Trouble with AdSense Preview Tool

[Hobbs]

Amazingly it allows only one click, then the rest of the ads become unclickable! Close it and open it again and you get to one click!

This ugly hack is giving me grief, uninstalled, downloaded and reinstalled with no difference!

[swa66]

Hmm,

I just used it on a borrowed windows PC and it worked just fine, (well as good as it gets anyway).

That machine was upgraded to MSIE 7.

But we desperately need a better tool, preferably something working outside of MSIE, and preferably something showing all ads, linking them directly to reporting them for abuse, and banning on our sites, where we can see all geotargets in one go ...

Just checking one page with the current tool and finding the ads that still sell "dead popes" on ebay, only to check with the tool the ads actually point to some redirect that then points them on to ebay is silly. Google can easily automate a check to make sure the display domain matches close enough to the linked domain and not run the ads otherwise. Worst of all it takes way to long to wade and scroll back and forth through the entire list.

[Hobbs]

I'll settle for an ugly tool if it works!

Then again if ony I can copy urls from it.. hmm
nevermind, now I need to re-install windows to bock MFA?

[FortySomething]

Not sure the tool works that well to be honest. It normally doesn't show ads I can see on the page despite geotargeting set to the UK. It also shows ads that I banned months ago (I know - the goog blurb says it won't, but hey - that's google for you). I really wouldn't trust it to show me ads in other countries.

I tend to use the right click and copy the url to another window then delete the crap to look at the landing page method myself on ads I can see on the site. No point in filling up the filter with ads that might never get shown IMHO.

[joelgreen]

>> Then again if ony I can copy urls from it

Hobbs, I'm not sure if I understood your post correctly. But adsense preview tool allows to copy ad urls. Just set check mark on each ad you dislike, then click on "show selected urls" link at the top and you'll get all urls you selected.

[Hobbs]

You must be kidding me!
It does allow me to copy and paste urls, when did this happen? Where was I?
Cool! Now I don't even need the click to work.
Thanks joelgreen

[UserFriendly]

The worst crime that the Preview Tool commits is showing ads that don't actually match the ones that the AdSense code shows. That's maddening, because it often means the Tool seems useless.

I mostly just use the tool to look for scam sites to add to my filter.

[david_uk]

I really wouldn't do that.

If the ads you see aren't showing in the tool and ads you have never seen are showing instead, does that indicate that there is a point in blocking them? Why clog up the filter with ads that you have never seen, or are ever likely to see? Save your measly 200 allocation for ads that HAVE appeared on your site!

I would suggest that if you are going to block on the basis of guessing what ads might show, type your keywords into google, and block the worst offenders you see on the search pages.