Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This should be very helpfull on pages that cover several topics, like a home page might.
Haven't tried this yet because I just spotted the notice while checking my stats. Sounds interesting though.
[edit note] edited to remove a quote[/edit]
Finally I went into the viewtopic.tpl and put the target around the <--post_row section
Sorry.. don't have the specifics in front of me, but if someone wants a precise breack down I can get the actual changes I made tomorrow.
seems to work very well for me. I have other pages that are displayed by pulling posts and displaying them and I also use the targeting code to just focus on the text of the article/post itself.
Now maybe I can put back the side bar navigation that was throwing off the targeting.
- Yeh, I have a huge navigation that has affected ad targeting in many pages, specially the ones with fewer content. I was thinking of cutting down on my navigation to enhance ad targeting. Now that the new feature is here, no need to alter my navigation any more.
- My navigation was placed at the top of the HTML code too, before the content itself. I use CSS to make the navigation "float left" but it did not display properly when I put the navigation code after the content code in the HTML. So I had to keep the navigation at the top of the HTML code even though I use CSS! I wonder how others, who repeatedly mention using CSS to place content anywhere, do it.
- I have put one of the AdSense ads inside the <div> tag of the main content of my page. This has helped such ads be targeted on that content. Maybe using the new AdSense feature will enhance this even more. But sure for those who have not been putting AdSense inside the <div> section of their main content will experience even a greater difference when implementing the new AdSense feature. (The other ad unit I have elswhere on the page does not show ads as well targeted as the ones inside the div tag of the main content area).
- My idea of this new feature and what triggered it for Google is this: They have been trying to figure out automatically which parts of the page have the main content and which parts are not important. Now this new feature will help them decide this more easily. (It may even help their bots 'learn' patterns from the many publishers who will implement this new feature and then use what it learnt to enhance its heuristics that try to guess which parts of the site are important and which are not (in sites that have not implemented this feature yet)). I guess this feature follows the same reasoning of their Sitemap, coolaborative crawling thing, which gives the ability to webmasters to suggest things for their bots, this may help the bot do a better job by being guided, but at the end, the bot has the final decision and may or may not take the advice or guidance it is being given.
- Finally, I would like to say that this new feature is launched and works in a specific way that will probably change after a while when Google learns more about its effects. That is, if you are seeing a great difference in ad targeting after implementing this feature right now, maybe in the future this feature will work a bit differently after Google has tested it more, learnt from the rusults and updated the way their bots deal with this feature, perhaps then it will have an effect not quite the same as the one it might have today when they've just launched it in a specific manner.
The End.
I wonder how others, who repeatedly mention using CSS to place content anywhere, do it.
Absolute positioning.
The results initially were more targeted ads - however, now I am noticing that a lesser variety of ads gets served, and often NONE are served.
My number of ad impressions has dropped by a large percentage, and revenue has dropped accordingly.
I'm a little turned off by it at the moment. I am going to stop putting positive weight on things, and only use the ignore option for things that are problematic.
Eric
I get a very statistically significant amount of traffic on my site, so it is unlikely a coincidence.
Here’s my thought, and it has a lot to do with what I perceive to be the paradox of AdSense in general.
Most regular traffic does not click on ads; they are on my site for the content. Most of my click traffic is from search engines. What is most likely to click on an ad is:
1) someone who put in a search term and ended up on my site
2) my site is not really what they were looking for
3) however, the ads are match to the search term and are actually better targeted to their original search
So, by telling AdSense how to better target my site actually works to my disadvantage. The best visitor is one who found my site by search engine, finds my site off topic, but finds the ads on topic to their original search.
It seems that close is not only good in horseshoes and hand grenades, but AdSense, too.
I’ve dropped the tags and my CTR and eCPM are right back to where they belong.
