Just saw something weird

[ownerrim]

I run mainly 468x60 2 ad rectangles. A second ago, I saw one of the main advertisers for the site take up the entire block. I've never seen this before.

I've also been monitoring scrapers in my area the last couple days and I've noticed that most of them are no longer showing ads from this advertiser (or many others).

I wonder if the advertiser has blocked some scrapers (which is amazing because I don't have a clue how they would have known about them). Also makes me wonder if some site targeting is going on (though we've heard nothing more about this, I suppose)

[ken_b]

Was the text larger in this ad? If so it sounds like one of the new CPM "Expanded Text" Ads.

They are supposed to look something like the old PSAs.

[ownerrim]

can't remember. I only saw it once. Then I refreshed the page and it was back to 2 ads again. It only stuck in my mind because I don't recall ever seeing that before. I do think, though, that the text filled the entire block, though the font size hadn't changed or anything else. It certainly did not look like a psa in size or font. Just a weird fluke?

[topdog]

I saw this on the big leaderboard on one of my sites earlier today.

[HitProf]

That's new since the last AdSense TOS update. Those ads are placed when they outperform all others in the block so it should be a good thing.

Expanding text ads:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[incrediBILL]

Google explains this right in AdSense.

When you login to AdSense, at the top of the Reports page you'll see:

New! Read the latest announcement about new forms of advertising and image ads updates on our What's new page.

Click on "What's new" and read the section "Expanded text ads: testing new formats"

[ownerrim]

"These ads will currently only be used with site-targeted ads, which will have the added effect of publishers being able to spot advertisers who are site-targeting their sites"

Yeah, I remember that. But I thought site-targeting went hand-in-hand with cpm bidding and I haven't heard anything about that recently.

[Never_again]

(which is amazing because I don't have a clue how they would have known about them).

Many advertisers are actively blocking this type of site. Most are checking logs to cull sites. There are a couple of active threads on how to locate and block sites over in the AdWord forum including:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[alika]

I for one am very happy with this development, not only as an advertiser but a publisher as well. Scrapers and made-for-adsense sites exist because there is a financial incentive for them to exist (and thrive and multiply). But if advertisers cut that financial incentive by choosing to include these sites in their negative lists, then hopefully their income will decrease. And eventually die.

[ownerrim]

Just saw one of these things again. Something's going on.

[alika]

ownerrim ... have you looked at the threads that never_again posted? that could be the reason

[ownerrim]

aren't those threads about negative site elimination? it seems like I'm looking at expanded text ads.

[ownerrim]

gets more interesting. on one of the few pages that I have that run an 2-adblock at the top of the page and a 2-adblock at the bottom of the page, the one on top is showing 2 ads. The one at the bottom is showing an expanded text ad and it fills the entire block.

This seems to be happening at the same time that targeting is dead-on for a lot of pages, and dead-off for a lot of pages. Perhaps some major testing or shake-down tuning is happening.

[ownerrim]

AWA said it was just testing.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[ownerrim]

However, I just dug something out of the email that google sent on 4/25/05 regarding testing:

(paraphrased)

"These new features are currently being tested with a selected batch of advertisers"

Can I assume that since I've seen 2 instances of expanded text ads with 2 different advertisers that both these advertisers are included in the advance testing?