Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have seen examples where the system never catch the main topic...
PD. I sent this feedback to AdSense, but only received an automatic response on how to improve ads targeting
1- That is not the way the program is being sold to advertisers.
2- It could lead to abuse.
But, you are right. A human has more sense than adsense.
A machine could some day think relantionships as well as humans, in the meantime, why not let webmasters choose some keywords that define the
website/channel topic of interest, to help adsense to test ADs related with those keywords and also the automatically choosen ones and find the best conversions?
They're already using that approach in the new "Site-Flavored Google Search," where a publisher can select a category and subcategory. Google then returns search results only for pages that fit within those boundaries.
Still, even that wouldn't be a complete solution, because (for example) it wouldn't keep a travel page about Paris, Kentucky from displaying ads for hotels in Paris, France. I'd personally like to see the ability to use "helper" keywords (either positive or neigative keywords) to help AdSense display relevant ads on evergreen pages where the algorithm consistently selects wildly mismatched ads.
Premium accounts seem to have the ability to do such a thing... if you take a gander at their ad code you'll see such tags as:
google_contents - used just a like description meta tag
google_hints - used just like a keyword meta tag
I'd love to see this be avail for all publishers.
I'd love to see this be avail for all publishers.
Bear in mind that it is the advertisers that Google Adsense are more interested in as they pay the bills. The publishers are basically expendable. ;)
However if you are a large publisher eg 1 million+ or 10 million+ impressions Google is nice to you - Fedexed cheques, special CPM deals etc....
level80 wrote:
Bear in mind that it is the advertisers that Google Adsense are more interested in as they pay the bills. The publishers are basically expendable. ;)
Yes, but mistargeted ads hurt Google just as much as they hurt publishers. Google also misses out on potential revenues when an ad for model planes from appearing on a page about fashion models or model houses.
And the worst scenario... Can someone get a higher CTR with an unrelated ad, and if this happens, the advertiser loose something?
In fact, I just risked trying it and got PSA's -- so I guess it has to be enabled on google's side to work.
I'll send them a message asking for permission.
Because:1- That is not the way the program is being sold to advertisers.
2- It could lead to abuse.
Yes. Letting the publisher choose which ads appear would damage advertiser confidence even more.
Letting the publisher choose which ads appear would damage advertiser confidence even more.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that. "Hints" would simply be a way of preventing mismatched ads from appearing. There's nothing new about the idea of giving publishers some control over the ads on their sites: A domain filter has been available to AdSense publishers since the network went live a year ago.
BTW, some publishers have said that mismatched ads aren't a problem because they don't occur very often. That may true of sites whose content changes frequently, but on a site like mine that consists mostly of "evergreen" pages, even a 1% mismatch rate could mean 40 pages with inappropriate ads. Multiple those 40 pages by 4 leaderboard ads by 365 days a year, and you're talking about 58,400 mismatched ads in the course of a year. I can't tell you how much lost revenue that means without violating Google's TOS, but let's just say that it's more than enough to cover my phone bills or my NetFlix DVD rentals.
Anyway, on topic, what is the difference between preventing a mismatch and allowing publishers to choose the ads that show up? Just a matter of degree, isn't it?
Many small sites get the majority of their clicks from family and friends of the owner. The publisher is disapppointed if the ads are $0.05/click and wants to replace them with $5/click ads. This way, even with only one click a week (enough to fly under any fraud protection system), he still covers his hosting cost.
Even larger legitimate sites desire higher priced ads. Isn't that why the complaints about "mismatch"? There would be no complaints if the mismatched ads were more expensive than the lower priced ones. (Unless you believe that more relevant ads will draw a higher CTR than the mismatched ads, but I tend to doubt that is significant.)
In the meantime, real publishers loose.
They same was said about channel capabilities, but avoiding some small fraud by disabling features for all, is like ****ing down the all Credit cards because that leads to fraud...
Heck, Id LOVE to exchange some of my 5 cent ads with ads for mortgage payments, knowing that one click of them would equal 30+ clicks of my current ones.
The way to solve this problem is too have publishers indicate what type of ads they dont want.
It would be so easy to tell google that a page about DJ Mixers shouldnt show any ads for Singles Mixers Parties! Or that the turntables Im talking about is not the kind that you put TVs on!
I predict google will come out with a new filter allowing you to filter out certain CATEGORIES of ads
I think this type of hints would be very helpful for more. Or site-wide hint or even better channel-wide hints. Like I said, google should have no problem deciphering if the hints are bogus.
A site on fish isn't going to have hints for "mesothelioma" and other huge money keywords.
~h
I just looked and could not find anything about a domain filter for advertisers in the AdWords help section.
Actually, I said "A domain filter has been available to AdSense publishers since the network went live a year ago." [Italics added for emphasis.]
>>Anyway, on topic, what is the difference between preventing a mismatch and allowing publishers to choose the ads that show up?<<
There's a huge difference. For example, I routinely get ads for "St. Martin hotels" or (even more weirdly) "villas in Tuscany" on a page about guest rooms at the monastery in Erfurt, Germany where Martin Luther took his vows. If I could provide negative hints for "villas," "Tuscany," "St. Martin," "Caribbean," etc., that would help to cure an ongoing problem with mismatched ads on that page. Better yet, if I could use positive hints for "Erfurt" or "Germany" (and maybe even "hotels"), Google could match those hints against the text on the page and see that the hints were, indeed, appropriate. (See hdpt00's post.) That's a far cry from being able to turn off Google's algorithm entirely and tell Google what ads to display.
Many small sites get the majority of their clicks from family and friends of the owner. The publisher is disapppointed if the ads are $0.05/click and wants to replace them with $5/click ads. This way, even with only one click a week (enough to fly under any fraud protection system), he still covers his hosting cost.
Joe Publisher can already build pages around high-value keywords if he wants to. What's to keep him from stuffing pages about Viagra or home mortgages into his site about hamsters or badminton? That would be a lot easier than trying to defeat Google's Mediapartnerbot.
Even larger legitimate sites desire higher priced ads. Isn't that why the complaints about "mismatch"? There would be no complaints if the mismatched ads were more expensive than the lower priced ones.
No, most complaints about "mismatch" stem from the fact that the ads are mismatched. Period. I doubt if most publishers are trying to game the system; I know I'm not. (In fact, I'm sure that some of my site's mismatched ads have higher bids than correctly matched ads would.) I just want ads that are at least slightly relevant (not completely irrelevant) to the page topic. So does Google. Otherwise, Google wouldn't be trying to match ads to individual pages.
(Unless you believe that more relevant ads will draw a higher CTR than the mismatched ads, but I tend to doubt that is significant.)
I think it's quite significant. Why would anyone reading travel advice for a city in Eastern Germany be interested in ads for hotels in the Caribbean? For that matter, why would advertisers of hotels in the Caribbean be interested in exposure that might result in wasted clicks?
AdSense is supposed to deliver contextual ads. That's the network's most fundamental concept: It's a targeted direct-response medium. When ads are clearly off-topic, performance suffer and potential advertisers in that niche have reason to be skeptical about the value of "content ads."
Most of us value the good reputation of our content sites. People return to a well designed and written site and they also tell others about it. But most of the people who visit our sites assume that we pick out the ads for our site. When the ad match is way off it just plain looks stupid.
Many small sites get the majority of their clicks from family and friends of the owner.
Really, how do you know? Is this a guess or do you have something to back this up?
It would be so easy to tell google that a page about DJ Mixers shouldnt show any ads for Singles Mixers Parties! Or that the turntables Im talking about is not the kind that you put TVs on!
Or a page about the bass guitar shouldn't show ads for bass shoes or fishing lures or boats.
Does anybody have ideas how to tell adsense which definition of the word your page is about? I tried to use synonyms and related words in my text and metas but it doesn't seem to help.
You cannot expect google to target anything more than on the keyword level. Things cannot be taken into context and targeted on that level. That is some pretty advanced stuff there, the ability of a computer to not only understand keywords but put those keywords in context and understand overall context.
Abuse would be pretty difficult if you're only getting paid when your traffic converts. You would be motivated to try to pick ads and keywords that lead to sites that would convert from your website.
If anything, paying on conversion would only make things worse, because advertisers would have no reason to be concerned about out-of-context ads that might result in clicks from clueless or confused users.
Because:
..
2- It could lead to abuse.
The reason a publisher can not select Ads is because it could lead to abuse, otherwise they'd all be selecting asbestos cancer ads.
If it was PPA, this wouldn't be so much of an issue. Publisher's would select on topic ads that easily convert and advertisers wouldn't care because they are paying on an aquisition basis and not on a click basis.
The reason a publisher can not select Ads is because it could lead to abuse, otherwise they'd all be selecting asbestos cancer ads.
Why do people keep raising this red herring? Nobody is suggesting that publishers should be able to "select ads." The idea is to help prevent mistargeted ads, which is a different matter altogether.
Nobody is suggesting that publishers should be able to "select ads."....
I know nobody is suggesting that, but this would be a consequence.
If your site is about water polo and you ask for asbetos ads, I guaruntee google can tell this is fraud. But at the minimum google should allow negative keywords to stop confusion on some topics.
Exactly. Why is it so hard for people to grasp this?
Exactly. Why is it so hard for people to grasp this?
Coz some 75% of the people here are more interested in ripping off publishers (and making easy cash) than in improving their site and moniterising their screen real estate? :)
So let's try reductio ad absurbum and assume the opposite: how would you do this so it couldn't be abused, that is to disallow the selection of higher paying ads to appear.
Nothing really occurs to me. Therefore, since abuse is likely the driving designing factor, abuse can't be stopped, then abuse is probably the reason it doesn't exist.
I know, it's not 100%, but I can't think of a more compelling argument.
I'm all ears, though.
So let's try reductio ad absurbum and assume the opposite: how would you do this so it couldn't be abused, that is to disallow the selection of higher paying ads to appear.Nothing really occurs to me. Therefore, since abuse is likely the driving designing factor, abuse can't be stopped, then abuse is probably the reason it doesn't exist.
First, the goal isn't to ensure that ads are higher-paying; it's to ensure that ads are correctly matched. In some cases, the correctly-matched ad may have a lower bid than the mismatched ad. It all depends. But from both the publisher's point of view and the advertiser's point of view, it makes more sense to have an ad for Jesus Jeans on a fashion page about that European clothing brand than an ad for the book JESUS IN BLUE JEANS or movie posters for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Similarly, it makes sense to provide a way for religious sites to keep ads for Jesus Jeans retailers and affiliates from showing up on their pages.
Second, it's hard to imagine that the Ph.D.'s at Google aren't smart enough to determine that a hint for "impotence remedy] on an a page about hamsters or Elizabethan literature is out of context. Remember, we're talking about hints, not the ability to completely override the ad-matching algorithm.
Finally, as I've pointed out before, anyone who really, really wants to display ads for [impotence remedy] or [abestos-related cancer keyword] can simply create a page that's built around those keywords. There's no need to game the system, since Google has no way of controlling what topics publishers cover on their sites.
[edited by: europeforvisitors at 6:17 pm (utc) on June 28, 2004]
