciding what a page is "about". So AdSense targetting quality will vary in the same way as SERPS quality varies when the Googlers tweak the algorithm.

One of the things Google seems to have been doing over the last year is reducing the value given to TITLE and Hx tags.

My favourite mismatch to date was a page about creatures such as the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot that insisted on showing an ad for... a Neil Diamond singalike!

No reference to diamonds or singing or anything like that. Since it's not a common type of ad I just blocked the URL.

[anallawalla]

On common business topic pages I see very relevant ads. On a friend's site that features World War 2 in Europe, I see a mixture of relevant and irrelevant ads and the occasional one not in English.

[annej]

I just added a page about learning at home and Google insists on giving me ads about 'knowledge base software'. I only had the word 'knowledge' one place on the page and I replaced it. I put up a different style ad but that hasn't triggered any change. I even put home learning right above the ad in hopes that would help.

I'm wondering if the same thing that is delaying our stats is also delaying the updating of ads on new pages.

[digitalv]

I signed up for AdSense just for a fun little archaeology site I run in my spare time, but ended up turning it off because I wasn't getting crap but PSA's. I don't know if the problem was content matching, or just that there aren't too many "advertisers" in that field.

I would like to see an update to AdSense where they allow us to choose the keywords we want to target for specific pages, and any pages we HAVEN'T explicitly defined in the system would get "content matched". I've mentioned this to Google and they seemed like it was something they would consider doing, but maybe they were just being nice and have no plans for it.

I know there are probably some "commercial" sites out there who would love to start using AdSense but don't want to put their competitors ads on their pages - which is what content matching would do. If they could specify a similar category to display ads for I think AdSense would pick up a lot more users. For example, a web hosting company may not offer web stats or design - with this suggestion, they could show AdSense ads for THOSE categories instead of other web hosts.

[Vec_One]

digitalv, for a while, there were a lot of poorly matched ads. It was actually quite awful.

It isn't perfect yet but it's much better. I'm making more than ever. You might want to give it one more try.

[ken_b]

Relevancy is all over the map sometimes on my site. One day a page gets great targeting and the next day....uh..... not so great (to be polite). No content changes to the huge majority of these pages, once they are up they are up for the most part.

I've given up on trying to control this with ad blocking in all but the most bizzare cases.

[annej]

I would like to see an update to AdSense where they allow us to choose the keywords we want to target for specific pages, and any pages we HAVEN'T explicitly defined in the system would get "content matched". I've mentioned this to Google and they seemed like it was something they would consider doing, but maybe they were just being nice and have no plans for it.

I would really like to see this. For example on a craft site people aren't interested in the ready made product, they want tools, patterns and instructions for the craft. An algo can't see that.

I think there would be a need to still consider the text on the site so people wouldn't just put popular key words in when it didn't fit the content, but often just a keyword or two within the topic would get more appropriate ads.

[Jon_King]

I always laugh at a good miss-target... I've seen a page selling baseball batting cages with nothing but ads for bird and bat cages. What a hoot! I'll bet not many would even recognize the page subject miss match

For me the AdSense targeting overall is impressive.

[patoruzu]

It's logical that Adsense technology still needs to be improved. Our favourite mismatch was a page about "civic engagement" (volunteering, etc.) that showed an ad about "engagement rings". The humorous effect was too serious and we blocked it. But apart from this kind of "wrong effects", we don't block ads.

[shady]

Our favourite mismatch was a page about "civic engagement" (volunteering, etc.) that showed an ad about "engagement rings".

In fairness to google, this type of "error" is probably down to the campaigner bidding on "engagement" instead of the more specific "engagement ring". I'm sure that a lot of misplaced adsense is possibly the fault of the campaigner

[ken_b]

I'm kind of intriqued by the hair growth ad that shows up all over my classic car site.

When I was muttering out loud about the irrelevancy of this ad my wife suggested I go look in the mirror.

I looked, then I blocked the ad. :)

[giga]

It isn't perfect yet but it's much better

We totally disagree, this is not at all what we are seeing. Rather recently in our industry, it seems the relevancy has significaly decreased. Just wondering if anyone else noticed this recent pattern (ie did somthing flip the wrong switch at one point?).

[europeforvisitors]

What a hoot! I'll bet not many would even recognize the page subject miss match

Maybe not, but mismatched ads are a waste of space that could be earning revenue for the publisher--and for Google.

[digitalv]

digitalv, for a while, there were a lot of poorly matched ads. It was actually quite awful.

It isn't perfect yet but it's much better. I'm making more than ever. You might want to give it one more try.

This was about two weeks ago - have they updated it since then? :)

I think there would be a need to still consider the text on the site so people wouldn't just put popular key words in when it didn't fit the content

So what if they did? AdSense impressions shouldn't hurt AdWords advertisers, if people wanted to load their web pages up with "irrelevant" ads who cares? People aren't going to CLICK them unless they're interested. When no one clicks no one loses, but when someone clicks everyone wins: Google, the Advertiser, and you the AdSense user.

[europeforvisitors]

So what if they did? AdSense impressions shouldn't hurt AdWords advertisers, if people wanted to load their web pages up with "irrelevant" ads who cares?

The whole idea behind AdSense is to deliver ads that are relevant to the page's content. If Google allowed publishers to load up their widget or whatsit pages with ads for Viagra, credit cards, or other irrelevant topics, Google's "relevancy" sales pitch would be weakened.

The solution, IMHO, is for Google to allow keywords that help (but aren't a substitute for) the matching algorithm.