URL Filtering

do wildcards work?

[davelms]

I posted this question in another thread, but on reflection I think I need to ask it in its own.

To remove the e-bay type affiliate ads farmed from some generators can you use wildcards, ie asterisks, for the entire domain? For two reasons, a) because the URLs are over 64 chars in length and b) the URL content seems to vary.

However, from my experience, the domains seem to be limited to just two examples. So can I filter out www.domain1.com/*
www.domain2.com/*

I tried this, and Adsense didn't object, but can anyone let me know if this will work (it doesn't seem to have so far and I'm sure I've left it over 2 hours), and if not, what alternatives there might be. I wonder if by default it is wildcarded (like robots.txt)? So perhaps:

www.domain1.com
www.domain2.com

might work?

Many thanks for any help.

[icedowl]

Just ebay.com works for me. Nothing more is needed.

[jadebox]

AdSense seems to filter by the Display URL, not the real URL. So, just enter ebay.com and www.ebay.com in the URL Filtering list.

-- Roger

[davelms]

Oh, ok, well that certainly sounds much simpler. The "how to find the url" kind of suggests you use the one listed in the link (by right clicking, and using copy link location I mean) not the one displayed. I shall try this, your comments are much appreciated.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

The "how to find the url" kind of suggests you use the one listed in the link (by right clicking, and using copy link location I mean) not the one displayed.

Correct- the destination URL of the ad is what you should use to filter the ad. When you right-click on the title of the ad and select Properties, you'll see a long URL beginning with 'http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead..". The destination URL is the part that's located between 'adurl=' and '&'.

A few points about which "version" of the destination URL will filter what (blogger.com used here as an example):

*Entering 'www.blogger.com' filters 'www.blogger.com.' This won't filter ads from 'blogger.com', 'www.blogger.com/page.html,' or subdomains like 'pro.blogger.com.'
*Entering the top-level domain 'blogger.com' will filter out anything and everything with this domain in the URL, such as 'www.blogger.com', 'www.blogger.com/page.html', or 'pro.blogger.com'.

ASA

[edited by: AdSenseAdvisor at 11:10 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2004]

[davelms]

Much appreciated response, thank you.

[DamonHD]

Hi ASA,

I simply cannot get the filtering to work to get rid of the horrible eBay affiliates ads (though they seem to be moderating anyway), such as incitements to buy discount elephants (probably breaks CITES treaties as well as being irritating) and funerals (do they have *no* taste?).

I tried to block netmeans and mediaplex URLs (that seem to be the source of these) in several ways including those indicated in the ad. Nothing worked even after many hours. I mailed support and got nothing.

Dunno, but I think these ads make Google and my site look cheap and nasty.

Rgds

Damon

[Vec_One]

ASA, do you know if there are any plans to increase the number of ads we can block? If I could cull all of the ads from my competitors and whatnot, I would be left a slightly smaller, but appropriate and on-target group of ads.

The trouble is that there are more than 200 inappropriate ads. A limit of 250 or 300 would be great for me.

[davelms]

DamonHD - I followed the advice offered yesterday by ASA and it seems to have worked. Those two domains are the ones I suffer from too, although I didn't publish them in my comment yesterday 'cos I didn't know if I was supposed to or not. But by including the domain as per "blogger.com" (like in the example from ASA) seems to have done the trick. I didn't include any subdomain, or any specific "long" URL. We're on UK time here, and I simply keyed last night and rechecked this morning and it looks good now.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

DamonHD-
If you've filtered the correct destination URLs for these ads, they may still be appearing due to a filter delay which can take up to 24 hours or so (at most). Apologies if you still haven't gotten a reply to your previous email. If the filtered ads are still showing up and it's been way past 24 hours, please shoot an email to the support team at [e-mail] and include "AdSenseAdvisor" in the subject so I can make sure you get a response.

Vec_One- As of the moment we don't have plans to increase the URL filter limit. However, I'll be sure to pass your suggestion along. Not sure if this will create any room in your filter list, but you could try filtering the top-level domain of the blocked URLs which share their top-level domain. Ex. for ad.domain.com and ad563.domain.com, filter 'domain.com.'

ASA

[jadebox]

Correct- the destination URL of the ad is what you should use to filter the ad.

But it's so much easier (and more effective) to add ebay.com (the Display URL) to the URL Filtering list. :-)

-- Roger