Unmatched ad requests are suddenly way up!

Is this an AdSense bug, or is it just me?

[JCKline]

Over the last few days I've noticed a big increase in unmatched ad requests in my reports. It's enough of an increase to make me think it's a bug. Is anyone else seeing this?

I changed some ad units to "text only" a week ago, while the others on the same pages remain "text,image,rich media". I only use 2 adblocks per page tops. Could this small change be the reason? PERPLEXED!

[netmeg]

Nope, not me. For the last 7 days, "unmatched requests" were only .018263 of my total requests.

I have different ad units for text and image (which I rotate on my own basis) and I only have the AdWords network enabled, for whatever that's worth.

Oh - one thing I noticed that when I took link units off a particular site, my unmatched ad requests all but disappeared. Are you running link units?

[JCKline]

Thanks for the reply netmeg. I don't and never have run link units. I do have all third party ad networks enabled, but I can't see this being the reason, Hmmmm.

[levo]

Could it be due to the end of the month?

[JCKline]

@levo, I wish I knew.

I've decided to "un-block" some of the ads I blocked prior and see if this helps.

[HuskyPup]

Whoa...am I missing something here?

I hadn't a clue what you were writing about therefore went to have a look at my own reports...what the heck are these?

Supposedly this year I have 39.75% of unmatched requests!

A flat line all year, DEAD, please, tell me this is nothing of concern, I've gone back to 2004 and it's totally FLAT, nothing, zero, niente, nichts, denada!

[JCKline]

Supposedly this year I have 39.75% of unmatched requests!

This is nearly as high as mine! Yet 3 days ago it was around 0.5%

When I checked "ads shown" for the last day, only 9 ads are there! 6 text, 2 image, 1 rich media, and 2 where foreign?!? So I unblocked every ad I had blocked minus a few "obviously" poor ones. Now I wait, yet I don't understand. Maybe it's an end of the month thing? Seems buggy though. Ugg.

[JohnNZ]

Not sure if this helps with your issue JCKline but here's a quote from [support.google.com...]

If you're using link units on your site, unmatched ad requests might be higher than expected. This is due to the way we count a matched ad request for link units. A matched ad request for a link unit is only counted if the user clicks on a term in the link unit. If the user doesn't click, the ad request is considered unmatched. As a result, coverage is lower for link units than other ad units.

I have a pretty high number of unmatched requests but I have adlinks on every page of my main site so I would expect it.

Did you add adlinks recently?

[Lame_Wolf]

Mine says :
Unmatched ad requests15,438
Coverage 0.00%
(I have link units)

[HuskyPup]

If the user doesn't click, the ad request is considered unmatched.

Aha, so that means 39.75% of people who clicked on an AdLink didn't go any further meaning that 60.25% did.

Ouch, that's a huge number if I'm understanding this correctly.

[JCKline]

I have NO adlinks on any of my sites, they never converted well. I checked the "sites" report in AdSense and found some Middle Eastern sites who placed some of my pages in an iFrame, but the traffic is minimal. Added an iFrame buster to my global js file anyway. I use noarchive so the web caches are almost O. I just can't figure this out!

[HuskyPup]

Mine says :
Unmatched ad requests15,438

Oh heck, I'm over 100,000

Time for the new ASA to advise about this please.

[Lame_Wolf]

That is for the quiet account, HP. The other is higher, but doesn't use link units.

Plus, I only have adsense on about 20% of the site.

[JCKline]

I feel a little better that I'm not the only one. Very strange though. It wasn't like this before a week ago. I can't say it's NOT a bug of sorts.

[JohnNZ]

Searching around the Google forums, it seems that many people are experiencing a similar issue as JCKline and Lame_Wolf, i.e. not using link units but getting unmatched ad requests.

Unfortunately there was no answer posted on the forums, so unless you have a contact at Google ....

[JCKline]

@JohnNZ, no answer? That's ODD. I'll have to contact my cockroach friend who lives under the Google Plex for answers. Thanks JohnNZ.

24 hours into August and already 12% unmatched ad requests.

[netmeg]

I have no idea if this is really an issue or not. I've never ever noticed a time when there were no ads in an ad unit. Isn't that what it means? That an ad wasn't available?

I guess if thought it might be a problem, I might set my own ad or graphic as the fill for an ad unit, and then after a few days look at my logs to see how many times the graphic displayed.

[Leonard0]

Isn't that what it means? That an ad wasn't available?

Yep, it was discussed here almost a year ago when it first appeared in the reports.

The OP doesn't mention which report is showing Unmatched Ad Requests.

I see it in Targeting Types and in Bid Types (in the bottom row).
You can see which sites are generating unmatched ads by clicking the Dimension button and selecting Sites.

If your channels for non-Adlink blocks are showing 100% coverage (or close to it) there shouldn't a problem.

[Leonard0]

Correction:
Unmatched Ad Requests are also generated by AdLinks
Adsense Help [support.google.com...]

If you're using link units on your site, unmatched ad requests might be higher than expected. This is due to the way we count a matched ad request for link units. A matched ad request for a link unit is only counted if the user clicks on a term in the link unit.

Unauthorized sites seem to generate them too, even though the Coverage shown for the site is 100%.

[JohnNZ]

So it does apply to non link unit ads?

Strange it doesn't mention that in the adsense help? But I guess it makes sense.