Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I searched the source of the page and found not a single mention of the word test, nor anything similar!
Then, it dawned on me. The URL I was using was index_test.php. Is this a known thing for Google to do? Can I optimize my URLs somehow to gain better ads that are more relevant?
I've noticed this type of thing particularly on my local development machine. I usually set up virtual sites on my dev box using a .local extension (as in, example.local). It doesn't matter what the page is about it, I always get ads for unions during development -- as in, "Workers Local #34." I figure that since the site isn't open for Gbot to crawl, all it has to go on is the URL for selecting ads.
As soon I upload the page to the real server, then real ads start showing.
I have a dev folder and I copy all live files over to the dev folder. I was testing 2 index versions for the new site version launching soon, to see which looked better, and I picked up on the ads showing test related material on the index_test.php vs index.php. Otherwise, the two pages were identical except for the colors of the ads that were being shown.
Should I, perhaps, redirect all traffic to index.php to another file called keyword.php to try to get more relevant ads?
I have a handful of pages that always seem to get irrelevant ads.
I've tried renaming the file to keyword.html, I've tried section targeting. I've tried editing the text to remove/replace all instances of the words that appear to be triggering the irrelevant ads. In my experience, nothing has helped those pages get more relevant ads. It seems that G's algo either "gets it" or it doesn't.
You may want to experiment for yourself and see if you get better results. But if I were you I'd be very very careful about redirecting any pages that already rank well in organic search for their targeted keywords.
Also, keep in mind, over time the ad targeting tends to get better. If you just leave things alone, you'll probably start seeing better ads before long anyway.
What else would google use to determine what kind of ads to put on your page before the 'bot comes around to scan your page?
all of the below:
cookies on the machine
browsing history the machine
domain theme
adsense account information
other stuff...
What else.. before the 'bot comes
Domain history, name & general topic if there is one
Anchor text in links from other sites
Then after the bot visits:
The exact same or a subset of the algo used to match the search engine visitor query with your page's topic (of which file name is one factor). The famous Google secret sauce'.
Before it visits the page it has only:
I've done experiments that prove that in the absence of other good information (as for a new domain, or a new page on an existing site) G pulls keywords out of the referring page URL and weights them heavily. The evidence was quite clear, and it's easy to test.
Of course, once the 'bot comes by to scan the page content (hours later) thing change.. but there's no better way to 'prime the pump' in many cases.
