Google Certified Ad Networks - How many are there ?

One account says 30. Another says 18

[Lame_Wolf]

I manage two adsense accounts and whilst looking at the Certified Ad Networks I noticed that one account has 30 advertisers, the other 18.

Any reason why the difference ?

[ken_b]

I block them all. But the number does seem to vary from time to time. Mine was 6to start with, then 2, now 18.

What is the Google Test Network?

Do I really want to know?

[Lame_Wolf]

Oops, me bad. I have double checked and have 18 on both.
Yes, I too also block them.

[purplecape]

I'm blocking them all too, but I'm wondering why. Do you know anything about any of them, or are you blocking them on general principles?

[purplecape]

This is interesting--more information about the ad networks, in Adwords help. Scroll down to the bottom for a collapsible list of approved vendors:

[adwords.google.com...]

[Lame_Wolf]

purplecape, there are two reasons why I block them.
1: Google could not be bothered to tell us what each of them target, so why should I include them?
2: I can see banned adword accounts returning by using one of the vendors.

[purplecape]

Hmm.

1. True, but aren't we just about as ignorant about the ads served by Google, especially if they are contextual (And I believe ad network ads can be contextual).

2. I hope not! You would think that Google would have safeguards in place to prevent this.

[Sally Stitts]

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en_US&answer=94230

Although this link lists 90 Google 3rd Party Vendors, it contains ONLY ONE of the current 21 "Google Certified Ad Networks" - Teracent.

Can someone please explain why this is the case?
What am I missing?

[purplecape]

I noticed that too. From everything the documentation says, the "Google Certified Ad Networks" that are showing up in my Ad Review Center should be among the companies listed on that page.

And they aren't, with maybe one or two exceptions.

Very strange discrepancy and one that I hope ASA addresses.

[Sally Stitts]

I now have 22. Two new ones were added, and one was removed.

Is it alright to list them here? After all, every person with an AdSense account can see them. Or are they "secret" to the outside world?

[ken_b]

27 today

[Sally Stitts]

Yes, I see 27.
Four are new.
One has returned.
Two more have been removed.
Too bad that doesn't add up - I can't keep track.
Some only last a day or two.
Three don't even have a website.

But, yes, 27 now on the list.

[purplecape]

Seems to me that if they are just names, and we can't find any other information about them, that's a red flag right there...

[ken_b]

28 today

[ken_b]

Up to 31 tonight

[dexteronline]

Here is another link from adsense help articles

[google.com...]

It seems that these certified ad networks are currently available to publishers in few selected countries

Keep in mind many of these ad networks such as TradeDoubler do not have CPC ads but have CPA kind of affiliate code where you need an action like a sale, a lead etc

There are people who claim they have seen a rise in earnings from these networks with an ad format of 300x250 which is a standard ad size for new media ads and I kind of believe that

Another issue that third party ad networks help resolve is filling your ad inventory for regions which do not have adwords ads such as ads from certain regions due to the unsupported languages in adsense

All in all, its like Google doing a hostile take over of all ad networks and bringing it under one umbrella

[Sally Stitts]

32 this morning.

[explorador]

me too, 32 on my side since yesterday 5 nov 09

[Sally Stitts]

There are now 60 Certified Ad Networks.
As of Friday Dec. 18, 2009.

Anyone have any luck with these?
Most do not seem to be very "polished".

[Lame_Wolf]

Yesterday there were 58, so 2 more have been added (and blocked) since then.

[Sally Stitts]

Are the results from these companies reported (broken out) in the AdSense reports?
I see this as the biggest issue. We can't see if they are any good, or not.
If we can't measure their performance, why on earth would we want to specify them?
I think that is why most publishers are turning them off.

"Trust me" from ASA does not seem to be working, and I understand why.
Only when they SHOW US the data, will there be acceptance!
Speculation arises - the data is not good. This becomes the inevitable presumption. Many will leap to the conclusion that they are no good, when reported recent overall poor performance is due to entirely different reasons. A "Guilty" verdict, caused by no data.