getting obsessive over competitive ad filter

[VegasRook]

After all this time, I am finally fine-tuning some of my ad sense stuff.

I recently read a post here about removing junk ads (IE the mass ebay ads) through the filter and I must say, it is making me mad.

I have a site that has I would say 65%+ of the ads on a related subject matter and they keep coming. People come to my site to learn how to make a widget or get one made. I have 65% of my ads telling people that if they are interested in widgets, they might like to make a litter box :D

It would be like if you had a website about how to dress in your corporate job and most of your ads were for Hot Jobs and other job sites instead of places to buy clothing. Sure, jobs would be semi-related, but not enough to want most of your ads to go for it.

Oh right, the question.

I wanted to know how involved people get with this. Do you have long competitive url lists or do you find that you kill value in the end?

Thanks

[vincevincevince]

If the adsense is not well targetted, it could be a timely indication that the page itself is not well targetted.

If you are relying upon free clicks from search engine results, you should rewrite some of your content, change titles, keywords, etc. to make your page more focused on what it is really about.

To use your example, you should be mentioning corporate dress, buying suits, which tie to pick, more than you should be talking about finding out your employer's policy, dressing for the right job, etc.

[sailorjwd]

I agree with vince*3.

Adding many sites to your ad filter will tend to lower your EPC.

You might contact G and explain the problem and ask for a solution.

As vince said, try to identify the words that are throwing off the ads and get rid of them or turn them into graphics. Sometimes I go so far as to misspell words - like the word Inventory I'll start it with an L rather than an I ( lnventory ).

[VegasRook]

The problem is not that adsense is not targeted, rather that there are a fair amount of advertisers fishing for traffic in related terms.

It would be like a luxury car company paying a min bid for the term "business suit" thinking that someone in a suit might be interested in a luxury car.

So the ad sense might read:

Business Suits and Cars

You've got the suit, now get the car at blah.com.

That is what I was referring to. I should have specified that adsense was ok in my original post.

[vincevincevince]

Fair and good points. However, CTR should eventually kill those ads. Unless they ARE getting clicks for those slightly related terms. In which case you're getting income, let's not worry any more :)

[VegasRook]

Oh, is the ad's CTR based on the individual keyword? I thought it was ad in general.

IE

keyword 1 0%
keyword 2 3%
keyword 3 2%
keyword 4 0%
keyword 5 0%

Overall = 1% ctr and all KWs stay for ad.