Adurl & Display url completely different

Adurl's to redirect sites, what's up

[bumpski]

I'm noticing several ads appearing whose "Adurl=" go to some obvious redirect site. Sites with blank home pages. I've also noted a 50% drop in clicks to Ad Units but clicks to Link Units remain the same.

I thought Google Adwords had a requirement that the domain of the Ad URL match that of the display URL? Not so for several ads I'm seeing on my site(s).

I think someone has found a way to bypass Google's ad accounting completely. Perhaps garnering income for themselves. Probably just editing the Ad after it had been approved in the Adwords system.

I'm going to try blocking the suspicious domains in the "hidden" Ad URL field and see what happens to earnings. Of course unfortunately I can't mention what the domains are.

[bumpski]

A related Adwords post.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Maybe it's not against the Adwords TOS ? But, as this thread mentions, it makes the competitive ad filter useless in every way.

[bumpski]

Sorry about the multiple posts but I'm really surprised by what I'm seeing:

A display URL with an IP address ?

Example:
[000.000.000.000...]

It probably does match the address of the landing page ?

Come on Adwords

I forget. Can I put an IP address in the ad filter? Seems to work.

Adwords guys, from now I'll be blocking any AdURL that does not match the display URL.

Sorry this just blows away any reasonable security. I imagine this is being allowed by Adwords so there will be even a wider source of 3'rd party advertising firms, firms with their own tracking, but my guess is they will skim off earnings somehow and publishers will get the short end. This scheme lets an ad firm or tracking firm completely highjack the advertising if they choose to.

[bumpski]

I've now found and blocked 10 examples of advertisers using redirects, one of which was a "Made for Ads" site where the target page had nothing to do with domain in the display URL. I've reported this nonconforming site to Adwords.

Some of these domains are major advertisers. The problem with this is, although there maybe even more Ad volume, its very likely the earnings/click will be substantially lower through this mechanism. Basically Google now appears to be subletting your ad space.

My CTR had been halved recently only for Ad Units. I realize this is a very short sample interval, BUT, since blocking these redirecting advertisers, CTR and Earnings are back to normal.

Remember you will have to actually look at the AdURL= field in the Adsense code, which is in an IFrame, to see this discrepancy. (Display URL domain not equal to AdURL domain.)

Checking the final landing URL is probably still best done with the Adsense Preview Tool using Internet Explorer. That's how I found the non-conforming site I mentioned above.

[google.com...]

I'd really like to hear more from Google regarding this.

Good Hunting.

[Scurramunga]

I thought Google Adwords had a requirement that the domain of the Ad URL match that of the display URL? Not so for several ads I'm seeing on my site(s).

This practice has been employed for quite some time.

[bumpski]

Yes and of course it explains why the competitive ad filter is just about useless, unless you get into the code and check the AdUrl itself! That will be the only way to block entire classes of ads.

I tried to find other threads discussing this and was surprised to find only the one mentioned in the previous post in Adwords.

If publishers want explanations as to why earnings may be declining very recently, this could well be the reason.

Clearly Google is subletting to other major ad outfits which will probably increase ad volume, but cut earnings per click.
And of course it now makes it even easier to defeat Adwords quality mechanisms.

I think very recently because of this new flexibility some have learned how to completely defeat Google's Adwords security. In my quick little check I found an arbitrage site where of course the landing page had nothing at all to do with the Ad Url. These redirects make achieving this trivial.

Also publisher sites will now be indirectly responsible for some pretty undesirable cookies on your visitors PC's. "I got that cookie just after I visited so and so's site." "Must be a 'bad' site."

[dibbern2]

Thanks for the heads up Bumpski. I'm off to look at a few sites with CTR problems.

[SEOPTI]

This has been going on for years.

All those companies are bypassing the filter with a redirect trick.

[bumpski]

Seopti

How frequently have you seen IP addresses in the display URL? I would think at least this would be a stopper?

I do see this has been an open issue (posts since July 06). This Adsense post seems to touch on the topic and the fact that if you're a big player, you get a pass on the Adwords, somewhat unclear, TOS.
[webmasterworld.com...]

So this makes it trivial for MFA'ing through third party advertising services. Great, like I said, I'm coming up with a block list based on AdUrl redirects and see how earnings do. It will be interesting.

[webmasterworld.com...]
Looking at the thread above it appears publishers have been fooled by the redirects numerous times, simply thinking the filter is broken, when it's likely they didn't know the redirects allow MFA type sites to repeatedly trick security, by starting new campaigns on the third party advertiser's services.

Probably when publishers complained in the past, the Adsense team actually did not fix the filter, they had to manually contact the third party advertiser about the "re-director" to correct the "filter" problem. This explains the inconsistent array of apparent "filters fixed" and "filters broken again" thread posts.

[makes a little sense]

I'm going to try blocking the suspicious domains in the "hidden" Ad URL field and see what happens to earnings. Of course unfortunately I can't mention what the domains are.

----

I have to ask. What is the logic behind not allowing us to show websites which have unethical ads? If we're wrong, they can promptly tell us so. But it's rather "interesting" we can't reference any websites who are shady. All we can do is talk about them in the most vague sense possible, which coincidentally doesn't solve our problem. Now does it.

[SEOPTI]

bumpski, I can't remember but it seems to me Google allows to cheat their Adwords system by domain parking companies with big traffic, with big I mean 1M/month+ uniques.

This is my personal opinion.