Adsense serving UK ads at me

[Tiebreaker]

Hi

The ads that are showing on my pages are perfectly targeted to the content - but I seem to be getting a high number of UK sites in the results.

I don't have any UK references on the page - like most sites I gear things on the assumption that 80% of my visitors are from the USA.

In my Adsense sign up, my address is given as from the UK - are they using this information to assume that just because I live in the Uk, my website is probably targeted at UK visitors?

This is going to ruin my CTR - most of these UK sites are not going to interest 80% of users.

[jeremy goodrich]

I haven't heard of this problem from anybody else (yet) so my best idea would be to perhaps contact Google & ask them about the issue?

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

I would also recommend digging through this forum (here) for other threads on AdSense, as there is some great information that has already been shared by other members in the community.

[Tiebreaker]

Thanks Jeremy

I've just checked the adwords displayed on google when I type in the same keywords as my pages - and I am seeing quite a few UK sites there as well - in fact, the results are very close to the ones displayed on my pages

I've just had a thought - does google modify the results it serves based on your location? If it can detect from IP address etc that a user is in the UK, will it bias results in that direction?

What I am saying is - am I seeing UK sites because I am in the UK myself - if a US user looked at my page, maybe the adwords served would be different?

[jeremy goodrich]

That makes perfect sense. ;) The regular AdWords program allows advertisers to target by country -> and the adwords ads are the ones that get syndicated in AdSense.

So Google seems to know by your IP address that you are in the UK - and is targetting accordingly.

What you can do to check to see if they are USA targeted ads yourself is find a USA based proxy IP address, and then use that to view your page.

Good luck.

[Shak]

Tiebreaker :0

We have all been caught out on that 1 in the past my friend.

Get a colleague to check from the USA, or failing that try through anonymizer.com to see results as should be shown in the USA...

Shak

[loanuniverse]

My friend in the UK gets UK based ads when he visits my site. Feel free to sticky me with your URl and I will check your site. I am 99% sure that ads are geotargetted and you are in the UK.

[Tiebreaker]

Thanks for explaining that everyone.

This is great - not only are my ads targeted perfectly to page content, they even geo target individual users too!

Guess that's why I'm getting a whopping 15% CTR at the moment :-)

[cyt0plasm]

Ouch, that's not necessarily a good thing. Google has in the past "investigated" such high CTRs. :)

[DaveN]

I'm waiting to be investigated our CTR is running at 30%

Dave

[chiyo]

Some of these CTR's and CPC's people are quoting (someone in another thread quotes average of $4 per click) seem extra-ordinary! IId love to know how they do it.

30% CTR? Heck. One in three visitors when the average accepted rule of thumb banner ad click rate a few years back was .01 to .05%? Why dont these guys go straight to google ;)

[cyt0plasm]

Ouch. 30% CTR? How boring is your site? :)

I wish I could get some of that. If I could, at my present CPC (about $4), I would make $14,400 per day, or roughly 5.2 MILLION DOLLARS per year.

Of course, the advertisers wouldn't last that long, but wow. 30%. Mind if I ask your average CPC? :)

[DaveN]

not boring just targeted ;)

cpc 1.5 and every 4th day it drops .70

Dave

[ewanfisher]

What could work well is a site that ranks highly for certain keywords but the ads are more relevant for those keywords.

So the surfer arrives at the page thinking they have found what they are looking for and then think... "Agh this site is rubbish... but oh look this ad looks like what i want!". ;)