Can you turn off site target?

Want keyword targetted campaigns only.

[tama]

Is there a way to not accept ads which are site targetted? I know I can filter out competitors but that could get tedious after awhile. I'd rather just disallow ads which are site targetted but I didn't see such an option in AdSense.

[thegreatpretender]

Just email google and they'll let you opt out from this feature. I did.

[tama]

Thanks. I took your suggestion. I wouldn't mind it but the rates they are charging is way too low for my space and I didn't see a way to change that.

[GoldenHammer]

Yes, write to Google and they can help. It seems that the best strategy at the moment (for some of us?) is to disable the site targeting and minmize the filter list. That seems giving a "better" ads competition.

[ann]

I opted out and within a few days my drastically fallen ctr and eCPM shot back up along with earnings. Proof they were dragging my website down.

[sirkei]

Is site targeting here relates to CPM ads? Those big words ads?

[david_uk]

I've just emailed them to request opt out. My epc is good at the moment, but my ctr is only middling. The results should be interesting.

[John Carpenter]

I've just emailed them to request opt out. My epc is good at the moment, but my ctr is only middling.

I believe that site-targetted ads are CPM-based (cost per thousand impressions) not CPC-based (cost per click). Therefore, if 100% of your adds were site-targetted, you could have 0% CTR and still earn money.

I opted out and within a few days my drastically fallen ctr and eCPM shot back up along with earnings.

It is in Google's best interest to automatically serve only the best performing ads. I find it hard to belive that such a serious bug in the system would remain there unfixed for months (especially after having read numerous similar reports here). Such a bug could cost them millions, and maybe much more.

[castar]

I emailed them a week ago to opt out and never heard back from them. They must be busy sending out all those tech gadget Christmas gifts :)

[21_blue]

John Carpenter wrote:
>I believe that site-targetted ads are CPM-based (cost per thousand impressions) not
>CPC-based (cost per click). Therefore, if 100% of your adds were site-targetted, you could have 0% CTR
>and still earn money.

True. Though as ad clicks and earnings are counted in the normal stats, if 100% of your ads were site-targetted, you could have a very high CTR. And that is the experience on our site: with CPM Ads, CTR goes up and earnings go down.

>It is in Google's best interest to automatically serve only the best performing ads. I find it
>hard to belive that such a serious bug in the system would remain there unfixed for months

I think the problem is not having sufficient hard data to work on. Adsense Support recently helped us do some proper analysis on our site - taking us out of CPM Ads so that we could do a statistical comparison. This produced a 'statistically significant' result (using Mann Whitney, p<.05) showing that with CPM Ads disabled our CTR went down and Earnings per Visitor went up. But because the Adsense market is so complex, it still isn't possible to be certain that CPM Ads caused these changes. Nevertheless, Adsense have a copy of our report and have said that their engineers will look at the data.

It may be that CPM Ads only work for a particular type of site. However, if a site does get targetted, that ought to result in earnings going up. The fact that it doesn't (on our site) suggests that there may be a problem either in the algo or in knock-on effect on smartpricing.

[tama]

Google wrote and reluctantly said they would shut off site targetting per my request. They also explained that CPC advertisers compete against CPM advertisers and that the competition creates greater income for the publisher. That makes sense in theory and I darn near told him to cancel my request. But I decided to test it out and so far I'm really glad I did. Earnings have shot back up. The difference in revenue is significant so I'm happy to stick with CPC only.

[ann]

It may be possible that the site targeted ads will work better on forum type sites.

Just my pennys worth.

Ann

[Play_Bach]

I requested info from Google on how to opt-out from site targeting when I first noticed it happening on one of my sites. A few days later they sent me a nice e-mail double-checking with me to be sure I wanted to opt-out since they felt my earnings would actually be higher if I allowed site targeting but said they would opt-out my account if I let them know that's what I wanted. I decided to stay in. However, what I don't understand (and to be honest doesn't quite cut it), is that there isn't a simple checkbox option to be able to do this in your account like you can do for so many other things. Why should you have to go through a special process to opt-out? What's the big deal?

[david_uk]

Well, they have confirmed it's now turned off - will monitor how it goes and report back.