What ads are showing to readers in other countries?

I suspect they are seeing very different ads to me

[whats up skip]

We run a few web sites where the target readers are in another country (Japan). Almost always I see our alternative ads on our site, but we are receiving click throughs at a rate that suggests ads are clearly showing in Japan.

How can I trick Google into thinking I am in Japan?

Or is there some other option?

It is not a language issue and I checked the site on one of our Japanese computers.

[Jenstar]

You will need to use a proxy server based in Japan. You need a Japan IP address so that you see ads geotargeted to Japan instead of those targeting your own geolocation.

[eaden]

This is the most obvious reason why we need keyword based blocking of ads.

[whats up skip]

So it is not just me who has found the lack of keyword blocking a major problem.

[Nikke]

eaden and whats up skip,

Care to elaborate? What exactly do you mean?

[Jenstar]

eaden, why is keyword blocking an issue when it comes to geotargeting? If he wants to see ads in another country, it is an IP geolocation issue, nothing to do with a keyword blocking issue.

[whats up skip]

If I could block all the competitors based on keywords, then it would probably remove most if not all the competitors I want to stop. Thus I would not need to see who is advertising. In addition it would block any new competitors entering ads and showing them.

[eaden]

Lets say, I want to stop all ads for furry widgets becasue they compete with my product.

I have to find a proxy in 160+ countries to check that no ads for this product or type of product are showing on my site. There may be small companies in india that are advertising on my site, but are geo-targeting indians, so they will never show up unless I'm in india.

Not only that, but you have to check all your pages. If you have 10,000 pages, in 160 countries, thats 1,600,000 pages to check which is basicly impossible to do every day as new ads are appearing all the time.

I think the problem is pretty obvious.

[Nikke]

Sorry, but I think the solution is even more obvious.
If you don't want competitors ads on your site, why run AdSense on it?

[whats up skip]

We have a relationship with a travel agent site to take hotel bookings, but there are plenty of Google ads for tours and one from the Australian Government about what you can bring into Australia. There are also language schools & agents, English language learning programs, services for watching Japanese tv overseas and I am sure there are many more.

That leaves lots of revenue for us to get from Adwords still.

[eaden]

Sorry, but I think the solution is even more obvious.
If you don't want competitors ads on your site, why run AdSense on it?

To earn money from every other ad except direct competitors.

[Jenstar]

whatsupskip's issue was that he was seeing PSAs, but he knew his audience must be seeing non-PSAs, so he wanted to see what he was seeing. It was nothing to do with competitve ads.

I agree, if you are worried about so many competitors, you shouldn't be using AdSense. If they are competing, that means that your ads would show up due to the content on your own site. Blocking those keywords would effectively limit your ads so you would be showing mostly PSAs.