Why do you block URL's?

...and why I block them

[icedowl]

I try to check out the URL's indicated in the ads that get shown on my websites by typing into the google toolbar what I see when I hover my mouse over the ad.

Here's why I block a URL:
1. Site under construction
2. Site doesn't exist (404 error)
3. Numerous spelling errors (far more than simple typo's)
4. Content consists of nothing but banner ads
5. Site looks like it was someone's first try at HTML
6. Content is totally unrelated to my website's content
7. Site has pop-ups, pop-unders, etc.

That's just for a start. I'm sure I've found some with other reasons, but they're not at the top of my mind at this moment. I'm heading off to my real job now and hope to read some other reasons why to block a URL later tonight.

Have a great day/evening everyone!

[anallawalla]

That's a great list. Wish I had the time to do that, but the ones I blocked were in a foreign language. Haven't seen that for a while but we were getting Dutch and German ads for a while.

[pcgamez]

I block all that:
-Are completely unrelated
-Have poorly worded ads
-Have poorly designed sites

The ads I display reflect on me, and I therefore choose what I will and will not display.

[jonathanleger]

I block the myriads of ads that pay more per click but only match 1 keyword of the 3 keyword phrase of my site. Needless to say, my list has grown pretty large... 50 or so URLs. It's worked to keep ads relevent to my site, but I'd rather have Google be better at figuring out the page content, especially since they have no problem in getting me into the search engine results for my keyphrase.

[danny]

There's no way I could ever check a fraction of the ads that appear on my sites! There must be at least a thousand different ads running at any one time.

So I only block a few things - some ebay/bizrate ads, following another thread here, and some creationist ones.

[pcgamez]

I suppose it depends on the number of different ads you see. My site pulls in everything in the book category. Unfortunately, that is only about 40 different ads, and I have about 20 of those blocked. I'm actually wishing I could select ads from other categories, such as techie gadgets as a significant portion of my visitors are interested in gadgets and such.

[annej]

My readers want widget making supplies not widgets so block the ones just selling widgets. I also block the ones that are really general, selling non widget stuff but widgets are in there somewhere if you looked hard enough.

[Powdork]

by typing into the google toolbar what I see when I hover my mouse over the ad.

You can also click on the 'Ads by Google' link and get a list of the url's as well as a chance to tell Google what you think about who you're linking to.

added-I block ORBITZ

[jino]

I also filter out generic sites like ebay and also scumware sites like smileycentral. They download scumware onto the user's PC and you cannot uninstall it.

[Sunflux]

Since April 1st and for the first time in 6 months, I just finished entering a whole load of domains that are showing up everywhere on my site but are completely unrelated and likely reducing my CTR.

My concern is that they will simply be replaced with *other* non-related ads and this will be a never-ending process.

So far I have not blocked the ebay or shopping comparison sites.

[rravenn]

I am getting a lot of ads for directory sites. They seem to be some sort of affiliate site for overture.

Has anyone else got these or even know what they are. I looked on the overture site but cannot find any info on them?

RN

[icedowl]

You can also click on the 'Ads by Google' link and get a list of the url's as well as a chance to tell Google what you think about who you're linking to.

Yes, I knew that. Thanks for the reminder. :)

[Marcia]

I will have to block some that are "too" targeted. The pages they're on are specific for type of market and products, but not as narrowly specific as 3 out of 4 ads that are running, so I figure it's hurting CTR on those pages and actually detracting from the relevancy and usefulness of the pages for surfers.

[Sunflux]

AGHHHHH! I blocked a bunch of mistargeted ads, and now I get a completely new set of mistargeted ads on the exact same irreverant subject matter. The majority of the ads seems clustered - groups of "good" and "bad", so it seems like the system can tell the difference, but only since April has it been displaying this particular subject. Very distressing.

[yulia]

This is from Google's FAQ's:

"Do my users see the same ads that I see?
The AdSense program uses geotargeting to serve AdWords ads to your pages - ads are specific to a user's region and language, based on their IP address. This means that the ads that are served to a user from Australia may be different than those that appear for a user from Canada."

I do not block URL's because I do not know what ads other visitors see.

[rravenn]

Good point yulia.
However, if you install a tracker on your adsense you will be able to see what page is getting the clicks, what time it happened and what ad was clicked. Thus you can look at that website and ask the important quesiton...... Is it relative?

[pcgamez]

That assumes you want it relative. In some cases it is better to have more unrelated ads.

[rravenn]

Again, also true. But, if your visitor is looking for the best deal and you are the best deal, he wants to find that out for himself. I know that they will look elsewhere before coming back to me.... this way I get a little bonus for doing so.

[ownerrim]

I'm getting a ton of irrelevant ads myself. Used the url filter for the first time about 16 hours ago and it doesn't seem to have worked. How long does it take the filter to kick in? Was wondering if I did it wrong, although it seemed simple: type in the www.*******.com for the url to be blocked, space down to the next line and type in the next. Am I missing something? Click throughs for me is lower, though epc is up somewhat. Overall, making less due to irrelevant ads

[annej]

I've found it works best to filter widgets.com rather than www.widgets.com. In a letter from adsense I was told that if I leave off the www it will block the whole domain and not just the individual page. It seems to be working pretty well. It does take a while for the block to take place but 16 hours seems rather long.

[icedowl]

I've found it works best to filter widgets.com rather than www.widgets.com

I'd thought that would work too, but I found one today that I'd filtered as "widgets.com" get through as "www.widgets.com". I now have that particular one blocked both ways.

[ownerrim]

Well, a number of hours later and these ads are still appearing. I even went in and listed them again, this time leaving off the www. part of the url.
Hate to be redundant, but is this the correct format on the "ban url form"---

www.widgetA.com
www.widgetB.com
www.widgetC.com

or, should it have looked this way:

www.widgetA.com,www.widgetB.com,www.widgetC.com

[SeanW]

One of my sites is computer certification related, and if I see ads dealing with braindumps of other unethical ways of passing, I block them so I'm not thought of as being associated. Even though my audience is technical, they don't realize that "ads by google" means I didn't pick them ;)

Sean

[yulia]

I invite everyone to start from the beginning of this topic: "Why do you block URL's?"

Really, why do we have to guard our websites from poor quality ads? Google should block these URL's at the source. URL filtering tool is good to block competitor's ads.
Publishers have no effective tool to police poor quality ads.

[ownerrim]

Yulia, I agree: Google should handle this better. If their vaunted algorithmns are good enough to determine whether or not an adsense ad on a particular publisher's page will result in a higher or lower payout per click, then they should likewise be able to serve relevant ads. In answer to the question, I am blocking urls (see my earlier posts on the subject---I am only "attempting" to block urls" because a whole 'nother day later, these same ads keep showing up) because so many ads lately have nothing to do with my content.

[yump]

There's a limit of 200 urls. So far we've used up approx. 20 on 404 not founds, 40 on shopping directory rubbish, 50 on irrelevance caused by poor keyword selection on the part of the advertiser, 20 on spammy, irrelevant stuff from the far east and 10 on competitors.

We estimate we could block at least 70% of these by blocking keywords instead of url's. That would also protect us against the one's we never see.

Unfortunately, being a car related site, we have the word 'parts' appear a lot. This triggers photocopier parts, engineering parts, tractor parts etc. etc.

Here's hoping something will eventually emerge better than the url blocking facility.

Perhaps the problem would be that blocking url's is an easy, quick process for the ad. delivery system, whereas doing a keyword check might slow ad. delivery a lot?

[Powdork]

It would be cool if we could block them separately by channel.