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AdWords and cookies?

Question about how AdWords work

         

Laxters

7:09 pm on Dec 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Does Google use cookies to deliver AdWords banners based on a person's Google searches?

One site I visit daily started using AdWords recently. This site has nothing to do with the keywords I check frequently, but the AdWord banners I saw there were perfect matches for my most frequent Google keyword searches.

To test this, I deleted my Google cookie and refreshed the site and those ads were gone, replaced by more generic AdWords ads. Checking back with that site later after more keyword searches at Google gave me those same targeted AdWords banners again.

Just wondering how it all works and if they're related at all.

Thanks!

-- Lax

bird

8:12 pm on Dec 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Searches are handled through the domain google.com (or google.de etc., depending on your location). Those domains each store a cookie on your system to preserve your search preferences.

The ads you mention are served through the domain pagead2.googlesyndication.com. This domain doesn't appear to use any cookies of its own, and it has NO access to the information in the google.com cookies.

So from a purely technical point of view, I don't see how your theory could have any merit beyond anecdotical evidence. It's usually not a good ideat to base generalized conclusions on one single example... ;)