A special option for premium publishers?

choosing your own ad, contextual or not?

[ownerrim]

Go to the drudgereport and you'll occasionally see a google ad there. The ad is for coffee. There's never a word on his news links page about coffee. This must be an option for publishers with his kind of reach. But...how is this contextual advertising?

[hunderdown]

People drink coffee while reading The Drudge Report? Context in the wider sense. I guess ads for comfy desk chairs would work too.

[ownerrim]

Yeah, but it seems apparent that he's allowed to choose the type of ad that appears on his site. It would certainly be nice if niche publishers could do the same.

[europeforvisitors]

You're right--it isn't contextual advertising. It is an option that's offered to some publishers, and it's probably most useful for portal sites, general news and entertainment sites, etc. that aren't good matches for contextual ads.

[ownerrim]

Hmmm. Well, I have no doubt drudge would qualify for whatever special options google would have available. His traffic is astounding. But...it's just funny to see a google ad there "out of context". And his page is riddled with popups. He even has a popup blocker-blocker.

[Sunflux]

Popup blocker-blockers tend to turn into a me-blocker as well. :-)

[openmind]

He's also got this message on top of his hmepage:

Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers

[Sunflux]

They made me specifically take text like that down, even though it was under a non-AdSense ad unit that was about two screens away from the AdSense content.

I hope this is merely an "accident" rather than another example of a premium perk. Double standard for options, customization, earnings and "keyword padding" fine, but don't also start letting them break cardinal rules!

[ownerrim]

I sort of have the impression that the rules you're subject to have something to do with how much money you can make them.

[jomaxx]

The only Google ad I see is being served by another advertising network. Somewhat different rules apply.

[europeforvisitors]

I sort of have the impression that the rules you're subject to have something to do with how much money you can make them.

Sure, and how much negotiating power you have going in.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a premium partner gets treated differently than Mom-and-pop.com does; it's no different from Barnes & Noble's getting better terms and more personal attention than Bubba's Books. That's just how business works.

[Tapolyai]

I am sorry, but I don't get any pop-ups, nor can I find the "Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers".

I saw a "Please Support" for a non-Google ad; saw "Advertise on the Drudge Retort[sic]".(Yes it actually says "retort") Both are outside of Google TOS.

The Google Adsense advertising I saw was directly related and contextual. They were all "war" & "Iraq". Tried it from different locations, IPs, browsers. Same.

Which page is this "support" piece on, and where do you get the pop-ups?

[ownerrim]

I believe there is a clone site called drudgeretort. Not the same thing.

[alika]

Those are NOT Adsense ads. Rather, those are AdKnowledge ads that are currently available in various banner ad networks. All their ads look like Adsense EXCEPT for the use of bold font for CLICK HERE.

This is a non-issue.

[elguapo]

yeah - I know those adknowledge ads. they've been around for quite some time. in one banner network, they pay $0.20 per CPM while in another banner network they pay $0.42 per click. avoided them like plaque so as not to run afoul with G and violate their TOS against showing ads that mimic adsense

[ownerrim]

"Those are NOT Adsense ads."

Oh really? Don't be so sure of yourself all the time. I'm looking right at it and it says ads by gooooogle.

If you refresh the page several times you'll see that drudge alternates adsense and other ad programs in that particular space.

[alika]

Hmmm ... I've spent 30 minutes looking at the site and all I see are TribalFusion ads with Adknowledge as part of the rotation. Not seeing "Ads by Google" at all. Adknowledge ads sure looks like G's Adsense ads but definitely no "Ads by Google" mark.

[jomaxx]

It definitely does say "Ads by Gooooogle" (some of the time). The code on the page didn't say anything about AdSense when I checked, so I assumed that the ad was actually being served by another network.

It occurs to me that Drudge may also be using their own AdSense code as fallback ad code on another network, but I don't know if that's possible or how you would tell the difference between those two cases.