Slight change to ad code post-maintenance

adds date and channel name

[hunderdown]

Did anyone else notice this? I think it's new since Saturday's maintenance.

After the google_ad_type line, there is a double slash, the date the code was generated, and the name of the channel.

I hadn't seen that in the ad code before.

[AlexPAlex]

Its there in my code also.

[eddy22]

Does it still show the publisher code number?

google_ad_client = "pub-some number here";

[david_uk]

I wonder what the significance of this is - I would expect there is one.

What DID you start Ann? You seem to have got Google even more paranoid now than they were before!

[david_uk]

Actually, giving it some serious thought for a few moments it's information that Google probably has always recorded. The date and channel name in the code may well only be for us to know when we added that ad, and to what channel. The date may not be the date the channel was created, but the date the ad code was generated.

The difficulty for us is the severe paranoia Google have about telling us anything - even stuff as simple as this. Thanks to the paranoia at Googleplex this simple change will no doubt have all of the conspiracy theorists (including me :) ) running off at a tangent for a while. Whereas coming forward with information that clearly has no reason to be held secret would be a positive step.

[trannack]

I agree David. As with every change, routine maintenance, algo change etc, we all seem to suffer a sever state of paranoa for some weeks afterwards. I wish Google would make these changes and then post a summary high-lighting any changes - ie the introduction of a new ad layout, the implementation of the new piece of code to the adverts etc with perhaps a brief outline of what they are and why they are there. Even if they simply state something is to prevent click fraud without going into specifics, at least we would have an idea as to its purpose.

I am sure most of the changes are innocent - but it always makes you wonder. By sending out a simple newsletter, half of these worries that we constantly have would be perhaps slightly alleviated. Poor Ann is no so worried that she has initiated a change because of her well regarded experiment. Where as I am sure you are right in that it is probably there to aid us all in tracking code (?).

[ann]

David_uk,

Ever the optimist. :)

Your first knee jerk reaction is the one I tend to agree with. I guess they figure they don't have to hide it anymore.

With all the changes why WHY don't they give us something useful like a better way to filter unwanted ads!

Ann

[andrewshim]

What DID you start Ann? You seem to have got Google even more paranoid now than they were before!

mebbe... the change means nothing.
mebbe... someone said "let's make them more paranoid and put this bit of info in their scripts...."
mebbe... there's a bet going on in Googleplex on how many posts there would be about this.
mebbe... ann caught them with their pants down (I'd like to think literally!)
mebbe... ann scared the bejeebers out of them!
mebbe... we're just plain paranoid!

[trannack]

Or all of the above!

[hunderdown]

Yes, I don't think that this is anything other than a nice little bit of added functionality. Now, if I'm looking at an ad on a page of my site, and I'm not sure which channel it belongs to, I don't have to consult a list I've made or log on at AdSense to check.

[andrewshim]

Yes, I don't think that this is anything other than a nice little bit of added functionality. Now, if I'm looking at an ad on a page of my site, and I'm not sure which channel it belongs to, I don't have to consult a list I've made or log on at AdSense to check.

nah... that explanation's too easy.
I'd like to go with the conspiracy theory and think that somehow, when the millions of ever fluctuating channels finally hit a magic sequence, it will trigger orbiting satelites to transmit encrypted signals and initiate a worldwide brain-wash of world leaders and they will ban every other form of advertising other than AdWords.

All hail Goooooogle.... all hail Goooooooogle!

[OptiRex]

Did anyone else notice this?

I canna see anything Jimmy!

Am I using an old version of t'internet?

Do I need to upgrade to Ver 1.1?

Is AdSense Ver 1.0 defunct?

Hmmm...all my coding is still the same!

I'm blaming Ann, she started it:-)

[david_uk]

I'm currently doing some experimentation before relaunching adsense. I'm trying a/b testing on a couple of pages, and decided to create two new channels and then generate the same code but with the new date in them.

I did this just before 8am this morning (midnight Googletime), and have been watching the results today. My first click of the day that must have just scraped in before the page upload generated a massive ecpm of over $1,000. One click, one page load - work out the minimum possible epc from the above.

What happened the rest of the day was that the earnings that have been stable for nearly 2 weeeks took an immediate nosedive and have not recovered. I've now put the old code back and deleted the new channels. Hopefully the RandomPricing(tm) bot will now think of a different number than the one it's assigned to the worth of the same page with new channels.

So to go with the conspiracy theory, maybe Ann stumbled across the big secret they didn't want us to find. Now it's out in the open, they have to change the algo's so that any publisher messing around and trying to get the bot to re-assess the site gets punished for doing so?

What else does Ann know that we should know? Does she secretly work for Google? Hmm...........

[ann]

Nope, don't work for google.

If I did I would have been fired for "that" thread....:)

I don't know what's going on but I suspect it is a more enhanced, useful and userfriendly way to get custom channels back on pages that have removed them, just enhancing the interface is probably easier than changing the algo...huuuuum David looks like you fell for it.

I said before, I don't trust all those toys from advertising companies..not even self up dating TBs.

Ann

[LifeinAsia]

Am I using an old version of t'internet?

Off-topic, but 2 weeks ago we had a customer call and say she couldn't find us on Yahoo. I kep telling the person who answered the phone to just tell him he was using an old version of Yahoo and he needed to upgrade.

After all, it was Friday afternoon at 4:55...

[andrewshim]

I suspect it is a more enhanced, useful and userfriendly way to get custom channels back on pages that have removed them

you know, maybe more folks followed ann's thread than we realized and thousands of webbies deleted millions of channels which gave google such a shock they s**t in their pants and said..."heck we gotta make it easier for these guys to keep track of their custom channels!"

[dibbern2]

This code change was not instigated in Saturday's update, but rather, sometime earlier last week. I noticed it in a new channel I created last Wednesday, but it might have been there before that.

[DamonHD]

Ann,

You are the Internet butterfly!

You flapped your wings and a storm blew through the Googleplex! B^>

Rgds

Damon

[ann]

Goodness!

I have been called a lot of things but never a butterfly!
That flapping must have generated Godzilla force wind to do all that much.

Back on subject. I generated a new ad just the other day and it did not have the new code in it. I checked today by generating a new ad and it was still MIA.

It probably only shows if you have the ad set to a custom channel.

Ann

[greedy player]

the comment google added to the code is for our reference to ensure we dont confuse the google channels about, since it's a funny code it's easy to confuse two channel codes without re-generating them again to figure out which is which.

:)Calm down guys.

[david_uk]

I rather like the "Internet Butterfly" idea!

[ann]

Heh, you would! :)

Ann

[andrewshim]

greeeeen with envy again...

many of us are still crawling around like Internet Caterpillars...

[berto]

Many of us use serve dynamic pages with Adsense code generated on the fly that is byte-for-byte identical with the code we might otherwise cut-and-paste from the Adsense ad setup page.

If this new date-created-with-channel-name line becomes mandatory, it will introduce a new layer of management complexity to my CMS operations. Having to keep a database of when ad code and/or channels were added or modified is a complication I'd just as soon do without.

So please, Google, tell us (a) if this new "feature" is really necessary and (b) what's the point?

[hunderdown]

Why should it become mandatory? It's just a little feature that may be useful for some people and not for others.

[berto]

<paranoid>Say I create a new web page with a new channel. Google expects to see that new line in the ad code, because going forward the Adsense ad setup page puts it there. If I serve that new web page without that new line, Google notices it and infers that I have modified the Adsense code (as presented by the Adsense ad setup page, and which we might suppose is to be cut-and-pasted exactly as is into our web pages). We have been warned that modifying the Adsense code in any way (including, presumably, leaving stuff out) is against the TOS. Google then bans me, or applies some other less drastic penalty.</paranoid>

See my concern?

[jomaxx]

Yes I get it, but you're being unreasonably paranoid. As greedy said, it's just a comment and does not in fact change the information Google receives when an ad is triggered. It's just a comment that makes the code a little easier to manage by sight. It's just a comment.

[Scurramunga]

With all the changes why WHY don't they give us something useful like a better way to filter unwanted ads!

Here Here!