Is this an Adsense Issue 404

/pagead/imp.gif

[ken_b]

I'm getting more and more of this 404 showing up in my logs. They end with....

/pagead/imp.gif

I can't find anything in my code that matches this, and I don't use an imp.gif

These show up for a wide range of my pages that have adsense on them, and not for any pages that don't have adsense on them. That's why I'm wondering if it's an Adsense thing.

Any ideas? Anyone else seeing this in your logs?

[jenkers]

hi,
this is totally to do with Adsense. I belive that they use the imp.gif to track the number of impressions for each ad unit.

The link to it is actually held in show_ads.js which is called to show the adsense block.

pageads/imp.gif should be under the following directory:

[pagead2.googlesyndication.com...]

Are you programatically adding the Adsense code to your pages?

Have you been losing impressions - suffering funny stats etc?

[ownerrim]

I'm glad someone mentioned this. I see quite a few of these from month to month (a ton, really). Had no clue what they regarded.

[jenkers]

just checked - my logs - I have some as well - although not many. Very strange - it would indicate that at least some of the time and for some reason the Adsense script uses a path relative to the host rather than googlesyndication.com.

Maybe adsense bug, cacheing issue? Don't know but probably worth raising with adsense support.

[ken_b]

Are you programatically adding the Adsense code to your pages?

The closest I come to this is using the DW search and replace function.

Have you been losing impressions - suffering funny stats etc?

No, nothing that I've noticed. Stats seem fine. Impressions are growing in line with my traffic growth in general.

The number of these 404s is growing much faster. Most of these pages have not been changed in months at least.

What I'm seeing in my logs looks like this...

the 404 >> afolder/anotherfolder/pagead/imp.gif

called from >> mydomain.com/folder/folder/some.htm

[AdSenseAdvisor]

This is typically related to the AdWords conversion code. If you're an AdWords advertiser and use conversion tracking, I'd check your code and make sure everything is in place.

Good luck! :)
ASA

[ken_b]

Thanks ASA.... but I'm not an Adwords advertizer, I don't even have an Adwords account.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Hmm, interesting. Thanks ken_b- I've got the engineers looking into this one.

ASA

[blaketar]

I love it how G has feelers now in all these different forums! Makes things interesting!

[Visi]

We see them popping up from time to time, and they always resolve to the same provider, so we have been ignoring them as an ISP problem. Maybe shouldn't have...:)

[Chico_Loco]

I think you'll find that if you grep your logs, the requests for this file come from a specific type of browser, or a variety of certain browsers which share the same issue.

Some older browsers choke on relative links if they are in javascript, particularly if they are in external files, and super particularly if they those external javascript files are located on a separate domain name.

The vast majority of browsers will have no problems whatsoever, but older browsers, or browsers which have a hard time with 100% compliance with JavaScript can choke on this.

Essentially, they don't know that "/pagead/imp.gif" is supposed to be relative to pagead2.googlesyndication.com and not yourdomain.com - hence the request is made to your server instead of Google's, thus the 404 errors.

2 solutions exist:

1. Create a transparent image file called imp.gif in a newly created /pagead/ directory on your server. This will just stop the 404's

2. Use a redirect from /pagead/imp.gif on your server to pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imp.gif - all of the criteria, such as referrer, page requested etc.. should get passed on, so Google probably won't even know that there was a problem, nor your users.

This is all an idea of mine by the way, but it seems implied - I have not done this myself, yet I have noticed these 404's on my site too!

[Chico_Loco]

Also, AdSense advisor, might I suggest that you mention to your tech guys that you COULD also use absolute references to this file in your .js code, however this will PROBABLY increase the number of requests you will receive for this file (and hence server load and bandwidth) and the file is less likely to be cached as surfers browse from one domain to another and thus requested again from your server!

[amznVibe]

It's not just old browsers, it's badly behaving bots and proxies.

I am showing all of my 404's for that file from Hughes (direct PC proxy?)

ip range is 66.82.9.x where x is 24 to 68

OrgName: Hughes Network Systems
Address: DirecWAY Network Management Center

It's either faulty caching-proxy code on their part (I bet) or an old browser going through their system.

[Chico_Loco]

It's not just old browsers, it's badly behaving bots and proxies.

Those too. Again, if Google were to use absolute references to this file, the problem should subside.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Thanks everyone for reporting this and for your help. Interestingly enough, the call is actually absolute and not relative. However, the engineers will continue to investigate this. It would be a great help if those of you experiencing this problem could send in a copy of your logs to [e-mail], subject reading "ATTN: ASA - 404 ERROR".

Thanks!
ASA

[Chico_Loco]

I sent in a full days worth of log files and this problem is still happening.

You mentioned above:

Interestingly enough, the call is actually absolute and not relative

Maybe you've not very good in terms of coding, however this:

var img_url = window.google_ad_url.replace(/pagead\/ads/, 'pagead/imp.gif');

is a line of code from show_ads.js, and that is a RELATIVE call to the imp.gif file and NOT ABSOLUTE, or at least it leaves the potential for it to be.