Should Adsense go back to Contextual Ads since the EU privacy law?

Instead of using personal visitor search history data for ads

[Broaster]

I noticed years ago whenever Id had ads on my website they were all relevant to my topic, now they have little to nothing to do with my website niche

for example if you wanted to started a website on Corvette cars you would likely get adsense ads on Corvettes, cars, gas, automobiles, raceways, spare tires, etc all relevant and visitors will more likely click

now visitors go to a car website and will see stuff they searched for instead, that are irrelevant to the niche.

Do you think Google will ever go back to the contextual ads where ads matched the niche or topic of the website? instead of using your visitor search data to place ads.

[Leosghost]

Your title says

Should Adsense go back to Contextual Ads since the EU privacy law?
Instead of using personal visitor search history data for ads

Yes..

But your post says

Do you think Google will ever go back to the contextual ads where ads matched the niche or topic of the website? instead of using your visitor search data to place ads.

Should and will are not the same things..
Yes they should..
No they probably will not..unless forced to by legislation..

They may serve contextual to visitors from places that legislate privacy laws, and personalised to places that do not legislate privacy laws, very easily done if you are Google..reasonably easy to do if you are a webmaster and can code ( which normally being a webmaster..as opposed to merely being a website owner, one can do )..and for those who have wordpress sites, there will be ( if there are not already ) myriad "plug ins" to do so for them..

[Broaster]

Hi Leosghost good to see your quick response!


I own a wordpress website, what plug in is this you speak of? Id like to check it out.

Also when did they change from Contextual to user data ads?

I noticed when I read on another forum someones experience it saddened me, he showed his adsense earnings from 2008 to 2011 when they put contextual ads relevant tot he website topic he was making very good money

he was making like 150 to 300 dollars us a day.

then he showed recently his earnings from 2016 to 2018 he was getting similar traffic but his money was so small, somedays he will get 30 thousand visits but only making 4 us dollars, some days he is lucky to make 20 dollars. not enough to survive, so he said he had to opt to sell direct ad space to advertisers instead, but said the traffic he gets cost more for the server than what he makes off adsense.

I hope they change it back.

[Leosghost]

re the "plug in"..

I don't know of any specific one ( I do not run any wordpress sites, life is too short to be dealing with all the vulnerabilities that abound within it and it's plug ins ) , but..if you look for "adsense serving Geo location based plugins for wordpress"..you'll no doubt find many , however which ones work and are safe ? Someone who has wordpress running will have to be the one(s) to advise you.

When did they change from serving contextual adsense to personalised adsense..?

Years ago now..

Some here reported improved earnings..most reported reduced earnings..

Google tried to claim it was "optional" ( you could switch it off and serve contextual ads on your site ) that was a lie..

I challenged "adsense advisor" ( here ) about the "optional aspect of serving personalise adsense..Adsense advisor came back into the thread and admitted publicly that yes, you could not actually switch off serving personalised ads on any site..We never heard from adsense advisor again here..Since then many ( including many "experts" ) claim that they have switched off personalised ads on their sites..they are delusional..A website owner who is using adsense cannot switch of serving personalised ads to other people from their site..They may think that they can because if they spend enough time looking at their own site and similar subject sites ( their "competitors" ) Google's system will consider that they are interested in the subject of their site and so serve them what what they think is "contextual ads"..Other visitors to their site ( with a different surfing and search or purchase history ) will still be served personalised ads via adsense from that site..Easy to verify..when travelling away from home, use another computer ( not your own, borrow one for 5 minutes from the people you are visiting ) and go to your own site, you'll see personalised ads bad upon their surfing, searching, purchasing history..Don't tell them this in advance ( depending on what they have been looking at they may not let you use their computer if they think that you'll see ads based upon what they were doing ) ..you need to do this away from home ( even a few 10s of kms / miles will do ) else the IP of your home address , or the location, will be used to send ads based upon what that IP , or location, has been doing ..This is why simply plugging in another "fresh" computer at home , or using another phone at home won't show this.

[Leosghost]

you'll see personalised ads bad upon their surfing, searching, purchasing history.

was a typo..
should have read ..
you'll see personalised ads based upon their surfing, searching, purchasing history.

[Leosghost]

My apologies ..just noticed that my post #4915996 also had a few typos, tired.. it is late here 03.51 am..has been a long day..

[Broaster]

leosghost you are correct

it is a lie, I also turned off the personalized ad option on adsense and someone said turn it off and it will go back to contextual instead of user based, so you get ads that match your website content instead of them using visitors search history

they said it will take a couple of weeks, that seems odd because when I used to change adsense formats they only took a couple of minutes to appear, anyway I noticed not a thing changed after 3 months so I realized yeah they are not going to put relevant ads up anymore

no wonder the EU was made, people dont want their personal info and search data used, its weird how google will use personal search history of visitors and store that, most people are scared of that, I know it scared me at first when I searched something it appeared on an ad in another website which creeped me out like if someone was stalking me.

they need to remove it and go back to the old ways to protect privacy.