Who actually WANTS ringtones ads on their sites?

Besides webmasters with sites about ringtones/phones, of course

[inactivist]

Seriously - who wants or appreciates these ads? I can see that these things have a place, somewhere, just not on any of my sites.

The new AdSense login page says that you can earn money from relevant AdSense ads that your site visitors will appreciate (paraphrasing.)

Yet, when I clear out my competitive ad filter per the timely and oh-so-helpful optimization reports (that I can't seem to dismiss, BTW) my sites are inundated with highly-placed ads for 'Free [keyword] ring tones' ads (where [keyword] is the main topic of my site (having nothing to do with phones, ringtones, or any other topic remotely related to ringtones).

These ads seem to displace truly site-or-page-topic-relevant ads - ads for products that mesh very well with my site's main topic or a particular page of content.

My absolute earnings, eCPM, and CTR drop with the rise in off-topic ads (especially the ringtones spam) - adding the ringtones sites back in to my competitive ad filter brings a corresponding return to relevant (to the site or page topic) ads, previous earnings, eCPM, and CTR levels.

I've received unsolicited feedback from site visitors saying that the off-topic ads trigger 'ad blindness'.

I'm still praying for a negative keyword filter - I never want to see an ad for ringtones on any of my sites, because, none of my sites have anything to do with phones, ringtones, or anything else remotely related...

I'm of the opinion that if my overall site topic is, say, motorcycles, that a straight keyword replacement of 'Free Motorcycle Ringtones' does not really make an ad 'relevant' to my site in any significant way -- and my competitive ad filter experiments and visitor feedback prove it.

My conclusion, after trying to live with the ringtones ads, is that my site visitors do not appreciate these ads, and that they are not relevant to my site content, which is a direct contradiction of Google's AdSense 'marketing' message shown on the new login/signup page.

I suppose I should pay attention to the signal and start building sites about mobile phones and ringtones.... :D

[zett]

Who actually WANTS ringtones ads on their sites?

I've got a few pages with certain mobile widgets, and (seriously) I never considered blocking ringtone ads, because ringtones are a 100% match for my widgets. :-)

(Please note that I am absolutely not MFA, but it turned out that my mobile widgets were just a perfect match for those ads.)

[inactivist]

I've got a few pages with certain mobile widgets, and (seriously) I never considered blocking ringtone ads, because ringtones are a 100% match for my widgets. :-)

More power to you - in my case, I'm running six sites, and even if I had one site or section of a site where such ads are appropriate and pay well, I don't dare expose all my other sites to such ads - thus the weakness in the global competitive ad filter.

[zett]

It's strange that you are experiencing such problems.

For me, the mobile widgets are a sub-section of a site that deals with a completely different overall topic. This section is in fact just an add-on.

However, the Google Adsense targeting got it right after a while - all ringtone ads to the mobile widgets sub-section, and all the other ads to the other sections. I rarely see a cross-over, and when I see it (on the non-mobile pages), it is a good match.

Strange.

[Chapman]

I'm with inactivist on this...

that a straight keyword replacement of 'Free Motorcycle Ringtones' does not really make an ad 'relevant' to my site in any significant way

I have a fine art resource site for famous artists and their paintings.

If I don't filter them... I'll find at least a half dozen ads similar to "Free Picasso Ringtones" and I have no other site where those ads would be relative or the crawler should think they are.

Chapman

[netmeg]

I dunno, maybe it depends on the keywords and targeting? I only have maybe three urls with the word 'ringtone' in them in my filter, but I almost never see those ads across six or seven sites - not even on my music sites. (I *did* get a lot of them last year)

[DXL]

One of my music sites is plagued with ringtone ads, but then again so is a site that has nothing to do with music that still gets "download sitekeyword ringtones now!". Last year I tried adding them to my filter, but the more I added, the more popped up, so I gave in.

I'd rather not have them on my site, but I don't know if that's where a significant portion of my ad revenue comes from or not.

[inactivist]

I should have mentioned that I am using the AdSense ad section targeting throughout all my sites, so the bot should have no real problem determining the subject matter of the site/pages, and in fact, it seems that G knows full well what my site is about, because if I block the ringtones ads, I see what I consider to be reasonable ad targeting for products that are relevant to the site/page content - which seems to indicate that the ringtones advertisers are targeting the keywords that match my site/page topics.

One funny incident - on one site about software development topics, I created a page with a title starting with 'Old Farts ...' and a URL starting with 'old-farts-...' I was rewarded with ads offering fart ringtones - now that just floored me, because I can't imagine what a fart ringtone sounds like, or, why an advertiser would be targeting that keyword. I guess it takes all kinds...

[andrewshim]

One funny incident - on one site about software development topics, I created a page with a title starting with 'Old Farts ...' and a URL starting with 'old-farts-...' I was rewarded with ads offering fart ringtones - now that just floored me, because I can't imagine what a fart ringtone sounds like, or, why an advertiser would be targeting that keyword. I guess it takes all kinds...

you think that's bad? 4 years ago, my first site was named exampleTONES, with tones referring to the "condition/state/quality". I was a naive, newbie then. All was well for 1 year before it was TOTALLY overpowered by ringtone ads. I took adsense off that site.

[inactivist]

4 years ago, my first site was named exampleTONES, with tones referring to the "condition/state/quality". I was a naive, newbie then. All was well for 1 year before it was TOTALLY overpowered by ringtone ads. I took adsense off that site.

Heh - I hear you.

I think that's why some webmasters get 'steamed' over these superficially-on-topic-but-not-really-on-topic ads served up by AdSense - G hasn't given us effective tools to control the ads showing up, so we end up having no recourse but to block ads on entire pages or even an entire site, which can result in reduced inventory for AdSense and loss of revenues opportunity to G.