Forum Moderators: martinibuster
However, one of my main money pages can't seem to attract properly targeted ads. The topic of the page in question is unmistakeably Australian with numerous occurences of "Australia" and "Australian" throughout the page content as well as in headers, title and description etc.
The word "adventure" appears in a couple of places and seems to be having a huge effect on the ads delivered. I'm seeing ads for adventure tours in China, Nepal and Antartica, there is an ad for a Belize Adventure Resort, an ad for an outfitter supplying advenure clothing.... but never an ad with an Australian connection.
It seems as if individual words on the page are triggering ads rather than what the page theme/topic is actually about.
I don't want to neuter the page content, which is correct for the viewer, so as to improve the ad matching. Should Google be delivering better matching or do I have to rework the page, like it or not.
Still on the topic of targeting.... does Google understand the differences between USA and non-USA terminology?
eg... vacation vs holiday
Is it necessary to adapt word usage on the page to the USA preferences so that Google recognises which ads types to deliver?
I am not sure what the cost per click would be, I am assuming it is fairly low. One thing I did notice was that although the ads were related to the page topic, the ads were not something of interest to me for the most part.
If I were browsing around your site gathering info about my future trip to Australia I would be interested in hotels, rental cars, restaurants, trains, airports, fun places to see and stay etc...although again those ads probably wont pay very much.
To gain higher revenue ads maybe you should talk about the airlines, hotels, car rentals, where and how to buy airline tickets online, what trendy type places are there to see while there, travel insurance, adventure tours on the great barrier reef etc....
Ok, now can you review a new site of mine for me? I am having trouble getting relevant ads, and even a full set of 4 ads to display on this 44,000 page database type website for hospitals and clinics in the U.S. The site is brand new, but is already getting 2200 visitors a day.
I thought I did my homework for revelant keywords, and healthcare, hospitals and doctors were pretty popular....or so I thought. Can you give me your opionion?
thanks,
Austin
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[edited by: Jenstar at 11:48 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
[edit reason] No URLs / signatures; against TOS [/edit]
The word "adventure" appears in a couple of places and seems to be having a huge effect on the ads delivered. I'm seeing ads for adventure tours in China, Nepal and Antartica, there is an ad for a Belize Adventure Resort, an ad for an outfitter supplying advenure clothing.... but never an ad with an Australian connection.
I can think of two possible explanations:
(1) Google isn't capable of distinguishing between an adventure holiday in Australia and one in Nepal, so geographical targeting is determined by the advertiser--either through the AdWords console (which allows targeting by country if I'm not mistaken) or through careful selection of keywords--e.g., "outback adventure" rather than just "adventure" or "Great Barrier Reef diving holidays" instead of just "diving holidays." Of course, sincethe advertiser is paying by the click, not by the impression, waste circulation (such as Nepal adventure ads on an Australian travel site) may not be a big concern for the advertiser.
2) No advertisers have bought AdWords/Adsense content ads for keyphrases that would display relevant ads on your page.
It seems as if individual words on the page are triggering ads rather than what the page theme/topic is actually about.
That's inevitable with an algorithm-based approach (at least until true artificial intelligence comes along). I see the same problem on a few of my own pages: for example, business-to-business ads for ATM equipment and supplies in an article on how to use ATMs in Europe, or (until recently) ads for beer-tapping equipment, kegs, and beer coolers in an article on Munich's Oktoberfest that happens to mention how the mayor of Munich taps the first key of Oktoberfest. In each case, Google is obviously grabbing isolated keywords instead of looking for meaning.
The same thing happens on other pages, but usually there isn't a problem because the keywords that get grabbed are related to the overall theme of my site. For example, Google might see an affiliate link for European rail travel and display one or more ads for European railpass vendors. The ads might not be on-topic for the specific page where they're being displayed, but they work well as "defaults" for pages whose topics don't have related AdSense ads.
I don't want to neuter the page content, which is correct for the viewer, so as to improve the ad matching. Should Google be delivering better matching or do I have to rework the page, like it or not.
That depends on how much revenue the page is likely to generate and how much "neutering" is required. It may be that Google is going to see the word "adventures" on a page and display ads for Nepal hiking adventures, adventure playgrounds, and SF movies about adventures in outer space no matter how much "neutering" you do.
Also remember that removing keywords that may be confusing Google (such as "adventure") will mean losing Google search rankings for those keywords. That, in turn, will affect your traffic. If you depend on Google and other search engines to generate traffic on inside pages, it may be better to tolerate occasional off-topic ads than to have fewer readers find your site.
Still on the topic of targeting.... does Google understand the differences between USA and non-USA terminology? eg... vacation vs holiday
No, because Google is looking for keywords, not meaning. If an Australian travel vendor wants American customers for its "adventure holidays in Australia," it should buy the keyphrase "adventure vacations in Australia" too. Similarly, if you as a publisher want to increase the likelihood of displaying ads that will be read by Americans, you'll probably want to use the phrase "adventure vacations in Australia" somewhere in your text so that Google will know to display "vacations" ads as well as "holidays" ads.
Excellent reply. Your time, efforts and logical insight are always appreciated.
austtr
