Google needs to tone down location targetting

[londrum]

I'm assuming that most advertisers want to target the customers in their own locality, so they might pick a word like "New York".

But in my experience, if you are unluckily enough to have a page or a site that discusses "New York" (like a travel site) you are then lumbered with ads from all these people.

It doesn't matter if they are plumbers, electricians, funeral directors, wedding singers, mime artists, dog walkers or whatever... as long as they have chosen that phrase "New York" google will assume that your page is somehow related and stick you with the ad.

But they couldn't be more unrelated! Tourists coming to New York are unlikely to want to hire a plumber. And those people that already live in New York and might actually want a plumber are unlikely to be on your site booking a holiday in the same place where they live.

but what can you do in a situation like that? You cannot downgrade the phrase "New York" on your pages, because that's the phrase that you are trying to target.

It's been getting worse these last few weeks. The ads on my site are crazy -- i've got stuff like businesses offering school scholarships, on a page that sells train tickets. But presumably google sees nothing wrong with that, because they're both aimed at new york.

Google needs to turn down the dial that deals with place names and locations, and up the one that deals with the actual subject matter.

[Broadway]

I've had problems with city-targeted pages, but maybe differently from you.

I usually see on-target local ads, it's just that the advertising pool is too small. I can't get enough directly on-target locality ads that show to make the effort of creating these city pages as profitable for me as I had hoped.

The other problem I find is ranking well in the SERP's. Google does that thing where they show a local map and list local businesses and then plot them on the map.

Even if you rank well, you're still below the map and pretty much below-the-fold.

I had great hopes for this city directory type thing, it just really didn't pan out for me.

[tim222]

It's possible that the ads are geo-targeted to the visitor rather than the content. Maybe the NYC plumber ads appear most often when the website visitor is located nearby.

Even if the ads are site-targeted, in the case of your specific example there may be a good reason for it. Locals are as likely to visit a travel site as anyone else looking for something interesting to do in the area. Advertisers who know that would be smart to target those sites since locals might be interested in the service, while non-locals will probably ignore them.

[netmeg]

I think it's both (visitor and content) See now, I for one usually benefit from this kind of targeted traffic.

As a test, I went and looked up three sites about New York in Google organics (I'm in Michigan) and all of them either showed me travel related ads for New York, or ads targeted to Michigan. YMMV.

[arieng]

Another possibility is that small local advertisers (with small ad budgets) are hand-picking sites to show their ads on. With limited funds, they are looking for sites that are devoted to their geographic region.

[londrum]

maybe they're choosing to put their ads on these sites BECAUSE they don't expect to get any clicks.
that way they get the benefit of sticking their name in front of thousands of people coming to new york or living in new york without having to pay out any money.

it's a bit like like putting up a poster next to a busy train track. millions of people will go past and 99% of them won't care, but you'll likely get a few sales out of it. the fact that nobody clicks is a bonus if you don't have any money.