AdSense ad serving is down - seeing PSA's Everywhere

All AdSense sites running PSAs only

[wonderbread]

Right now I'm seeing PSA's on every Adsense sites I visit. I'm also not seeing any ads on the Google search site. Can anyone else confirm?

Nick Ladd

[edited by: wonderbread at 5:49 pm (utc) on April 23, 2004]

[RoySpencer]

I think I know whats going on....it's the 1st Annual Googlethon to raise $$ for charities.

[mrfragger]

yep no ads on google.com. Great obvervation...talk about a quiet period before the IPO.

[MarkHutch]

I wonder if Google could leave the PSA in the same color boxes and just put text in the corner saying it's a PSA. I can't believe google has such poor looking PSA banners. I could make a better banner than that without paint brush or photoshop. :) Looks like something I made when I very first begain creating web pages about eight years ago. Sorry, Google. Didn't mean to pick on you.

[wonderbread]

It seems that the new PSAs may be counter productive for the non-profits they are trying to help. Before they blended in perfectly with the normal ads but now they look blantly 'ad like'. I'm guessing that they will have lower click through rates than before. In addition, no matter the size of the ad, only one non-profit is shown, meaning less exposure for each non-profit overall. Makes me wonder if Google really cares about the "help" they are providing.

[sandor]

they should change back to the old format of PSAs. these are really hideous, especially for sites with a dark background, and especially for the larger sized ad formats

[MarkHutch]

We're back in business, here.

>>well we were for a few mintues and then back to PSA's.

[edited by: MarkHutch at 6:32 pm (utc) on April 23, 2004]

[martinibuster]

Eeew. This is sucking real bad in San Francisco.

[markus007]

Looks like this is an actual crash and not something planed, according to google

[ken_b]

This doen't look good.
Pages that have always displayed targeted ads are suddenly showing these PSAs.

Oddly some pages still show the targeted ads while very similar pages that previously showed the same ads are now showing PSAs.

[viggen]

everything seems normal in central europe (adwords and adsense are as usual served)

cheers
viggen

[Jenstar]

I am now seeing all AdSense, but still no Adwords in the serps.

Adwords Advisor commented in this thread: [webmasterworld.com]

Yep, there is an issue affecting (as you have seen) a limited number of users.
Engineers were on the case in less than a minute, and are hard at work - as one may well imagine!

I'll post with updates as I have more.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

AWA

[MarkHutch]

This might just be a USA problem. I'm sure they are working on it. No telling how much money they are losing every minute it's down.

[icedowl]

Nothing in northern Nevada. :(

[trueMarketing]

Message just received from Google in regards to many ads on our sites being PSA's. So it seems this was definitely not planned...

<paraphrase email from Google>
Thank you for bringint it to our attention, we are working as quickly as possible to investigate. We will email when we have more information for you
</paraphrase>

[edited by: Jenstar at 6:47 pm (utc) on April 23, 2004]
[edit reason] Paraphrased email quote [/edit]

[wonderbread]

limited number of users

Seems pretty broad reaching to me...even Google's main search site.

[conroy]

No telling how much money they are losing every minute it's down.

Indeed. That is the thing that reassures me that it will be back up as fast as possible.

[wonderbread]

I'm bad to normal (for now).

I'm back down again.

[edited by: wonderbread at 6:44 pm (utc) on April 23, 2004]

[ken_b]

Time to work on those alternative ad pages.

[martinibuster]

Oh Shoot, it's true!

AdWords is down in the regular Google SERPS!

[MarkHutch]

Just did a few simple one word searches on Google and got NO advertisments at all. Kind of looks like search engines use to look. Anyone remember those days? :)

This is a real bonanza for the SEO people that have good regular listings. No ad competition right now!

[martinibuster]

This is a real bonanza for the SEO people that have good regular listings.

You said it! I'm number 1 and 2 for my best keyword phrases and I'm looking forward to having a great Friday.

Thank you Google!

[itisgene]

I lost # 2-4 spots just two days ago due to domain changes... I wish this happened a few days ago...

Wait a minute. If I do not have adsense, I cannot monetize the traffic. Then it doesn't matter if Google sends millions of visitors to my sites...

Well, I won't have to check the stats frequently today, then...

[Undead Hunter]

Oy!

I'm down, too. This is hurting, too, because yesterday was our biggest day ever, almost 3x the average monthly amount.

Frustrating, because on the same keywords in the Google itself, the ads are up and runnning.

Good to hear its not just me, not something I randomly did wrong and was penalized for it...
Hunter

[itisgene]

as of now 2:00pm CST in the USA, some ads are showing up targetted...
I don't know how long it will last.

[MarkHutch]

Ads are back on Google.com from here. Still PSA's on our sites.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Just to confirm what AWA stated earlier, there are issues that are preventing us from serving targeted ads to some pages. If I receive more information before this is resolved (and they're definitely working hard on it right now) I'll be sure to pass it on.

Thanks for your patience.

ASA.

[dazzlindonna]

got a lovely image in my head of a bunch of techies running around the plex on what would normally be a laid-back friday afternoon - feverish brow, panic-stricken eyes darting swiftly back and forth...(who tripped over the cord?)

despite my worry about losing money, the image in my head gives me a chuckle. (btw, been there, done that myself a few times - so i'm not picking on them unfairly).

[photonstudios]

Seeing psa's on my site, but I get real ads on refresh sometimes....Another google's fool joke. :(

[freedata]

I see 90% PSAs and 10% regular ads on my all (three) chanels. Glad to have this forum and know its not just me.

[paybacksa]

The peace of mind received by hitting www and seeing these threads and knowing we are not alone.... ahh, thank you Brette!