Pulling My Hair Out With AdSense

non-widget ads on a widget page

[pab1953]

This is an old familiar rant but I need to vent because my cardiologist doesn't want me to have a second heart attack.

It concerns getting AdSense to deliver page-specific ads. Today's sorry tale comes from a <snip> site I own. I have a page for the new <blue widgets>. When I happened to check the page today -- I was using the free version of Opera which contains a single Google ad in its "header" -- the Opera ad said <blue widgets ___ > Wow! I thought. That means my page will have the same page-specific ad! Awesome!

Yeah right.

My page contained four freaking ads for <non-widgets> Why? The only reason I can guess is that the page contains a discription of <non-widgets>

How could AdSense pick up on _that_ and miss _this_?:

<meta name="Keywords" content="<snip - variations of blue widgets repeated over and over>">

If I didn't know Google could deliver a page-specific ad, my blood pressure wouldn't be Everest-bound, but there it is, right there on my page -- on Opera!

And on the other 95% of the browser market -- on my page -- <non-widgets>.

Lord, have mercy.

[edited by: Jenstar at 6:46 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2004]
[edit reason] Sorry, no specific keywords are allowed, as per TOS [/edit]

[ncw164x]

Adsense does not use metatags, the ads are from text on the page and with the amount of times you have repeated <keyword in meta> its a good job otherwise you could have had the page taken out of the database for spamming!

16 times is overkill

ncw164x

[edited by: Jenstar at 6:47 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2004]
[edit reason] removed specifics referring to previous post [/edit]

[totter]

Make sure your title and incoming links from your site are descriptive and you should be ok.

[Vespasian]

ncw164x

How do you know adsense does not use metatags? I thought it used the keywords metatag, at least to an extent.

[pab1953]

Didn't know AdSense doesn't use metatags.

If text is the sole trigger, what text (besides the title of the <widget>) should I have on the page to "guide" AdSense into providing ads for the correct text? (The <widget> name is in the page title.)

What, specifically, are "incoming links"?

Thank you.

[edited by: Jenstar at 6:48 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2004]
[edit reason] No specifics please, as per TOS [/edit]

[John_Caius]

The text in the links to a page, so in this link to a popular website [webmasterworld.com], the anchor link text is "this link to a popular website". Having had my generous recommendation in this way, if you check on Google next week for the term "popular website", you are now sure to find WW firmly at number one. I like to think that my personal recommendations are one of the top half-dozen elements of the Google algorithm... ;)

[ncw164x]

>>How do you know adsense does not use <added>keyword</added> metatags?
Because google as a search engine does not take them into account anymore so if google does not use them i am quite confident that adsense does not take them into account

Taken form Google FAQ's
Place ads on pages that predominately contain text -- only text is used to determine a page's context.

ncw164x

[pab1953]

<<Place ads on pages that predominately contain text -- only text is used to determine a page's context.>>

So if pages are graphics-heavy, which mine are, add more text?

[ncw164x]

Yes that's correct, mediabot can only read the text on the web page to serve ad's relevent to what the page is about.

ncw164x

[icedowl]

It seems to me that you could write a lot of text about a graphic. What inspired it to be made, how long ago it was made, how it was made, so on and so forth. There's probably a story behind everything.

[pab1953]

I did an experiment a short while ago with "texting up" my graphics-heavy site, but the results weren't/aren't encouraging. It concerned <green widgets>. In addition to the graphics (and basic text info about the movie) I included 704 words about <green widgets>, thinking that mediabot would gobble that right up and spit out four fine Cruiseian ads. But it didn't and it doesn't. The text has been there for two months and all the ads are lately (still) about <similar widgets> and similar generic fare.

NEWS ALERT! This just in: I have a strong suspicion that mediabot is stealing my keyboard strokes; I mean, reading my posts before I post them. Because, as of this moment (8:33 pm Eastern), one of the four ads on <green widgets> is "Buy <green widgets> Now." Hot damn.

Now why couldn't that have appeared <earlier when> people were more interested in the page?

How often does mediabot visit websites?

[edited by: Jenstar at 1:59 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2004]
[edit reason] Please, no specifics, as per TOS! [/edit]

[saoi_jp]

I like to think that my personal recommendations <snip>

Yes, do a Google search for "click here" and what do you think is number one? It makes a lot of sense.

anyway, re: the appropriacy of google adsense on Opera browser vs. in-page on own page, what I've seen in my (albeit unscientific) explorations of the question is that adsense ads can be influenced by the text "closest" to them on the page. Example, a page with a table comparing widgets may have a footer saying "Webmasters, feel free to use this on your website as long as you attribute the source" and the next thing in the html code is adsense...and on page, the adsense is showing ads for web hosting, not widgets.

However, the Opera adsense is on target.

I assume the Opera adsense works off of the initial first "batch" of html delivered to the browser, which includes the title tags. Just an assumption.

[John_Caius]

Re: msg #6

I'd just like to point out:

[google.com...]

Well it almost worked - Google hasn't calculated its backlinks yet!

:)

[pab1953]

Saoi: The "proximity" question is interesting and worth exploring. Wouldn't it be nice, however, if Google just told us how to "feed" the AdSense algo to make it big and strong so that we can be served with bull's eyes every time?

John: Impressed. :)