Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Maybe the inclusion of AdLinks made them examine the targeting and improve it otherwise those links would be a tad idiotic based on the page content.
Anyone else notice a sudden upward trend with this latest update?
The ads appearing on my pages when viewed locally are well aimed and geared to the page subject and area.
When I use the preview tool and check Canada or USA I'm seeing absolutely untargetted ads.
It's obvious from the local ad placement that they know what the site and page content is about and, as the site is aimed at a world wide audience as a tourist destination, the same ads or similar should be showing outside as well as locally.
What's up? Have I missed something?
For instance, my site is dynamic and I noticed I missed a couple of those items on one template page that impacted 100s of actual content pages and a week after I changed the page to highlight the content better the ads got MUCH more on target.
Last but not least, ask Google! They have been very helpful to me in the past with fixing issues that caused my targeting to be off, typically something adjusted on my web page.
I assume you have all the standard items per page like the TITLE, H1, H2, etc. to specifically highlight the content topics. Many people forget to outline content pages with H1, H2, H3. etc. and I think it helps AdSense a bunch, but it may be just in my case.
Anchor text for internal links may be a factor, too. I often notice ads that seem to be based on a navigation link or other internal link. And in some cases, the Mediapartnerbot just seems to grab a keyphrase at random, perhaps to defeat any attempts to influence what ads show up on the page.
I assume you have all the standard items per page like the TITLE, H1, H2, etc. to specifically highlight the content topics. Many people forget to outline content pages with H1, H2, H3. etc. and I think it helps AdSense a bunch, but it may be just in my case.
I use straight HTML with titles, meta tags, description, etc, etc. all geared to one topic or other.
I just checked one of our pages devoted to a popular underwater sport. The local page has ads aimed directly at this popular pastime. When I check the US page through the preview tool I'm seeing ads for dating services and classified ads, etc. No ads in the genre of the page. My CTR has plummeted.
I guess it's time to write support.
to display ad's to ones region based on IP.
That doesn't make sense for sites where the searcher is looking at a far away tourist location from his home country. Wouldn't he/she be more interested in ads related to the area or interst he is searching about.
It's not like there is a shortage of ads for these searches. For the local market they are showing lots of good, on topic ads.
From the What Are Your Earnings thread, I notice that "hobby sites," which arguably are the closest thing left to pure content sites, have been much less effected by a decline in EPC over the past several months than other (more commercial? larger? ) sites.
The system is too complicated to get a grasp on it by looking at one or two factors across many different kinds of sites.
Look at what is working on YOUR site, and do more of that.
Here's what was happening.
When I would right click and open the preview tool I apparently was holding the cursor over the ad box. This causes the tool to preview generic ads.
If I hold the cursor over another part of the page then I get the proper preview.
Duh! :-(
Life is a learning experience.