Forum Moderators: martinibuster
On my list:
Anything ringtone
There is nothing about my sites related to celebrities or music, but sometimes I see irrelevant ads about this topic. Totally off topic and has no place.
Sites promising free stuff
These pages consist of a sign up page where my site users are obliged to submit their personal info. I was clearing up my filter and I just could not bring myself to expose my site visitors to these sites. There was no authority to the tutorials and handbooks these sites were offering.
Weird off topic ads
I'm seeing less of these now than in years past. But these are the ones that made it into my filter. Maybe Google has gotten better at identifying the relevance.
I haven't dropped anything into my filter in maybe a year and a half. The ads I see are pretty decent. But I'm wondering what publishers feel are the hallmarks of an advertiser that is made for the AdSense filter?
Anything MFA
- Landing page contains nothing but ads (be it from Adsense or other programs)
- Landing page contains very little unique content
Anything deceptive
- Landing page disables by opening new window in full size mode
- Get rich quick schemes
- E-Mail harvesters
- Ad copy promises content that the landing page does not keep
- Software that plugs itself into the system like a virus
I'd say that 90% of the blocked sites are MFAs, and the remaining 10% is deceptive.
Then again, I have NO problems with:
- Anything ringtone (if not deceptive)
- Sites promising free stuff (if unique content is presented)
Other than that, a lot of what's already been mentioned--email harvesters, free gift sites, directories of ads.
But it's the con artists that really have to go!
Advertiser paying money to advertise to be able to give stuff away for free ? There simply *has* to be a catch.
A catch? sometimes the catch is that they are not giving anything away at all, especially if one arrives at a page loaded with nothing but ads.
In some cases the freebe might require the user to submit their personal details - this is enough to make anyone's alarm bells ring.
In the bin they GO!
...since Ad Review went live for me I've been stunned by some of the placement targeted ads coming down the pipe.
Especially the off topic stuff that uses images that border on adult.
Sites that require an email address or other info before you start get blocked quickly.
I don't block by ad campaign. I block all ads from that advertiser and let it go at that. It's all or nothing at this point. Time will tell how it goes.
I normally run text and image ads, but when I start seeing too many of the flash ads, like HR Block during tax season, I switch back to text only for the duration.
There are a couple of companies that I will never again deal with, for example I had a membership in a gym chain that was impossible to cancel when I moved, that have advertised on some of my pages. Those get the boot, just so I can have some feeling of revenge.
PETA also targets pages that have meat recipes on them (such as 80% of the recipes on my personal blog) and I've been tempted to block them, but I enjoy the irony of making money off PETA for eating meat.
Honestly, I just don't care enough to spend time with the filter. If the AdSense ads are too bad on a given site, I'd probably just load it up with appropriate Amazon affiliate ads. The reason I use AdSense is because it's easy. If it starts becoming work, I'll switch to something that gives me LOTS of control, not just a little filter.
That's weird. Not even the demographics for your site? Seniors are heavy drug users, are your site visitors by any chance seniors?
Since I have a also a political page discussiong also unemployment, it's very bad when on this pages appear MLM ads.
I have maybe 100 URLs in the filter, all with the same yacht, villa and luxury car on the start page.
That's weird. Not even the demographics for your site? Seniors are heavy drug users, are your site visitors by any chance seniors?
No, my traffic crosses all demographics. I can't imagine why my site's been chosen, but ads for newly popular drugs (I see the television commercials for them all the time) have hit my web site three or four times now.
I'm glad I'm not getting those, lol. I've received ads for cable channels but I was cool with them because it was something I'd actually watch.
Take a generic sounding domain name, like www.elbonia-nationalparks.info and an ad copy that promises etailed information, then throw the visitor at a landing page that contains one or two small pictures of Elbonian national parks, and a bunch of links to individual national parks of Elbonia to the left and the right of the pictures.
Certainly not the most beautiful layout the world has ever seen, but definitely above average for an informational site (I think).
Except, the links lead to parked pages. Nothing but parked pages. Disgusting.
And into to the filter you go you little bug. :-)
- My own sites (why pay for that when I can link)
- My client's sites (avoiding all conflict of interest)
- Competitors for my day job
- Big giant auction and portal sites over-using DKI
- Dating sites - I know they pay, but my primary site is supposed to be very family friendly, and some of the ads aren't.
- Sites advertising events completely outside my area
Right now that adds up to about 20 listings in my filter. My EPC has never been higher, and I'm just not seeing the garbage ads. Of course, I also reduced to one ad unit and one link unit per page, and I'm sure that helps too - more competition for fewer spots.
What Qualifies an Advertiser for the Filter?
Nothing anymore, filter full, AdSense ignores plight of publishers...
[edited by: SEOPTI at 6:30 pm (utc) on May 2, 2008]
I used to block competitive ads. For my niche, they are almost all competitive. I used to block ringtones and what I felt were totally unrelated ads. Now, I have come to the conclusion that my visitors are idiots and will click on anything that looks like they might get free candy. I've cleared my filters (with the exception of <snip>) and let the big busy world have at it. My income is up and I have time to do the things I'm interested in. Thpthpthpthp !/.
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:21 pm (utc) on May 3, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed specifics. [/edit]
During low season - competitors. In high season I let them back in because I'm usually full anyway.
MFA sites.
Unfortunately my filter has been full for years. If I find a particularly odious site I have to delete one of the old ones first to block the new one.
Ww NEED MORE ROOM in the filter!
Is there somewhere a note from Google if adding sites to the filter helps getting a better EPC?
To my understanding, adding sites to the filter serves only to control a small numbers of the ads that you've seen in your country from reappearing when you are browsing your own site. You block some of your visitors from seeing them too.
