Forum Moderators: martinibuster
URL channels work like this:
Entering www.example.com will track all pages on that domain
Entering www.example.com/widgets will track all pages in that directory (ie. www.example.com/widgets/pageone.html and www.example.com/widgets/pagetwo.html would be tracked).
Entering www.example.com/index.html would just track that specific page.
The control panel for this isn't the most user friendly one in the world, but I think people will over look it for this feature ;)
You now get up to 60 content channels (up from 50).
Also, the main index page for AdSense at [google.com...] has also been redesigned.
<added>And five new languages have been added to AdSense search, although I am not sure which ones, since the list of languages is the same as it was a week or so ago.</added>
[edited by: Jenstar at 7:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 6, 2004]
[google.com...]
We really do need a way to delete or edit these channels. Typos are so darned easy to make.
Also, it would be helpful if the "manage channels" display were wide enough to display long URLs in full.
what about www.domain.com versus domain.com?
I wasn't sure on this, so I did confirm it with Google.
www.example.com would cover www.example.com but not example.com or widgets.example.com
However, example.com would act as *.example.com and would include www.example.com, example.com and widgets.example.com
As for not being able to delete channels - if you need to refer to data in those channels at a later date, it would not be accessible in the future if they were deleted. For example, you decide to track Christmas-themed pages over the months of November and December with multiple channels. If you deleted those channels, you would be unable to refer to those channel stats at a later date (say, next October when you are pushing those holiday themed pages again and wanted to see what performed the best for you). So I can see why they can go inactive but are not deletable.
On the subject of channels and since AS Advisor is monitoring this thread, it would be nice if the AdSense code allowed for more than one channel in the specification of an ad unit. For example:
google_ad_channel ="1212121212";
google_ad_channel ="3434343434";
This would be handy for experiments in ad placements with one channel used to keep a total of all ad units across multiple pages and another to monitor a specific ad unit.
Wouldn't having a selection in both boxes give you stats for both channels?
so if example.com has 500 pages you can now view the results for all 500 pages using URL channel
The way I read it (somebody correct me if they are better informed), it will give the total results for all 500 pages together, NOT results for each of the 500 pages.
So you can set url channels for: the whole site, parts of your site (by partial url) or a specified page. On initially reading the announcement I was expecting the reports to be broken down by actual page, which would be what many people would like, but looking at the report parameters that seems unlikely, it's just a cumulative amount.
True, but nobody's suggesting that Google should replace "Deactivate" with "Delete." We just need a way to delete URLs that we entered incorrectly or that no longer exist.
www.example.com would cover www.example.com but not example.com or widgets.example.comHowever, example.com would act as *.example.com and would include www.example.com, example.com and widgets.example.com
That explains the bad data. Too bad I followed their own instructions :(
And their delete is poorly implemented. (I still have a never used channel category called "test")
They definitely need to work on the interface.
I tried a "website.info" channel...attempting to get stats for my several .info sites and I'm not getting any stats in that channel (and I know I have traffic).
It takes a while for the channels to become active. I'm only just seeing data now for channels I activated a couple of days ago.
Side note though - the reports were displaying wrong data earlier on today.
My custom channel reports (6 or so) all showed 50 impressions, 1 click, .05c income. One of the channels hasn't been used in a week or so (I removed the code from my site), and it still displayed this mystery data for yesterday.
The channel data seems to be updated now though.
Scott
Side note though - the reports were displaying wrong data earlier on today.
Google states that channel reports have a lag of two days, so--in theory, anyway--we shouldn't begin seeing accurate reports until today (Wednesday).
Numbers are starting to trickle in for my site, too, but they're obviously inaccurate. I'll wait a couple of days before worrying that entire sections of my site are getting only a handful of impressions and no income. :-)
I thought this new feature was a great thing when I first read about it here, but now I'm not so sure. I think Google may have just brought Micro-stress and Niche-worrying to the general webmaster public! ;)
Would a URL channel report the number of "page impressions" under that URL or the number of "ad unit impressions" under that URL? i.e. if the pages have two ad units would it be twice the number of impressions)?
When choosing channels for a report, how do you de-select either the url channel or the normal channels?
Marketing Guy and europeforvisitors have already correctly answered questions about delays, so simply for good measure I'll address this. As with custom channel reports, URL channel reports have a 2-day delay.
All of your comments thus far are excellent, and I've already relayed them back to the team. Keep it coming!
ASA
"Are URL channels retroactive? Will it tell me how particular URLs did before I activated the URL channels?"
AdsenseAdvisor's reply:
"No. URL channels are not retroactive. "
Why is this the case? Google has the data going back "all time" according to my admin area, so why can't URL channels be retroactive?
Not being retroactive, means rather than acting on the several months of data that has already been accumulated, I have to wait several months.
Please make this a suggestion back to the team.
Also, as someone else suggested, why isn't there a top performing pages report?
why can't URL channels be retroactive?
Maybe they haven't been logging the actual URL of each impression? There would then be no historical data to produce reports from. Seems strange, as they would at least want to know what domains the ads are being displayed on.
why isn't there a top performing pages report?
It appears when you activate URL channels it just starts accumulating values for the groups of pages starting with that URL prefix, so again there is no page-level data, so no way to produce a "best pages" report.
Nor is there is any way to do an URL channel for just the home page, assuming that it's normally reached as widget.com/ not widget.com/index.html.
Since you're passing this info to the team, what would have been lovely from day one on adsense is page level reporting.
I've actually been surprised that they offer as much detail as they do, because it's pretty obvious that offering page-level reporting (something that's now possible, albeit limited in number) encourages "made for AdSense" pages. But then, I was surprised when they introduced tools that allowed publishers to hide ad borders and blend ads into the background so they'd look like navigation links. I suspect that some advertisers would think Google's philosophy has shifted from "Do no evil" to "Wink and look the other way."
I guess. The people behind G are pros. They are funded by the top money men in the world. None of this is a coincidence. Marketers are paid a lot of money to find out what logos, slogans, concepts resonate with people.
Sure, but giving publishers the ability to disguise ads as navigation links (to name just one abuse) hardly comes across as a brilliant strategy for expanding the pool of advertisers.
It's a valid strategy. How often have you seen what look like articles in magazines/ newspapers - ads in exactly the same colour/typeface as the articles when it has in miniscule writing "advertising feature". It's up to the publisher though whether they have borderless ads, ads in the same colour as their links etc - if publishers aren't "tweaking their ads" - positioning, colours etc - they're losing out on revenue (and so is Google).
In the end most businesses are run on profit lines not as a charity.
It's a valid strategy. How often have you seen what look like articles in magazines/ newspapers - ads in exactly the same colour/typeface as the articles when it has in miniscule writing "advertising feature". It's up to the publisher though whether they have borderless ads, ads in the same colour as their links etc - if publishers aren't "tweaking their ads" - positioning, colours etc - they're losing out on revenue (and so is Google).
When Google effectively says to advertisers, "You are either in this network or not", they are putting the control over presentation into the hands of the publisher. And advertisers who find some of those tactics to be inappropriate, or find them not to be cost-effective, must choose between participating anyway or simply opting out. Granted, it can be more profitable in the short term to engage in such tactics even though some advertisers opt out of contextual advertising as a result. But there are some advertisers who will never participate in contextual advertising, no matter how profitable it may be, unless they are certain that their brands and company image are protected from such tactics. At some point, assuming Google wants to attract their considerable advertising dollars, it will either have to offer additional options for advertisers, or impose additional restrictions on publishers.
At some point, assuming Google wants to attract their considerable advertising dollars, it will either have to offer additional options for advertisers, or impose additional restrictions on publishers.
I suspect that's one reason for "image ads": to reach big-$$$ ad agencies and corporate advertisers who want control over the message's presentation.
For example, we currently can track stuff like:
All files under
[domain.com...]
A file individually
[domain.com...]
I was hoping we can track something like the following
[domain.com...]
So, all these files will be tracked.
[domain.com...]
[domain.com...]
[domain.com...]
[domain.com...]
One thing which seems to make the URL channels a bit less usefull than I had hoped is that it is reported in the same column as the other channel.
I would like to see a two columns report for the channels, allowing combinations of the channels, even if the total number of combinations is still limited to 60. This is really what to me would bring flexibility in the channels definition.
Until now I had channels defined like "host page section - color - location in the page" and then using excel I was able to explode the data to get reports like :
influence of the color for a given section of the site or influence of the location in the page for a given color or even, forgeting about the sections, what is the overall influence of the color etc...
Was simple, just a bit painful for the channels definition and the management of the ads code on the site.
By offering the URL channel, I thought I could get something better than what I have today, but basically it seems that this won't be the case!
Am I missing something obvious?
Thanks.
Definately need to be able to DELETE channels altogether .. although it's nice to be able DEACTIVATE or RENAME them .. pleeze o' pleeze .. provide us with a delete capability .. for both URL and custom channels.
I'd just "assumed" I could do it .. before I went ahead and "experimented" with a bunch of channel names. Quickly running through my allowed channels quota before I even figure out how to best deploy the URL reporting feature.
If not available through the user interface, would a "delete channels pleeze" request sent via email be a possibility?
Grasping for a solution to an obvious problem ..
For example, the URL channels I created were something like:
www.bluewidgetsreview.com/products/reviews/abc-product-review.htm
and
www.bluewidgetsreview.com/products/reviews/xyz-product-review.htm
Because the active URL Channel window is small and abbreviates URLs, all I see for the above URL channels is:
www.bluewidget...duct-review.htm
and
www.bluewidget...duct-review.htm
I can't tell which URL channel is which b/c the abbreviation makes the 2 different pages look identical. So, I'd love to have a way to expand or scroll within that window as that would eliminate my problem.
