PSA triggering words

and much frustration

[annej]

This list of 'problem' words that triggers PSAs is driving me nuts. So far there are words that trigger PSA's on the following widgetmaking topics: crazy widgets, Amish widgets, Iowa's widget makers. It also happened with bereavement widgets but I imagine I have some word like 'funeral' or such in there. Also anything to do with war widgets or 911 widgets is out. My question is just this. Aren't they going a bit overboard?

I can see the problem with certain words that could be triggered by news releases but blocking all these pages about the history of sweet little old lady widgetmakers just stitching away for their families and posterity seems a bit much. ;)

Could someone tell me if I can find the problem word and take it out does that instantly give me normal adsense ads instead of PSAs or does it take a while? It seems like a couple of days ago I was getting immediate responses when I deleted words. Today either it isn't working that way or I'm not guessing the right words. <sigh>

[Jenstar]

You need to wait for the mediabot to pay a repeat visit to the page before it will show targeted, if the issue is stop words.

Google is playing it safe, and would rather have a too-strong filter than one that isn't strong enough.

In the early days of AdSense, some pages with stop words (before they considered them to be stop words) were showing completely unsuitable ads, and these embarassing instances were reported quite widely in the media.

There was an article in the NYTimes [webmasterworld.com] which discussed AdSense ads for luggage on a page about a dismembered body discovered in a suitcase. A member reported seeing an ad for a CD Burner with the title Burn, Baby, Burn [webmasterworld.com] on a news story about a house fire where children died.

So in Google's eyes, they are not going overboard. I am sure they still run into instances of inappropriate ads that got through the stop word filter. And Google has a zero tolerance policy on it - if you have a page on a subject with stopwords that wouldn't have embarassing incidents of inappropriate ads (ie. funerals or life insurance) Google cannot offer any help and will tell the publisher that due to the nature of the content, the page will only show PSAs.

Do take a look on previous threads on the issue - there have been some creative ideas for working around these kinds of issues.

[annej]

I knew about the problems that the news media got all hyped up about and I do understand how advertisers would be concerned. But I'm not real crazy about having PSA ads for curing Ulcerative Colitis or AIDS on a page about sweet little handmad widgets for babies either. And the Amish Widget page is one of my most visited pages and I am at a loss as to how to figure out what word in the text needs to be changed.

Some words I understand why they would trigger PSAs . On a couple I only had to change one word and on others I just accepted that adsense won't work. I really can't see writing about 9/11 without the word tragedy. On yet another article I write about Crazy Widgets and I describe them as 'crazed' which I suspect is the problem word. But it all ties into how people used the word in Victorian times and I hate to rewrite. Choices, choices.

But in some articles I can't imagine what the trigger word is and I suspect it's something I could change easily without changing the meaning of the article. So the real frustration is not being able to find the words I need to change.

I am just adding more text to the baby widget page as it was mostly pictures. But the Amish article is quite long and has plenty of words for Google to find the topic so I think it must be a trigger word or a combination of trigger words.The Amish article is the one I most want to find a way so that it doesn't just get PSAs.

I've been reading through the discussions on this. It sounds like there are no easy answers. Thanks for the help.

[richmondsteve]

annej wrote:

Could someone tell me if I can find the problem word and take it out does that instantly give me normal adsense ads instead of PSAs or does it take a while?

Not instantly. I recommend creating alternate versions of each page, watching for the Mediapartners bot to visit each test page and checking the ads some period of time after the bot visits. Then make appropriate changes to your live page.

Note that there are other reasons a page will show PSA/AAs - lack of supply for matching ads from Adwords advertisers who participate in content partner advertising, not enough content to determine context of page, etc.

[1cicle]

You could try making each paragraph a different page if you are that desperate. It would perhaps narrow things down a bit.

Icicle

[Jenstar]

If you don't like the PSAs, why don't you set up an alternate ad? That way, you could choose what ad you want displayed when it would normally show PSAs.

[annej]

I've made some progress with a couple of pages so the advise here has helped. I just took the ad off and did a lot of rewriting. When I put the ads back on the PSAs were gone but for the one on funeral widgets. I really rewrote that one. We'll see.

I haven't sorted out how to do alternate ads. I've read the material but I guess I'm just dense. Are they permanent or do they just show when PSAs would show otherwise? Actually they really only bugged me on the baby widget page. Sort of a downer for such a happy page. I can live with them on other pages as long as there is hope I can get them to show regular adsense most of the time.

Thanks again everyone.

[richmondsteve]

annej wrote:

I haven't sorted out how to do alternate ads. I've read the material but I guess I'm just dense. Are they permanent or do they just show when PSAs would show otherwise?

If set using the google_alternate_ad_url parameter of the JavaScript code, the target URL will be displayed in the AdSense ad block whenever PSAs would otherwise have been displayed. In other words the alternate ad will only be displayed when there isn't at least one paying ad to be displayed in the ad block.