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Two big reasons for ongoing complaints about lower revenue

Google "hints" line of code and "url referall line" of code

         

trader

5:49 am on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Regarding all the threads wondering why so many publishers income is down (or at least not going up too much after lots of hard work) over the past few months. IMO it's mostly a matter of supply and demand.

The demand for good keywords is likely exaggerated significantly by *some* (apparently selected publishers) being allowed to use something called "google hints" where the publisher is allowed to add a line to the javascript where he can specify the exact keywords he would like the ads targeted toward.

Last month I looked at a competitors site doing that and the ads are incredibly targeted directly to the 'hints' words he used in the code. In fact, to show how the hints reduces high paying keyword inventory, some of the hints that publisher used seemed to have little if any relationship to the website, its content or products sold (but were good CTR words I am sure, as popular services). Apparently that publisher wanted to target 2 high paying extra keywords - which did work well judging by the excellent ads on display.

The site above using the 'hints' appears to be a smaller publisher (does not seem to be premium) and average traffc website. There seems to be a good number of sites using the 'hints' line of code.

Another publisher I know (a premuim publisher) a few months ago was using a different method known as a url referral line of code (which they say was approved by G) where the publisher can instruct adsense to use the same ads which are displayed on any other website. It appears he can change the url referral as frequently as he wants.

The fact a number of sites are believed doing these 2 ways of altering the javascript to get highly targeted ads seems to be a major factor in the supply/demand issue, where the supply of well paying targeted keywords is reduced for others as a result.

Sobriquet

7:38 am on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



thats interesting, but I could not find anything like google hints mention on adsense site, help docs etc.
Has anyone else noticed this?

Tropical Island

9:47 am on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There was a discussion about this back in early March:

[webmasterworld.com...]

howiejs

3:09 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The average publisher can't mess with it - so I don't focus on it.

I focus on what I control

trader

4:36 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



thats interesting, but I could not find anything like google hints mention on adsense site, help docs etc. Has anyone else noticed this?

You will not find it there as it is a non-published and non-publicized program few know about except the lucky publishers they allowed to participate in it.

I only learned about it by seeing the extra line of code in the javascript when I viewed a competitors webpage to try and figure out what he was doing so well to get such great ads, especially high paying keyword ads not even relevant to the website and products he was selling!

mike schmitz

6:31 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



The google hints isn't magic anyway - you aren't missing much at this point although Im sure they will improve the product over time. They also don't provide a whole lot of intruction.

M

Sobriquet

6:32 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



there has to be a criteria on which G has allowed some publishers to add a new parameter.

Are you talking about premium publishers?

trader

7:39 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



No, not premium, the hints program was allowed for small publishers too.

trader

7:45 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



...The google hints isn't magic anyway...

Really, how do you know that? It certainly seems like magic to me and I am sure to the sites allwed to use it.

Just think how great it is to be able to tell G exactly what kind of keyword ads you want on your site, and even very the words when you want to so you can in effect easily test the PPC values!

Another example of how valuable is, say the site allowed to use it sees PSA ads lately, all you need to do is change the hints to target different keywords and you may see better paying ads, or the PSA's go away assuming the inventory for the old keywords was depleted and the new hints words have better availability.

[edited by: trader at 7:49 pm (utc) on April 8, 2005]

Jenstar

7:46 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The "hints" is not something that is allowed to be abused (or allowed to be used unless the publisher has explicit permission by AdSense). If you see a publisher abusing it by putting in keywords unrelated to the site or you think is using it without permission, there is no reason why you can't report that publisher to AdSense if you want. The same goes for the URL.

trader

7:51 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Agree, I would never abuse it but only use well targeted hints applicable to the website, so I see no problem at all with abuse for most honest publishers. Of course, I can't use it myself as I am not in the hints program, unfortunately.

When I said test keywords earlier I meant in the context of different words both being fully relevant to the website content and service offered.

P.S. to Jenstar. Are you allowed to use 'hints' yourself, just wondering?

Jenstar

8:01 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>> P.S. to Jenstar. Are you allowed to use 'hints' yourself, just wondering?

I don't have any issues with targeting on any of my sites, so I have never asked for it personally, as I don't really have a use for it. AFAIK, it is only permitted to be used by publishers who are having ongoing issues with getting targeted ads.

trader

8:05 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



That's odd as I have had ongoing issues with targeting (on some of my sites, but not all, as some are good) for 1-1/2 yrs and contacted support many times about it but they never once "hinted" to me that I could enter the 'hints' program, or even mentioned such a program was up and running for some publishers but not all.

Jenstar

8:42 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Perhaps there is an income requirement for it, or some other prerequisite, even if it isn't exclusively premium.

trader

9:02 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



That's always possible but I am fairly certain my sites overall deliver far more traffic and profit to G than his site which was allowed in the 'hints' program. Perhaps he just complained more than we did or to the 'right' person than to lower level support people?

markus007

9:10 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



hints isn't that good, its biggest benifit is that it allows you to get rid of most PSA's. If you were nailed by smart pricing before, your going to get nailed by smart pricing after using hints.

Jenstar

9:14 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>> my sites overall deliver far more traffic and profit to G than his site

But maybe he has 20 or 50 other sites doing just as well ;) I would guess most publishers have many more sites than just one that they are running AdSense on.

trader

9:14 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Just getting rid of PSA's alone would make a huge difference to our bottom line since PSA ads are such a large and ongoing problem.

Plus the ability to target a great word like mortgageloan instead of the very low paying loancalculator (with both equally applicable to the site) would also be a huge success factor.

Jenstar

9:27 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



AFAIK, it is not usable on a theme level, but rather on a page level. So mortgage wouldn't be applicable on a regular loan page.

bbkid

11:27 pm on Apr 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



wow i'm tired. i just about looked up 'mortgageloan' on wikipedia. thought it might be a disease or something...

trader

12:59 am on Apr 9, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



... it is not usable on a theme level, but rather on a page level. So mortgage wouldn't be applicable on a regular loan page.

Sorry, have absolutely no idea what you are saying above?

Was referring to a mortgage loan website where instead of nice mortgage loan ads (for those shopping for a home mortgage) there often are comparatively low value free mortgage loan payment calculator ads instead.

That may be due to the good mortgage ad inventory being low what with so many 'hints' and 'url page referral' publishers being allowed to target them reducing the overall inventory for most others.