Duplicate Affiliates Per Block of Ads

One is OK...3 out of 4, not good

[Dolemite]

I have a relatively niche site running adsense, and I'm noticing that many pages produce blocks of ads where 1-3 out of 4 ads are for affiliates of the same site. If I recall correctly, I believe I've even seen 4/4. Call me cynical, but somehow I don't think that's going to produce an optimal CTR.

Now, I have nothing against affiliates and that whole thing, the site in question is indeed quite targetted to the topic of my site. I have no problem with it showing up, but just not multiple times per skyscraper/banner. However, if I block it, I can only block it completely since the listed URL is the same in each case, or with variations such as:

www.domain.com
www.Domain.com
domain.com
Domain.com
etc.

So there's no real solution on my end, unless Adsense can distinguish between those variations and let me block them individually. I don't think I should really have to do that, anyway...it shouldn't be happening in the first place, IMO. Has anyone dealt with this situation? Can affiliates be blocked based on the variations of the listed domain? Or are we left waiting for Google to address this issue?

[Jenstar]

Someone else discovered that www.domain.com and domain.com are treated as two different URLs when using the filter. Block the one you think has the lower earnings ;) I am not sure if it differentiates between caps and non-caps though.

Of course, Google could change how it recognizes filtered URLs at any time, but it is a possible solution for now.

[Dolemite]

OK, I'll try that out. We'll see about capitals.

Block the one you think has the lower earnings ;)

I'll try to work that one out. ;) Does lower position in the skyscraper = lower EPC, like adwords?

[Jenstar]

Does lower position in the skyscraper = lower EPC

Common sense would tell me yes, but then you never know ;)

Please report back about your experience with filtering capitals vs. non-caps. It does take a few hours to go into effect when you do add a site to the AdSense filter. I am interested to know how the filter treats it.

[Dolemite]

From how things look so far, I can confirm that the www.domain.com and domain.com are treated as distinct sites, but www.domain.com and www.Domain.com appear to be considered equivalent, and effectively block all permuations of capitalization.

I'm going to keep checking for a bit longer to see if the site shows up, but I'll probably end up unblocking to the extent that this particular site may appear in 2/4 ads. 1/4 doesn't seem possible in my case.

I don't suppose you can block the redirected URL?