Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I uploaded a partial redesign for a site tonight and added Adsense code to it (was messing around with the adsense format).
Its hosted on an active domain, but in an unindexed folder, so the Adsense code was displaying usual ads - WorldAid, etc.
Just checked again 2 mins ago and the only ad on it was for ebay.co.uk, which seems that it is being displayed by default.
Anyone else noticed this?
Ive probably missed this happening like 2 months ago! Im off read up on the last month or so of developments! :P
Scott
Are you sure is not picking up something in the partial design?
My content is very industry specific.
Plus if I refresh the page, the default charity ads come back - refresh a few more times and Ebay is back (and just Ebay - only one ad out of four displayed, where the charity ads display all 4).
Could this be a new marketing function between Ebay and Google? Randomly displaying generic Ebay ads instead of charity stuff?
Scott
Does this mean eBay ads competing against charity ads? Why not run together!
This is based solely on speculation and observed behavior on my small site, so salt appropriately.
If they are general ones, eBay lost the sponsored adwords listing as of December 31, 2003, so perhaps they have begun a campaign with the content sites enabled (I don't recall seeing an eBay link before that wasn't an affiliate one). When they were running in the sponsored program (the top two Adwords that appear above the serps, not the Adwords that appear down the left column) they were bidding on all kinds of obscure keywords. Perhaps it is picking up those obscure keywords somehow, or perhaps eBay is paying for general eBay ads to sometimes be shown in place of PSAs.
Are they specific eBay ads or more of a general "find it on eBay" kind of ad?
<added>I surfed around a bit on some of the brand new pages added to one of my sites, and I am also seeing eBay and Bizrate, often appearing as two ads on a leaderboard (geotargeting Canada). Perhaps Bizrate does not geotarget UK, which is why you are only seeing the eBay one.</added>
So the plot thickens as to why these ads are popping up. I am certain an eBay/BizRate combination appeared on a page before the mediabot hit it, so possibly these are paying default ads somehow.
Any other thoughts, ideas or conspiracy theories? ;)
Professional PPC affiliates would find intense (and expensive) competition for the more popular keywords.
Someone, somewhere is just working through a dictionary ...
at least some of these cases are incidences of affiliates using 'scatter-gun' tactics
They arent linked to from anywhere other than a private forum on another site (the site im designing for).
The pages went online on Tuesday evening (its only a partial redesign in a hosted folder so i can check it out online - its unfinished and not publicly available). I added the Adsense code on Wednesday night and started seeing charity ads as usual.
A few hours later I started seeing the Ebay ads (The ad was "an official" ad for ebay.co.uk - link straight to homepage) - not affiliate links AFAIK.
As I refreshed the pages (I checked the few pages I have content on just now) I saw ads for ebay.co.uk, ebay.com, bizrate (I think - it wasnt ebay anyway), a record site (my page was careers related) and some specific ebay stuff (motors i think).
This was all random - sometimes it would be charity ads, sometimes one ebay ad, sometimes 2, etc - never ebay and charity at the same time though.
Today, the ads are showing stuff related to my content, which leads me to believe that the ebay ads were mixed in with charity ads as a default.
Perhaps Adsenseguy, Googleguy or whoever could comment? ;)
Scott
Just click thru two (yeh yeh sue me) - it appears to be an affiliate links (CJ? qksrv.net?).
Takes me to ebay.co.uk to different "ebay explained" type pages.
So I suppose its possible that someone is bidding on the keyword of my content (or any content) and adding these?
So the question remains - why havent I seen these ads with "real" ads?
The pages I have content on right now are very broad keywords. Ive been targetting them since before Adsense came out and Adsense has always displayed 4 relevant ads(well, relevant, but im not commenting on the quality of the sites.... ;)).
So why would Adsense be displaying Ebay ads by themself, affiliate or not? They should be at least mixed in with other ads.
So it would seem that there are a few possibilities:
1. Spyware - but given a few other people have seen these ads it is unlikely - Norton and Spybot are both regularly run on my machine and im sure many of you take even more precautions than I do to protect your machines.
2. 3rd party bidding on keywords to display ebay affiliate ads? Still begs the question why they would display on their own and before the targetted ads pop up?
3. Google / CJ / Ebay partnership?
Any other thoughts?
Scott
I have also seen the record ads, showing up as both eBay and BizRate, with record-related titles. So far off target its not even funny.
eBay is definitely a CJ link - an affiliate is using their eBay account to earn commission by sending people to eBay with those ads. So it isn't a partnership between Google Adwords and eBay such as their sponsored listings were.
I still am not sure why these are the ads popping for pages that have not been spidered by mediabot yet. I am assuming the few people that mentioned this aren't all in the same niche market. Not to mention the fact they are so off-target. I could see ads that fit the theme of the site appearing before mediabot has arrived - but Record ads for eBay and BizRate? Really odd, in my opinion.
I would assume bizrate and the record thing are both affiliate programmes available through CJ?
Could Google have setup a CJ account (or agreement) to display affiliate links on Adsense?
Even if they displayed them randomly with charity ads before the targetted ads kick in, it would be a tremendous amount of exposure and therefore income.
But then, why would Google sign up to a 3rd part affiliate programme when they could approach ebay directly and probably get a better income? Effectivelty outsourcing a tracking function that the techies at Google could easily handle...
Possible reasons:
1. Ebay / Google marketing agreement dictates that affliate ads would be 3rd party tracked - CJ would be first choice for that.
2. Google are not only displaying affliate ads mixed in with charity stuff - they also display them mixed in with paid ads (not just ebay - targetted stuff that was integrated with Adsense algo to target affiliate links with Adwords ads). None of us would notice as Google say we cant click through.....
Google running affiliate ads mixed in with their own Adwords would offset a lot of the cost involved in Adsense.
And lets face it - if any of us had a site with the exposure Google have, we would probably do the same! ;)
Scott
I know that one AdSense competitor has had a little talk with the Google lawyers to keep the Google techies from probing their site in a less than honorable way (I'll leave it at that). I also know that one of the things being probed was a program that served targeted affiliate links within the same ad block as cpc links.
There have also been some postings on WW about possible uses for Froogle and the fact that affiliates cannot do a data feed to Froogle anymore. There have also been some postings on WW about Google signing up with CJ and one other which I can't remember anymore.
So if you put the probing of competitor technology to do this and Froogle only wanting direct links to merchants (BTW - they also ask you when you do a data feed if you offer an affiliate program....hmmmm) and rumors of joining CJ you end up with exactly what folks are starting to see. It makes sense really. People have been wondering how Google could monetize the Froogle product. Why not throw into AdSense, make some money from affiliate programs and give a small cost per click to the content site.
The only gotcha for them is the fact that they don't own the rights to the technology.
JAG
As an eBay affiliate (though not an active one), I got an email from them today saying, in essence that eBay affiliates are forbidden from purchasing keywords or adwords, etc., that include the term "ebay".
Hopefully that'll soon put an end to all the shotgunned eBay ads we've noticed lately.
Has anyone asked Google what's going on?
In reversing the keywords in the serps these are "substitute" general ads that some times dominate all 4 ad spaces in our leaderboard. Three ads for ebay, with different test in the listings and a bizrate ad. Takes you to ebay main page, not at all related to ad content.
Noticed comment about geo targeting in Canada, and same here. Is this a geotargeting issue?
I have also been getting these Ebay ads on one of my sites. Besides CJ when I right click I see the destination is also Mediaplex and BeFree.
1. Google wants to be a powerhouse and have as many pages views as it can via its search & adsense.
2. Google can approach Ebay, Amazon, Car makers etc any sort of large company with 10's of millions in advertising budget, and say hey look we will display your ads to over 50% of the web in the next 2 days for $20/cpm (yahoo's rates are faaar higher). Google may end up paying publishers $2-5/cpm on average and pocketing the rest. If its not happening now i believe this is the long term goal of adsense.
The pages have been up almost a week now (still not available to the public or linked to from anywhere) - they are showing the ads that they are meant to be showing.
Ie - the same ads that are coming up on the live site that the redesign will soon replace (the content is pretty much the same - the keywords are identical).
So, it would seem that Ebay ads were being displayed during the infancy of the pages' life - either because the page was new or because the Adsense code was new.
I would like to point out that this is certainly a recent development - I uploaded a new site a few months back and it displayed Adsense adverts accurately within minutes.
Added:
I just checked further - some of the pages that I uploaded that dont have any content yet are still displaying Ebay Ads. Only the pages with content are displaying normal Ads.
Scott
