Humorous Mistargeting

A lighthearted look at the foibles of Adsense.

[ken_b]

OK, many of us occasionally notice ads that are mistargeted, sometimes targeting is so far off it's funny.

I thought we might collect a few examples here for our entertainment.

My contribution for the day....

On a page about a four-door car..... all 4 ads were for doors for houses, etc.

My all time favorite for my classic car site is the ad for hair restoration. :)

[shinyblue]

computer desktop wallpaper - get a lot of ads for actual wallpaper and other "home improvement" type stuff

[Fairla]

I once saw a bunch of ads for ottomans (footstools) on a page about the Ottoman Empire. But that Three Dog Night example is the funniest one I've heard yet!

[darkmage]

Internet Explorer article...
Ads for Ford Explorer.

Maybe it's the fact they both have been involved in lots of crashes with poor stability issues?

[jimh009]

On a page about buffalo (the animal), I'm getting ads for polar bear tours.

[funandgames]

An anti-hunting site had ads about hunting supplies, trips etc...

[ken_b]

On a page about buffalo (the animal), I'm getting ads for polar bear tours.

Geeze, I didn't even know Polar Bears took tours! :)

Seriously, I hope ASA is reading this thread. It's like a little window into the targeting issues many publishers deal with.

[robsynnott]

Hmm, I got an ad for diamonds on a (user-generated) site that mentioned J-Lo (smart Google :) )

And my VERY FIRST adsense ad ever was on a tutorial for setting up Linux on a particular laptop; for a few months it showed an ad for pine kernels....

Also mentioning the word 'currency' anywhere in a site will cause it to be overwhelmed by ads for currency converters; someone seems to be spending a good bit promoting this....

[robsynnott]

Forgot to mention; I also had ads for cardboard cutouts of Barbara Bush for a while. On a technology site. No, I don't understand either.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Seriously, I hope ASA is reading this thread. It's like a little window into the targeting issues many publishers deal with.

I've been quietly following this thread, occasionally laughing at the strange ad targeting that's been reported. All humor aside, please be assured that I've passed this information along to the rest of the team so that they can see firsthand the types of ad mistargeting many of you have been experiencing.

Unfortunately, since you're not allowed to post URLs at WebmasterWorld, it's a bit difficult to further investigate these cases. I urge you to email [e-mail] with exact URLs of the mistargeted ads if you're still seeing these problems.

On that note, a BIG thanks to all of you for threads like this. Your feedback truly is appreciated by the entire team. After all, you are what drives AdSense! :)

ASA

[shrimp]

Page I have on aviation sport of soaring ina plane without a motor, also called a glider, gets mostly ads for old folks front porch 'gliders'---rocking benches that slide back and forth. I even went back and beefed up the aviation terms--didn't help.

[europeforvisitors]

I urge you to email [e-mail] with exact URLs of the mistargeted ads if you're still seeing these problems.

I've tried that, without luck. Each time, the support people have insisted that what I called "mistargeted" ads were on target. Either they weren't able to see the ads that I was seeing, or they thought that--among other examples--"St. Martin Hotels" was an appropriate ad for a page about the monastery in Germany where Martin Luther took his vows.