How to Get Targeted Ads?

Keywords, text, what?

[pab1953]

I have an entertainment content website that's heavy on graphics and light on text. AdSense delivers ads related to the entertainment field but I want ads that relate to the performance or the performer.

I've tried adding comprehensive keywords and more text but these don't change the result.

Any suggestions?

[loanuniverse]

The changes will not be reflected right away in the kind of ads that will be provided. The only way to test if your strategy works is with new pages.

IMHO:

Once the adsense ads are targeted, the particular page will not be revisited or even worse retargeted for a while. I do notice a lot more changes in the ads on my frontpage that gets thousands of views as compared to a really deep page that might get twenty with a couple of them being me :)

I was thinking about this today. I added ten pages to the site yesterday and when I checked the ads before leaving for work they were not as targeted as they could have been. I still think the navigation bar links are unduly influencing the algo.

Edit: BTW, Welcome to WW.

[trillianjedi]

IMHO:

Once the adsense ads are targeted, the particular page will not be revisited or even worse retargeted for a while.

This is also my experience.

TJ

[pab1953]

Thanks, Loan, for your thoughts.

Yes, it is hard to figure what triggers the ads. I just added several (image-intensive) pages yesterday and, to my great pleasure and surprise, AdSense picked up on a performer's name (out of a group of five) and provided a link related to his work. Cool. Not-so-cool is a page where I went to a lot of trouble to provide a mess of text about a performer, yet all the ads there are only industry-targeted -- and the page has been up for a month.

As an aside, I'm giving the latest Opera browser a test run and with the free version they place a single AdSense ad up top. What amazes me is that with every single page change the ad instantly updates to reflect the page content -- even obscure stuff like going to a site for a library in a small Rhode Island town -- up popped an ad for hotels in that town. Or, as I type this reply, up top the ad says, "Earn Cash With AdWords."

[adfree]

There were other threads around here trying to answer this question multiple times. For me it seems to be:

- title
- site theme
- first links found
- first copy found
- overall topic of page

In this order of importance, weight.

[annej]

AdSense does seem to look at the overall theme of your site. It must use the regular crawl info at least at first as the minute I uploaded the AdSense ads they were themed.

I've found that the best way for me to get more targeted ads is to filter out the general ones. What is left seems to be more targeted.

[pab1953]

Anne, how do you "filter out" the general AdSense ads?...

[Elijah]

Just block the url of the ads that you don't want to show.
1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Settings.
3.Click URL filter.

Elijah ;)

[annej]

When I see an ad that looks like one I might not want I click on 'Ads by Google' where I can see the URLs. I copy and paste it into my browser and take a look at the site. If I want to filter out the ad I go to my AsSense reports, click on filter and add that domain to my blocked sites. To block a domain give the URL without the www for example widgets.com not www.widgets.com as the second only blocks the individual page.

You can always add these ads back so just experiment. If you have a topic with limited ads this may not work as you could run out of ads. Mine has a big ad pool so it works for me.

Also you may be limiting what you get paid per click through, but I figure it's more important to have ads my site visitors would actually be interested in as I'd get more clicks overall.

[loanuniverse]

I have to wonder what kind of relevance/pricing gets into the targeting algo. My gut feeling is that the targeting algo for adsense is like the stepchild of the way adwords get targeted {broadmatch}.

The bot comes in and grabs the page. It does his thing and comes up with a dozen terms that your page qualifies for in order of relevancy. Something like:

Red widget - 55% match
Green widget - 21% match
Widget maker - 9% match
.....

Then it just grabs from the pool of adwords advertisers that have opted to keep their ads being shown in content and serves the ads similarly to SERP ads.

The question is: Do ads for widget makers get shown if they have a higher {ppc+serp ctr} combination or do they go for best match?

[pab1953]

My issue isn't that I particularly want to filter out any of the ads appearing -- they at least all relate to my industry, albeit in a general way -- it's that I want to be served ads that relate to the specific content of the page -- not just widgets, but green-blue widgets on one page, red-orange on another, and so on. The confounding thing is that occasionally they are -- buy I've not idea why they aren't all the time or how to induce them to be so more often.

[Jane_Doe]

it's that I want to be served ads that relate to the specific content of the page -- not just widgets, but green-blue widgets on one page, red-orange on another, and so on. The confounding thing is that occasionally they are -- buy I've not idea why they aren't all the time or how to induce them to be so more often.

Yeah, it's a heart breaker to see the blue-green widget ads on the red widgets page and then see the blue-green widget page showing PSAs. I get that every now and then on my sites. Overall Adsense is a pretty good program but it's frustrating not being able to have more control over ad placement sometimes.