"Foreign Language" Google Adsense Ads

Do English or French ads appear on a French website?

[send2paul]

I was just wondering the success rate of Google Adsense ads on pages where English is not the main language used. i.e. websites in French...

1. Do English ads appear for the equivalent French keyword i.e. does Google do the translation from French to English and the appropriate advertisers English advert appear?

or...

2. Do French ads appear for French keywords

or...

3. Do a mixture of English and French ads appear depending on whether or not English or French advertisers have bid for the highest keyword/phrase?

and....

4. If I used a "translation button" on my English website, (to convert it to French) - what kind of ads would appear in the French version?

I'd be interested to know if anyone has had experience of this, as I'm thinking about developing a couple of multi-lingual websites in the not too distant future.

[jozomannen]

Im not sure about that english or french, but I live in sweden and sometimes I get swedish ads on both english and german sites.

[send2paul]

Hmmm - thanks for that J.

And are the ads relevant to the keywords/text content on the webpage - or are they just ads that have appeared because they are approximately close to the type of ads you would want to appear?

[lammert]

Ad language depends heavily on the country of the visitor. My Dutch language pages attract 50% Dutch and 50% English ads when I am visit them from my computer in Holland, but 70% English, 20% German and 10% Russian when I visit them from a country in the former Soviet Union.

The Google algorithm picks ads based on bid values in AdWords, languages and countries that the AdWords advertisers have chosen to display their ads on and the historical CPM of the ads.

As an AdWords advertiser you can chose to place Spanish ads on a website in Japanese language. Not that many visitors will click the ads, but if the advertiser bids high enough the ads will be in #1 position until Google's algorithm finds out that the CTR is very low, which causes the ads to be moved to lower positions eventually.

[send2paul]

Thanks lammert.

That almost goes in contradiction with the fact that Google Adsense is "contextual advertising" i.e. the ads that should appear should be relevant to the content of the page - and not, in the case, the country, (or I presume ISP), of the person viewing the ad.

Anyone any further thoughts on that little riddle?

[lammert]

It is not in contradiction with contextual advertising because the advertiser has to maintain a list of keywords for his campaign which are in his opinion relevant to the ads. Google matches this keywords list with the site content to see if an ad is appropriate.

I run a small AdWords campaign to promote a specific niche. I know this niche is also very interesting for expats working in a specific country with another language than the expats originate from. In this case the ads are in the language of the expats, but I have configured the AdWords campaign in such a way that the ads can also be shown on SERPs and websites in the country-language, assuming that most expats in that country also understand the local language.

The website owners--who probably only understand the local language--might find it strange to see ads in an unknown language, but it was done with a specific purpose.

[Bluepixel]

Hi,

I do have a few sites in french and english.
Normally if the topic is about a french term you get french ads. If there are also foreign advertisers bidding on that term and that region your visitor is in, the foreign ads will also be showed if they match the keyword.
Sometimes you may get a mixture between multiple languages on a single ad unit.

[Alioc]

1- Even if the words are written the same in French and English, if the meaning is different, Google will try to eliminate the risks of displaying irrelevant ads. Often it fails to do so and in this case, you will see irrelevant ads.

2- Most certainly, yes. If there are any ads in the inventory in French.

3- You will see ads in both languages. The display order is no different. Click through ratio/bid price whichever beats the other and is best to Google and you - the publisher.

4- It will tend to show ads in the translated language. However this may vary depending on which online translation service you use.

Go ahead, download the AdSense preview tool and test.

[howiejs]

Any comments on EPC from different languages (as a percentage vs. English ads?)

[send2paul]

Thanks lammert, bluepixel and alioc.

Hmmm.... so how much influence does the advertiser have, (producing ads with "foreign keywords" in), on the type of "foreign" ads that would appear on a webpage?

(Sorry if that's been answered above somewhere - I'm just trying to get it clear in my head! :) )

[AdSenseAdvisor]

send2paul –

The AdWords advertiser determines to which geographic regions and keywords their ads will be targeted. For example, you may notice American companies advertising on your site that have chosen to display their ads to French users as well.

AdSense uses geotargeting to choose which Google ads to serve to your pages, and the ads displayed are specific to the user’s region based on his/her IP address. So, for instance, your Australian site visitors may see different ads than those served to your French visitors. This improves the relevancy of the ads to the user.

A fun tip not too many publishers know about is that you can use the Google AdSense preview to see which ads would show for your users in various locations around the world. To download the preview tool (which is currently only available for IE), visit:

[google.com ] .

-ASA

[send2paul]

Thanks ASA

I use the old Adsense Preview Tool myself :)