AdSense automatic ad placement woes.

[Zippy1970]

I run a forum on which I use AdSense ads. On every page, I have reserved spaces for the ads. Somewhere last year, I noticed AdSense often didn't show any ads in those spaces. Ad income dropped drastically. Then, all by itself, it started an "experiment" where it placed ads wherever it deemed appropriate. It was displaying ads at the weirdest of places, like in the middle of a post. It would actually break a sentence up to display a post wide ad. But on the flip side, ad income increased by almost 400%. Now it's not like I'm getting rich now. We are talking around $10 of ad income each day (with automatic ad placement enabled).

But now there are two problems. The first one being that it doesn't display ads where I tell it to (and that problem is regardless of whether auto placement is On or Off) and that it places ads at the weirdest of places.

So I actually have two questions:

1) What could be the cause of it not displaying ads in the spaces I have reserved for it (which is a problem that started about half a year ago)?
2) How can I tell AdSense to not place ads in certain spots?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[ClosedForLunch]

Open the Optimisation tab in the Adsense console and make sure all the settings are to your preference

[Zippy1970]

Where do I see those settings? Under "Optimization", I see this:

Optimization
• Opportunities
• Experiments
• Labs

[ClosedForLunch]

Open the Opportunities, Experiments and Labs tabs and make sure all the settings are to your preference

[Zippy1970]

There are no opportunities.
There are no experiments running.
There are no labs enabled.

I don't think these have any influence on the currently running ads.

[Milanex]

@zippy1970

Have you integrated manual ads in the reserved places? You may have forgotten the adsense script in the manual ads and you only have a part. It must be included in every ad. That would explain the empty spaces.

[Zippy1970]

Yes, the AdSense scripts are in place. It has always worked but stopped working (properly) about half a year ago. Now most of the time, ads are not displayed in their designated areas. Most of the time. Sometimes they do display so I know the scripts are correct and working.

What's even more annoying, I designate a large area for an ad, AdSense totally ignores it and will display an add right below the designated area that would easily fit in the designated area.

Also, about half of the time it won't display any ads at all. No ads in the reserved spots, no auto ads. When AdSense switches to CPM, that will hurt me quite a bit.

[No5needinput]

Auto ads often inserts an ad in the <td> column of a table on my site. Looks crappy and upsets the data readability in the table.