Geo Targetting of Adsense

[LukeC]

Is the geotargetting of adsense broken - I am in the UK and seeing US ads one minute then UK ads the next

[Jenstar]

If the US advertisers have selected to advertise globally or also to the UK, you will see those US ads. Geotargeting is not only based upon your IP, but also on the regions/countries that each advertiser has selected to advertise to.

[olias]

No this is definitely problems with geotargetting - I have ads where the specific product can only be bought in the US where normally the ads are where you can buy in the UK.

There is no way that the US advertisers want their ads to be visible outside the US.

My guess is that one of the AdSense servers doesn't have a working IP table and is just defaulting to US ads which is why we are seeing intermittant problems.

[Chicken Juggler]

I have complained to Google several times about the fact that they keep putting ads for other states when my site is clearly only going after my state. It is in the domains name, repeated all over the page, H1, H2, page name and ie. state-kw.html. What they are doing is wrong. I would understand if it was ambiguous but it is so obvious. Adsense is broken or they are trying to cheat advertisers. I think it is the latter. They need to fix this. One option would be to have a place where I can include words that should not be in any title on any ad on my page.

[div01]

If there were no ads for "kw state" (imo that's quite possible), would you rather have Google display ads for "kw" or show PSAs or blanks?

[Chicken Juggler]

Yes. As an advertiser I want people to do the same. It is wrong and is underming the system. People are turning that off because it is so bad. It is a good feature if it was done right. Adding the ability to exclude words would make things so much better.

[europeforvisitors]

Adsense is broken or they are trying to cheat advertisers. I think it is the latter.

Better quit the network, then. You don't want to get arrested or sued as a co-conspirator. :-)

[Chicken Juggler]

I guess I could sue myself because I do both.

[LukeC]

there is definitely a geo targetting error i can see it on other UK sites.

Have emailed Adsense will report back.

I hope this is a bug because my CTR has halved.

[Macro]

It does appear that Adsense is having some problems today. You will see geo-targeting issues, lower CTRs, possibly lower earnings/impressions, and Adsense slowing down the loading time of your pages.

In the past they have been quick to resolve such issues. Here's hoping they are still on the ball.

[europeforvisitors]

My CTR and revenues are down by 20-25% today, so I hope it (whatever "it" is) gets fixed soon.

[olias]

The geotargetting issues are of course also leading to more PSAs in some cases, do hope it is all fixed soon as well, otherwise i might have to start digging out some of those old types of banners ads.