How can I improve adsense add content served on my page?

[MarsM]

Hi everyone,

I have a site about 'trouwen in amerika' (sorry, it's dutch for 'getting married in the US'). I have adsense on the page but most adds are about 'trouwen' in general (getting married). My problem is that the users on my site are specifically looking to get married in the US so they don't click on 'getting married in amsterdam' adds for example.
Is there a way to 'say' to google I want adds for 'getting married in the US' and 'getting married in Vegas' but not for 'getting married' which is part of the previous 2 I like to have so I can't exclude that.
I hope you guys can help me...
Maybe I should look for something else to replace adsense on my page?

Regards, Marcel

[DeeCee]

Your adsense account has a section where you can add various form of ad blocking that might help you.

[Lame_Wolf]

Not all sites are suited for Adsense.

[macavity]

I face exactly the same issue with much of my content.

In the past I've used <!-- google_ad_section_start -->...<!-- google_ad_section_end --> to try to emphasise content with specific keywords of importance to try to trigger the most relevant ads. Google also used to give some publishers permission to use a "google_hints" variable in their AdSense code to try to achieve the same result.

However, in my experience neither solution was particularly effective and with today's greater emphasis on interest based ad serving it's now even more difficult to trigger ads which are highly relevant to certain niche geographic markets.

[farmboy]

My first thought is it isn't a good idea to write content for the purpose of getting particular AdSense ads. That can lead to frustration.

My second thought is I am in the U.S. and I'm wondering what type of services in the U.S., and how many of those exist, would want to advertise to engaged couples in Amsterdam (or whatever country). What term do you search for on Google to find those ads on Google search results?


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

and with today's greater emphasis on interest based ad serving...

My AdSense stats don't show a greater emphasis on interest based ads vs. content based ads. Not even close.


FarmBoy

[macavity]

My AdSense stats don't show a greater emphasis on interest based ads vs. content based ads. Not even close.

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting that interest based ads outnumber those which are contextual (mine don't either), just that it's something which has grown over time and another factor serving to make well targeted contextual ads more difficult to rely on.

In theory it shouldn't matter as far as the bottom line is concerned, i.e. the algorithm should be serving ads which are most profitable for the publisher, but I'm not convinced that it always works that way for every publisher (myself, and perhaps the OP, included).

[coachm]

Wondering how the OP knows what ads others are seeing. It would seem to me that by writing good content about getting married in the usa, etc, honeymoons, all that stuff, and using proper titles, etc SEO'd one should be able to get reasonable ads. Maybe not. I'd really look at the content, AND I would make sure that it's available in English in addition to Dutch. Since it's about the USA, why would one target it just to the Dutch, anyway?

[macavity]

Presumably the OP's target market is Dutch couples considering getting married in the USA?

I think the problem is that when you have a site/page about something in a specific geographic location, e.g. houses for sale in Panama, Google still tends to serve an inordinate number of ads about the correct topic but related to the visitor's location. So for example if I ran a site about buying property in Panama (I don't) but discovered that many of my US visitors were seeing ads for real estate where they're physically located in the USA those ads are not well targeted.

In most cases taking the visitor's location into account is sensible and works well for ad serving but for some business models it's not nearly so relevant. I understand the OP's frustration on this issue, I've struggled with it myself for many years and still haven't found a solution as far as AdSense is concerned.

[not2easy]

I can't guess whether it would still work today, but about 8 or 9 years ago when I first put AdSense ads on my sites, I had a simiar problem of having ads showing for a product that had one of my domain name words as a brand - not related at all to the content in any way except this brand. I got it to stop by using boolean terms in my page description <metatags. For example, it would say something like "Best blue widgets NOT brand for storing tools and cleanup supplies; blah blah blah". I did it out of desperation, but it did work. The descriptions showing in search were pulled from DMOZ at the time so my thought was that no one would see it anyway. They are probably too smart today and description tags have become important real estate now.

[JCKline]

With IBA, there is almost ZERO control over the ads served on your site. I would just focus on ad placement.

[piatkow]

I think the problem is that when you have a site/page about something in a specific geographic location, e.g. houses for sale in Panama,

Depending on the strength of the topic and the strength of the location the emphasis will be on one or the other and Sod's Law dictates that whichever one it is it will be the wrong one for your visitors.

Blocking is a waste of time there are always more ads of the type that you don't want coming through. I would like to be able to tag a page to emphasise the topic. For example if it is about widget enthusiast clubs in Freedonia to tell Adsense that the important term is WIDGET.

[MarsM]

Thanks a lot for all of your responses.
We have decided to also do the site in English, but I don't think that will help for the dutch pages.
I thought about it a lot... What do you guys think about putting a small piece of english text on the bottom of the dutch page and putting <!-- google_ad_section_start -->...<!-- google_ad_section_end --> around it? So at least it will be (hopefully) english-language adds being served with a greater chance of them being in the U.S.

[MarsM]

And some quick replies on some questions:
- How many of those exist, would want to advertise to engaged couples in Amsterdam (or whatever country)?
I don't know how many, but it would be business for them because those couples would be looking to get married in the US..
- Wondering how the OP knows what ads others are seeing.
I talked to friends and looked at it on different computers in different locations.

[Lame_Wolf]

Lets say that you are getting targeted adverts. The thing is...
How many Dutch people (per year) want to get married ?
Out of those, how many wish to be married in the USA ?
Out of those, how many are going to visit your site first ?
And out of those, how many are going to click on an advert ?

[MarsM]

I get about 1000 pageviews per month and it's only now starting to rise.
my CPC is about Euro 0.50
Right now I have a CTR of about 0.19%, which is low. If I can get that up to 1 or 2 % it would give me between 10 en 20 euros per month right now.
I know, it's not going to break the bank, but I have moer than 1 site and this problem appears also on other sites.