New from AdSense: Allowed Site Feature

Tell Google Which Sites are Allowed to Use Your AdSense Code

[iwannano1]

First, let me say 'thank you' for adding nice feature that identify the domains that are allowed to display Google ads for my account. A few suggestions:

a) if ad spotted on a different domain an email alert should be sent to adsense login email id. So that further action be taken from my side. This is also useful if I forget to whitelist my own new domain name.

b) Please fix help link url [google.com...]

[joelgreen]

as long as I'm getting paid for them, do I really care

You should care. What if ads using your pub id are displayed on site which does not conform with AdSense TOS? You'd get banned one day. This option allows to list your authorized sites.

[inactivist]

I'm not going to consider using this feature until I can see exactly url by url where my ads are currently triggering impressions BEFORE the feature is enabled to block everything outside my list.

Yeah, I agree (sort of) - it would be very helpful to be able to see the list before enabling the filter. That would allow me to ensure the least disruption to my (and Google's) revenues.

The IP address isn't very useful, either. Why not show the domain names at least?

[walrus]

Its one week between updates so the sites in the not-allowed list that have been allowed in the last week are starting to disappear from the not-allowed list. This should be an interesting week as anyone that tries this feature should see a rise in impressions if it works properly.

[oddsod]

You should care. What if ads using your pub id are displayed on site which does not conform with AdSense TOS? You'd get banned one day. This option allows to list your authorized sites.

In such a situation Google would stop serving ads to the site and not the account. Are you saying that this feature has accompanied a change in TOS where it is compulsory for us to approve/monitor URLs/sites?

This is a feature. It means you can do something, not that you have to do it.

[joelgreen]

In such a situation Google would stop serving ads to the site and not the account.

I believe it depends on how "bad" violation was. So it can be either site ban (minor violation) or account ban (major violation). Pure speculation.

AdSense help says Allowed Sites feature provides more control, it does not state publishers must use this feature. I think this feature would help in resolving "ads on non-authorized non-TOS-compliant site" issue. This is similar to reporting unusual activity on the site, providing extra points for Google to believe you are honest publisher (thus help to reinstate in case of ban).

[subhendu]

I added this feature one week back and now for last three days my eCPM gone down by 50%. Is it a regular / periodic fluctuation or I did something wrong?

The list of sites showing ( unauthorized ) my ads includes one proxy server and all google IPs.

[joelgreen]

I added yahoo.com to allowed sites list. It now lists ip 74.6.146.244 in Unauthorized Sites list. 74.6.146.244 resolves to w1.search.vip.sk1.yahoo.com Why it is so?

[walrus]

I added yahoo.com to allowed sites list. It now lists ip 74.6.146.244 in Unauthorized Sites list. 74.6.146.244 resolves to w1.search.vip.sk1.yahoo.com Why it is so?

Just wondering, did you add Yahoo right away when you began using the feature or after?

[IanCP]

I added this feature one week back and now for last three days my eCPM gone down by 50%. Is it a regular / periodic fluctuation or I did something wrong?

It seems to me, and possibly others as well, that whenever you change "anything" with AdSense your eCPM becomes an immediate casualty.

Mere coincidence? I'm yet to be convinced.

[icedowl]

I'd think that Google ought to automatically include their own IPs. I just had to add another one belonging to Google (209.85.129.104).

[subhendu]

Can there be a breakup to show how many impression from each unauthorized sites? That can through some light on drop in ecpm .

May be some part of revenue was coming from some proxy or from some other sources, which all are not that bad to be filtered. So publisher can take a look at them and case by case can add to safe list.

Thinking on what can go wrong with this idea. ....

[joelgreen]

Just wondering, did you add Yahoo right away when you began using the feature or after?

I added Yahoo and Google after using it (as far as i remember later same day). yahoo.com appeared on the "unauthorized list" few days after i added it to allowed list. They say "it might contain sites you allowed less than a week ago". I think this is the answer to my question.

[walrus]

I think they should update that to say
<it might contain sites you allowed less than 1 weeks ago or maybe longer, we aren't really sure but were workin on it so hang in there.>
because i am still seeing Google in the not allowed list ten days later.

CPM has tanked as well.

[jeffgroovy]

This is similar to reporting unusual activity on the site, providing extra points for Google to believe you are honest publisher (thus help to reinstate in case of ban).

I never thought of that way, but in any case I still want to see the list of sites where my ads have appeared recently before I'll enable it and lose a good chunk of legit income from various cache's and such especially if it can take a week to truly get sites from blocked to allowed status, that seems almost freekishly long. I can see this as being a really good thing for everyone once they get some of the kinks ironed out.

[KenB]

I for one am very happy to see this new feature. The short term hit to eCPM some people are seeing concerns me, but I guess this is a necessary evil for us. Since I don't allow the caching of my pages to begin with, I'm hopeful that my drop won't be too bad.

[Juan_G]

Is this new feature [adsense.blogspot.com], Allowed Sites [google.com], working correctly now? Are those drops in eCPM, etc., anecdotal or frequent?

[walrus]

The drop in impressions is starting to get to me. Still adding new data centres every couple days, again over a week b4 they clear.

[Scurramunga]

In the unauthorised sites section of my account I note that all the ip's listed are Google data centres. This begs the question already posed here; do I allow these ip's on my whitelist so as to display my cached pages - in case I am missing out on potential income from the cached pages?

I haven't read through all the posts within this thread; but has anyone raised the issue regarding allowing Google datacentres (or other searches) on to the whitelist only to have them display the cached pages of (potential) unauthorised sites bearing our code?

In other words would allowing cached pages from search engines to display become a self defeating exercise?

[KenB]

For those concerned about a possible drop in eCPM from this, I personally did not observe any measurable drop in eCPM after I implemented this on my account. It should be noted, however, that for years I have not allowed search engines like Google to cache my pages so outside of the automated translation tools like Google offers there are almost no legitimate AdSense impressions for my publisher ID outside of my own sites. I have picked up on a couple of proxy sites, but I deny most proxy site's access to my pages as I learn of their existence, especially if they are displaying their own ads in relation to my pages or making proxied pages available to SEs.

Personally I love this new feature, it will be another great tool to track down illicit use of my content.

[walrus]

Thought this thread could use a bump.
First couple weeks using the allowed sites feature seemed to have cost me a lot of impressions but somehow it was still almost exactly the same impressions and earnings as sept 2006. What is odd is that i must have had more traffic than last sept, but now that its been a few weeks and all these sites are allowed ,October traffic showing same numbers as last Oct.
All i can conclude is the allowed sites feature seems to work fine and has had little negative impact.

[subhendu]

I will take little more time before concluding but so far it is worst for me. Down by 50%. Can't conclude now pointing a finger to Allowed site feature.

[Juan_G]

Subhendu wrote:

Down by 50%

Perhaps you wrote "www." in the Allowed Sites list, and therefore maybe the non-www URLs are not included? Just one of the possibilities; another is forgotten sites.

To verify this, or unauthorized sites, the following is from AdSense Help [google.com]:

"By visiting your Site Diagnostics page, under the Reports tab, you can see URLs that are using your AdSense code but are not on your Allowed Sites list."

[walrus]

I will take little more time before concluding

So will i now. Don't know what the bleep is going on.

[Juan_G]

Correction: I'm testing this now, and the list of Unauthorized Sites (weekly data, some Google's IPs for now) is appearing at the bottom of the Allowed Sites page, and not of Site Diagnostics.

[biscuit]

I like the idea, but I suspect it may cost me. We know this from the amount we earn even when our site is down (and if you had our old hosting service, you would know this too ...!).

Therefore, if any public-spirited individual has made a list of URLs of things like the Google cache(s) and other suchlike which we should have on the whitelist, perhaps they could do the community a service by letting us know what they are.

Ideally, I'd like to see Google itself at least publishing this list if not allowing these sites by default, but if anyone has a handy list, it would save each of us from reinventing the wheel each time.

[walrus]

I am pretty sure this is allowed within the Adsense TOS
{If it isnt...Mods please delete if you know that it does breach Adsense TOS or WWs }

So far I have this,

my own sites,
a couple proxies and

google.com
google.ca
yahoo.com
yahoo.ca
msn.com
msn.ca
72.14.205.104
66.249.91.104
216.239.59.104
syndication.ask.com
74.6.146.244
64.233.167.104
209.85.165.104
72.30.186.56
inktomi.com
72.14.235.104
209.85.135.104
66.102.9.104
64.233.169.104
209.85.129.104
72.14.253.104
64.233.183.104
64.233.179.104

[walrus]

...and askcache.com

[greatstart]

Is it really worth adding all of those numerical URLs to the list? Will it make that much difference in the earnings?

[Scurramunga]

All i can conclude is the allowed sites feature seems to work fine and has had little negative impact.

I agree.

[walrus]

Is it really worth adding all of those numerical URLs to the list? Will it make that much difference in the earnings?

If its a Google IP , yes.

There will be a difference in earnings if you don't add it.

Turns out to be a great filter for picking up proxy servers.