AdWords having server issues?

ads not showing up on my server

[eWhisper]

I just checked my G listings for one account, and not only are all of our ads gone, so are all of our competitors (it's not a drug or anything questionable type content). There is just one ad showing, and it's completely unrelated.

So I called AdWords support, and when G does a search, they are seeing the proper ads, and thought it might be a server issue (even though I can see ads for any other search term). And they asked me to call them back tomorrow if I still didn't see ads.

Not being completely satisfied, I called some friends of mine on the east coast, and none of them are seeing any of our or competitor ads, but they are seeing this new ad.

Then I called someone in Seattle and California, and they are seeing the proper ads being displayed, of which, this new ad is not being shown.

Something seems a bit strange here.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

This is a new one on me, eWhisper. I hope that you'll follow up with AdWords support if things continue in the same odd vein.

One thing that does come to mind as a possibility though: this is the sort of thing that could happen if you had a bunch of advertisers on the same keyword, all with a Daily Budget too low for their ads to show all the time. And at the time you checked, coincidentally, none of the ads were budgeted to show.

I grant you it would be a big coincidence - but at this moment it is the only thing that occurs to me.

Hope you'll keep us posted.

AWA

[eWhisper]

Today, no ads are showing for those particular KWs, even though there are many advertisers. Any other search I do shows plenty of AdWords - so it's not some sort of software issue on my machine.

Called G again today, they still have no answer, but want me to call tomorrow again if they're still not being displayed.

I've narrowed it down to PA, NJ, parts of MD and NY where isn't not showing. It's possible theres a few other local areas where it's not showing, I can only have so many people check in a day.

Very odd problem that's got me totally perplexed.

[eWhisper]

Ok - this was partially figured out today. I found it quite an interesting issue.

It seems that G has changed their filtering systems around as to what words fall into the various categories of safe, moderate, and none.

In my area, moderate filtering blocks the ad (it's not adult content), but in other areas, only safe search blocks the ad and it shows with moderate filtering. The AdWords person had no idea why this was occuring as filtering should be the same in the entire U.S.

I would have never guessed that the ad would be filtered at any level. (And not going to get into G's political statements here).

Went and checked a few other accounts, and safe search now seems to block quite a variety of different ad types.

Guess the old motto of know thy audience now includes checking which ads show in what filter types.

[fenway]

interesting...do you have anymore info on what defines safe, moderate, and none? does Google have a list or something of what words fall into which, when they are filtered and for how long? anymore details on this "filtering" would be greatly appreciated.