Ads Only Loading Every So Often

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

[webadmin82]

Apologies if this has been previously addressed.

But is anyone else having an issue with AdSense ads only loading every so often? Particularly my 300x250 block.

Sometimes the space will be left blank, sometimes it'll be filled. Which I figured at first was a lack of available ads.

But here's the thing: I'll reload the same exact page and an on-topic (relative to the posting) ad will load in the spot. You can revisit the same post later and there's nothing. Come back some time after that and there's an ad.

All the while another ad block (the 468x60 one) loads pretty regularly.

Is that just a lack of available ads for my individual ad unit? Or a problem other people have seen for which there's a fix?

Thanks for your time.

[thatjen]

I've had problems with that every now and then. I used to frequently have problems with a link unit ad not showing up, and last week I had problems with a large rectangle ad not showing up. I don't think it's lack of ads - I think it's some sort of technical problem on their end since the rest of my site loads fine. I don't know for sure. Or it could be a conflict between something on my site and the ads (once I had to remove a tracking script that had a glitch that messed up adsense). Have you installed anything new on your site lately?

[Trueman]

I once experienced the same problem. Using Firefox and the Firebug plugin, it turned out that an external Javascript the ad was relying on to get displayed could not be loaded. In my case a technical problem on advertiser side.

This is not good, because the ad is blocking your ad space probably without generating any revenue. Maybe you can fix that temporarily by blocking the offending ad network in Adsense.

[thatjen]

I just noticed I'm having the not loading problem again off and on with my link units ads. I haven't changed anything on my Wordpress site. Now I'm paranoid other ads aren't loading for other people as well. I checked my stats and they don't seem too far off from the Adsense pageview stats, but it's hard to tell for sure. On my other two sites I haven't noticed a problem, so I'm wondering if it's something I have on my one site that is causing a problem. But I haven't changed anything on it at all recently.

[netmeg]

What you can do to nail down whether or not this is really a problem is set your ad code to show something else if the ads don't load - either a display ad of some other network, or even a graphic on your own server. Then you check how many views THAT gets, and you can see if you've really got a problem with ads not loading.

[thatjen]

Netmeg, one of my link units is hard-coded into the site, so I'm not sure how I could display something if Adsense doesn't load. The other one is in a sidebar widget - I know I had a plugin that could display something if Adsense doesn't load, but I can't remember what I used before. Thanks for the idea.

Anyway, I know for sure the link units don't load sometimes because they aren't there, but I don't know what's causing the problem. They don't cause the site to hang up - they are just missing and there's blank space instead. I'm not sure if it's Adsense or something on my site that's causing the problem. It's hard to troubleshoot when it only happens randomly. When this happened before, it was easy to fix because it happened on every page, and I removed an offending javascript stat counter that was interfering with Adsense somehow.

[webadmin82]

Sorry for the delay.

I added something new but that was after I started having the problem and it was related to the comment section.

I also added an ad of my own for the "Choose what to display if no relevant ads are available."

But I'm still getting blank space rather than the alternate ad.

This only started a few days ago and I hadn't changed anything at the time. Can only hope it's an AS thing and gets resolved soon.

[netmeg]

Netmeg, one of my link units is hard-coded into the site, so I'm not sure how I could display something if Adsense doesn't load. The other one is in a sidebar widget - I know I had a plugin that could display something if Adsense doesn't load, but I can't remember what I used before. Thanks for the idea.

You don't need plugins or code. You set it up in the AdSense code. Go into your user interface for AdSense, and edit the ad unit. There's a place where it will ask you if you want to display a color, or something else if the ad doesn't show. Just put a graphic the same size as the link unit on your site, and plugin in the URL to the graphic, and Google takes care of it all.

Here's a link to the help file.

[google.com...]

[thatjen]

Netmeg, okay thanks. If the problem is that Adsense isn't loading though, due to some glitch, you think Adsense would even be able to redirect that ad space to an alternative? I know the problem isn't that there aren't ads to display, because there are thousands of different ads for my popular niche. The problem is that Adsense can't load in the first place (from what I can tell).

[webadmin82]

The problem continues and it's affected both my revenue and impressions. Everything else on the page loads -- including another ad -- except the 300x250 slot. You have to reload the page to get it to show.

Absolute suckage.

[netmeg]

Could be something else on your page is interfering with it, I dunno. All you can do is test.

Put a blank page on your site, and put an ad on it, just long enough for you to view it. Can you see the ad?

[webadmin82]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try.