AdSense: Ad Review Center has gone mad!

Influx of unrelated advertisers targeting my website

[JCKline]

I decided to post this now that it's been four days and nothing has changed. When I check my ad reveiew center for targeted ads, I'm getting 12 or more new advertisers UNRELATED to my website (teeth whitening, spa treatments, etc.), each day. I'm spending a lot of time checking and blocking these ads from showing. Is anyone else seeing this since Nov. 1, or is it my issue?

[levo]

Yep, just cleaned them.

[ken_b]

Yes, and yesterday I posted about another problem in Ad Review also.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[farmboy]

Just curious - did any of you who are experiencing this recently enable image ads?


FarmBoy

[JCKline]

@farmboy, about 50% of my ads are text only, and the other half are both...and it's been this way since August. Infact, most of the these unrelated targeted ads are text only.

[ken_b]

... recently enable image ads?

Nope, image ads have been turned on as a long term deal for me. I do occasionaly turn them off on some channels, but been "all on" for a long time.

[zerillos]

same thing here. it's not related to image or image/text ads...
their just a bunch of unrelated placement ads
some of them lead to 404 pages

[radix]

Two placement targeted ads disallowed by me today:
"See the date of your death"
"Why work? Death is expecting you"

Advertiser's domain is listed on some hacking and malware pages...

Thank you, Goog.

[ken_b]

Even though, "weight loss" is blocked in my category filter, I'm still seeing new ads show up in the Ad Review list.

Naturally they get blocked.

Advertiser's domain is listed on some hacking and malware pages...

Oh... that's not good.

No more checking out the advertiser by clicking on the links in the ad review section. Too risky?

.

[levo]

There is definitely something wrong. Most of the links are either broken or very old. One ad that just showed up is for creative suite 3 (two generations old), and the ad is from Adobe.

[JCKline]

@levo, that is very strange. Is Goog dumping old surplus? ;)

I just blocked several more...and aside from unrelated, most are spammy. Something is definately wrong, and I'ts dropping my CTR and eCPM. I may just select not to run ads for 24 hours until I approve them.

[jmccormac]

Yep. Had to block a few of these. Some of them were for domains that don't actually exist. Is there any way to opt out of placement advertising as it seems to be completely banjaxed. And there were 160 Goog networks.

Regards...jmcc

[frakilk]

Just blocked an ad advertising a product for Valentine's Day. Domain was not found. Something is definitely screwy at the moment.

[indyank]

my god...ads fr non-existing domains or pages! Google, adsense is your money maker and you will have to act immediately to correct the spam...

I am not sure whether click to non-existing pages/domains are counted as clicks.does anyone know how they are treated? If they are not counted, then this is done with hopes of benefits in organic search.

[jmccormac]

Just checked one of the deleted domains from those placement ads. It was deleted in March 2010 so Google has some seriously screwed up back catalogue of ads.

Regards...jmcc

[zerillos]

same here...non-existen domain and broken links in placement ads

come to think of it... i also noticed this last month when all the problems began...but I didn't pay much attention to this issue back then...

[leadegroot]

now if I understand correctly, these are advertisers who have requested to advertise on (y)our site, right?
(I don't really trust google definitions, because they don't match what I see, but thats what I seem to recall about the review page)
So, what they are doing is saying 'please add us to your auction'
Doesn't mean they are going to win the auction and actually appear on the site if they are that far off topic, because the ctr would be awful, no?

[zerillos]

Doesn't mean they are going to win the auction and actually appear on the site if they are that far off topic, because the ctr would be awful, no?

the CTR IS awful !

[farmboy]

The following is on a Google help page concerning the ad review center:

If you choose to block ads in the Ad Review Center, you'll need to provide your reason for blocking the ad group or advertiser.

I'm not being prompted to provide a reason - anyone else?


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

From another Help page:

Choosing the "hold ads" setting may also decrease your revenue, because ads that are awaiting review won't participate in the auction either. Please consider the potential revenue impact before choosing to hold ads rather than running them immediately.

Huh? As if there's only one auction?


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Doesn't mean they are going to win the auction and actually appear on the site if they are that far off topic, because the ctr would be awful, no?

If that were true, we could just let every ad in existence participate in the auction, run up the bid and then Google wouldn't let off-topic ads be shown.

There's obviously a huge flaw in that plan somewhere.


FarmBoy

[JCKline]

This is bad. I have just blocked several more that and more then half are 404s. I think it's time to check the adsense forum, and start a thread if needed.

[JCKline]

OK, I didn't find this issue in the AdSense forum, so I started a thread here:
[google.com...]

Maybe someone from G will respond if enough people having this issue post.

[JCKline]

I have just changed my settings to hold the ads in the reveiw center for 24 hours before going live, to block these ads from running. I'll report if CTR and eCPM increases as a result. I now have over 80 advertisers blocked, and about 65 of them were dead links...

[wonderfulweb]

I'm seeing this as well, normally everything is very stable for me - but last day or two have gone totally haywire! Earnings at about 25%, ad review center swamped in largely foreign language completely offtopic ads.

I'm blocking them all now, but agree that something is most definitely borked with the system at the moment.

[jmccormac]

Another dead domain - this time one that was deleted/dropped in May 2008.

Regards...jmcc

[wonderfulweb]

I should also mention, I'm seeing the dead domains / broken old ads as well. This is in addition to the sudden influx of other offtopic/foreign ads pouring into the ad review center.

[Rodeo]

Heck, I'm not even able to block few advertisers. This dude has spammed my account with some 100 Ads in groups of 10 (all ad sizes).

[JCKline]

I just blocked several more awaiting approval. The worst part is, I can't trust if any of them are accually legitimate. Also most of these were parked domains running adsense for domains! Did someone figure out how to spam the system?

[farmboy]

Maybe someone who is an advertiser should post about this over on the AdWords board - the AWA seems to be more available than ASA.


FarmBoy