AdSense Category Filtering Expanded to More Publishers

[chrism]

I've just spotted this on the Ad review centre page - has that been there long, and has anyone used it to good effect?

[swa66]

@Farmboy:

You might not be trying to scam the visitor, you might not even be running a spam operation, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But depending how your ad is worded (and those I've seen that contain the word "free" _all_ fall into that) it _looks_ like a scam.

The look is all that is needed to make _my_ site look like it's promoting scams.

Actually I'd say that removing the word free from your ad copy would most likely yield you less of a loser audience as those who've been around know to avoid "free". There's no such thing as a free lunch ...

[farmboy]

Actually I'd say that removing the word free from your ad copy would most likely yield you less of a loser audience...

I guess it depends on the neighborhood. Dealing with business/industrial sites and visitors, I don't experience but very few losers.

But we're getting off the topic of the thread.

FarmBoy

[Reali_T]

I'm wondering what people are seeing as far as % earnings vs % recent ad impressions for some of the garbage categories. For example, as I would suspect, the "Sexually Suggestive" category gave me a whopping 0.0% percent of recent earnings, but took up 3% of my adspace. This may be a roundabout way of finally getting rid of low/non paying junk adverts.

Though a simple minimum CPC setting would be far more effective for eliminating the irrelevant junk, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

[bgd2006]

The only category I have that isn't close is "Weight Loss". 4.5% of earnings but 6.4% of impressions. I actually make money on "Sexually Suggestive" LOL.

[sonjay]

For me, only one category has a higher % of earnings than % of impressions, and that's "get rich quick," with 1% of earnings and 0.8% of impressions. I shouldn't be getting any of those ads because I have no sites that are about making money or getting rich quick.

All the other categories have lower earnings than impressions. I'd really like to block *all* of them, including get rich quick. I was first excited to see that I finally had the category filter, then disappointed that I couldn't block all of the listed categories.

Why the arbitrary limit of 5? I have no sites that have anything to do with any of those topics, and I don't want *any* of those types of ads. The % recent earnings and % recent impressions show that all of them (other than get rich quick) return lower earnings as a percent of impressions, so obviously they're not a good fit and aren't good for either me or Google.

[tangor]

It is possible that Google is not yet ready to expand number of categories possible until testing shows how many MAX blocks at the present level. It is, after all, a numbers game with income attached.

[Lame_Wolf]

Thanks. I appreciate all the positive posts, and so will the team that's worked so hard to build and release this feature.

I do hope you will discuss the negative points to the team that worked so hard... but not hard enough.

I receive lots of positive emails about my site, and although they are nice to receive, they are not as important as the extremely rare negative remarks. Those ones are the ones I listen to the most.

[farmboy]

It is possible that Google is not yet ready to expand number of categories possible until testing shows how many MAX blocks at the present level.

I suppose that's possible.

Allowing publishers to block some of the categories entirely is an admission of something.

It's also possible they have a large inventory of ads from those categories and need somewhere to show those ads, so they can't allow any publisher that wants to just block all those categories.

And then you have to consider that Google already has lots of information on what type ads are not wanted just by viewing the ads that are in publishers' competitive ad filters. Unless they believe publishers actually place only competitor sites in the filter.

Who knows? It's interesting to watch.

FarmBoy

[loner]

Allowing publishers to block some of the categories entirely is an admission of something.

It's also possible they have a large inventory of ads from those categories and need somewhere to show those ads, so they can't allow any publisher that wants to just block all those categories.

It's an admission that AS has no regard for their publishers and will shovel whatever garbage they want on them. Possibly these advertisers should pay more per click? That would get a couple categories off my hex list.

Thanks for another tastless cookie AS.

-

[JS_Harris]

I've blocked placement targeted ads from appearing on my sites but they still appear.

I've declined specific advertisers completely, but they still appear.

I've specified the font style/size, yet it still fluctuates incessantly.

I've been told I have control over my ads, yet different people see my site differently and I can't stop that.

Blocking five categories SOUNDS great but until people rave about it I have to pass, besides, I own two unrelated sites and I can't block categories for one without impacting the other. I see this option as improvement but I also see that past options aren't where they could(should?) be, yet, so I can't jump aboard(yet).

[piatkow]

it'd be nice if we could choose which categories we do want to show for our site, and to emphasize keywords.

The challenge here is that when an advertiser uses keywords or categories to target your site, they want to reach the most relevant sites in our network through our advanced system of contextual targeting. Publishers choosing keywords might help some people in the short term, but in the long run, it's very important that we honor advertisers' intent when they run on our network. Does that make sense?

This is a difficult area. I know that as a niche publisher I get a lot of off topic ads based on words that are effectively qualifiers of the main topic. If the topic is "Niche Widget clubs in Elbonia" I get a lot of Elbonia based ads for anything from night clubs to Elbonian dentists. When I am getting that sort of inventory I do not see clicks. My visitors are interested in niche widgets, they are interested in travelling to niche widget oriented events elsewhere, buying niche widget related products and at a secondary level in more general widget topics or other widget related niche topics. I know that they are not visiting my site with a generic interest in clubs or Elbonia.

I would just like to be able to be able to emphasise what my site is about for Adsense without making a nonsense of the content.

[incrediBILL]

We ask for negative keyword filters and this useless placebo feature is what we get?

[vordmeister]

Looks like a survey to me. They bung a list of ads up that few webmasters outside those fields would like, then ask us to choose only 5.

I'm not much of a fan of the targeted ads either. Very few of them seem relevant to me, but it would be a fair old job to police them all.

Plenty of ad space out there, so presumably Google makes more money showing all the ads they have. At least an information gathering exercise is a start.

[ken_b]

>> Looks like a survey to me. <<

Hmmm, interesting perspective. Seems like it could hold water.

[icedowl]

One category that I would've wanted to block turns out to be the source of a good percentage of recent revenue, if I can believe the chart that has been presented. That really surprised me a whole lot. Who knew?

Anyway, if I had my druthers, I'd be blocking the whole list.