Adlinks looks nice, but...

ads can be way offtopic

[arrowman]

For example, a topic in one of my Adlinks is 'assertivity training', which is ok.

On the ad page I see some relevant ads, but also ads for a photoshop course, a webdesign course and anti-depression treatment.

Makes you wonder how Google picks ads for a topic?

[berto]

Sometimes, in a four-ad ad unit, you will see three, two, or even just a single ad showing. Then there are the occasional PSAs.

Likewise, if the supply of ads is limited, why don't AdLinks sometimes show three, two, or even just a single link? Or why do the follow-up ad pages always show ten ads (they always do, don't they?), oftentimes with many of them off-topic? I mean to say, if Google only has five on-topic ads for a category link, only show five ads on the follow-up ad page, don't pad it with garbage.

Yes, AdLinks can sometimes be embarrassing. Still, they are my best performing ad unit by far.

[Alioc]

In most of my pages, adlinks seems more relevant than adunits. But it's true that it sometimes shows keywords that has nothing to do with any of my sites. Maybe it's just trying to show something, anything, instead of nothing. I especially see keywords like "slotmachines" which has some fascination for the mass. I wrote to Google and asked if they could filter those gambling related ads even if they pay higher per click... I don't like to serve things like that and the Competitive Ad Filter doesn't seem like the ultimate solution.

[arrowman]

In most of my pages, adlinks seems more relevant than adunits.

Same here on some of my pages, not most.

But the ads behind those relevant adlinks are sometimes completely unrelated to their adlink and irrelevant to the page containing the adlink.

[MichaelCrawford]

The ads in the adlinks pages are advertising on the keywords in the adlinks. If I were to advertise baseball bats under "assertivity training" there wouldn't be anything in particular that would stop my ad from showing up.

I have seen many ways in which adsense ads make no sense whatsoever to the page. I think one is fortunate when ads are actually relevant to the content. I think that if you find the ads are nonsensical, you're probably better off removing them.

[incrediBILL]

Makes you wonder how Google picks ads for a topic?

It's your spider food.

Fix the spider food and your SERPs and AdSense will both be better.

[arrowman]

It's your spider food.

Maybe, but I don't see any clues in my content that may have attrackted those offtopic ads.

I guess part of the problem is Adsense triggers on generic meaningless words in specific meaningful phrases.

E.g. when you write about "assertivity training", it picks up "training", understands it's a synonym for "course" and picks ads for all sorts of courses.

It's hard to avoid words like 'training' and 'course' when you write about assertivity training though.

Of course, advertizers are also part of the problem. They probably target those generic meaningless words out of lazyness and greed. The good news is that epc rises on these words.

[yulia]

On the page about "content management" I have all ads about business management, operations management, management consulting services.

On Adlinks I often see same keywords on two or more units.