Multiple Listings of Placements

Strange Behavior in GDN

[gottsteyn]

My first time in here. Great forum. Thank you for hints on my problem:

I've been running a few campaigns on GDN for nearly a year now (via MCC). In April this year the placement report for each specific ad group started to show multiple listings of some domains, like this:

Domain Clicks Impressions
about.com 1 1
alexa.com 5 50
anonymous.google 8 2079
anonymous.google 7 284
apple-juice.org 1 7
bitcomet.com 2 71
bitcomet.com 1 1
bitspirit.cc 1 3
bittorrent.com 4 1734
bittorrent.com 2 31
blogspot.com 1 125
blogspot.com 0 457

I asked Google's support in April for help but havn't got an answer yet. Perhaps someone in here could give me some sort of advice of what went wrong/to do. TIA.

[netmeg]

What's your question? If you don't want to advertise on these sites, you can add them as negative sites.

[gottsteyn]

I do want to advertise on these sites. My question is: Why are they listed more than once in the placement reports for each ad group? Thus it is very hard to manage the placements by filters.

Netmeg, don't you find it strange if one placement/domain is listed more than once? I do.

[alexsel]

Nevermind what was originally posted, didn't read your question properly. Yes, one would think Google could consolidate those stats, but it's a pretty quick fix in Excel. I could ask why this happens and get back to you gottsteyn.

[gottsteyn]

Alex, as I said above, the multiple domains are listed in a report for just ONE ad group with only ONE set of key words.

Yes, it is weird.

[netmeg]

They're different URLs. About.com has a gazillion subdomains, for example. But if you are only pulling domains, it's going to look like multiple instances of about.com. Pull URLS, not just domains.

What I did was create a spreadsheet with some formulas to consolidate everything down to the TLD. But you might want to get the entire URL, because sometimes you might want to target part of a site but not all of it. Or block part of a site. If I wanted to advertise on food.example.com, it doesn't mean I also want to show my ads on autos.example.com.

[gottsteyn]

Oops, alexsel, my last post referred to your deleted post.

Quick fix in Excel? I am used to use the adwords interface.

[gottsteyn]

Thanks again, netmeg.

I know that there are different URLs that I can pull from the placements report. But what I find strange is this: I mark the first listing of the domain and pull the referring URLs, let's say there are 10 of it. Then I close that page and leave the first listing of the said domain marked PLUS mark the second listing of the said domain so that I have two lines of the said domain marked which I then look up for the URLs. And guess what: there are the same 10 URLs listed with exactly the same numbers (clicks, impressions) as for the lookup of only one line.

[netmeg]

I'm sorry, you lost me. Carry on.

[alexsel]

Good advice netmeg. I'm embarrassed to say I haven't taken advantage of the URL list just yet (new to display).

Gottsteyn, what you're saying just seems to be a bug. I would try to re-pull the URL list again and you should see the accurate list. Unless the second domain you included in URL list only has one URL, which is highly unlikely. Even so, that would mean +1 on your list.

[gottsteyn]

Alexsel,

I would try to re-pull the URL list again

I thought the list is pulled every time I use it. Or did I miss a step to 'pull the list'?

Perhaps I should mention the fact that the multiple (unconsolidated) listing of domains in a single ad group occurs in only one client account of my MCC. And it shows in every campaign of that account with GDN in it.

Has anybody an idea where to find a Google contact if it is a bug?

[gottsteyn]

It's a BUG. Finally I called Google hotline and they promised to look after. And they did! and send me an email saying the issue is solved.

[alexsel]

Great news gottsteyn. Glad it worked out for you.