Competitive ad filter - flush your browser cache!

[inactivist]

I'm not sure if this has been covered, but I thought I'd mention it here just in case. One of those stupid little 'gotchas' that can increase frustration.

If you update your adsense competitive ad filter to block an advertiser's URL, and you continue to see the blocked ads appearing on your site, even after 24 hours - flush the browser cache!.

I only mention this because I've made the mistake of assuming that the adsense competitive ad filter was broken somehow, then remembered to flush the browser cache and reload the page: poof, blocked advertiser disappears.

Last time I checked, the iframe source for adsense ads is cached by the browser, so this would explain the need to flush the cache to see the latest ads.

[Metaphorically]

Good tip. I ran in to this the other day - I removed an advertiser and saw their ads for a long time after. Do you need to flush the cache or is shift-refresh (shift-F5, reload, whatever) good enough?

[inactivist]

I always thought ctrl-f5 was good enough, but depending on your browser, it may not toss the cached ads, because they are actually not a part of the page you are refreshing via ctrl-f5...! (Remember, it's an IFRAME with content fed from google's server, not the URL that you are reloading via ctrl-f5/reload/etc.)

The only sure way is to blow away the browser cache, in my experience. It's just good hygiene if you see strange results. And I see forum posts saying "added url to filter, still see ads from advertiser" to suspect that this may be biting people in the arse.

[HowYesNo]

this isnt true, i can see some of the f*cking mfa sites a month after i blocked them, i cleared cache every week so this should happened but even today i see some of the blocked ads, btw im not stupid i cheched 100 times url of the blocked site in my account and page of mfa site and they are same, google is messing something ;)

[netchicken1]

howyesno
I know what you mean, (despite the language you use) I made a thread here about it.

If the url has different cases the adfilter doesn't see the difference. For example: old "mysite.com" or new "Mysite.com".

So adfilter says that mysite is the same as Mysite and already existing in the filter.

But the new url Mysite does get past the filter and shows in the adverts.

[Scurramunga]

I wonder if the advertisers' filter is just as ineffective.

[inactivist]

The Illusion of Control?

Sometimes I wonder if the dang filter even works at all. I mentioned flushing the cache just to be sure that cached ads aren't a factor - you may still have problems, but at least you can be sure it's not due to a turd in your browser cache.

[kool002]

Filter is a must for publishers but google knowingly keeping it a weak feature because they simply do not care about publishers.

Some of my ads show up evn after one month of filter.

[joelgreen]

Some of my ads show up evn after one month of filter.

It is working as expected. Search AdSense help center, and you'll find this:

Please note that Google does not commit that all ads for the websites that you add to your competitive ad filter list or ads containing objectionable content will be prevented from display on your site.

[joelgreen]

Maybe they treat filter list as "suggested to be filtered out".

Enough ads for your site - ads from filter list would not be shown.
Not enough ads for your site - all ads shown, disregarding filter list.

just a speculation.

[moTi]

i can see some of the f*cking mfa sites a month after i blocked them

did you check the "adurl" part of the query string? (right click on ad link -> properties -> url)

in some cases, it's different from the actual display url. you have to block by redirect page (adurl) as sometimes advertisers circumvent the filter (deliberately or not) through a redirect.

[edited by: moTi at 6:57 pm (utc) on Mar. 26, 2007]