Separating Adwords from SERP Google links

adwords versus serp google

[arachnid]

I read a thread from someone asking how to separate SERP Google hits from AW. It's easy to do and is incredibly effective at fighting fraudulent clicks as well.

In the Adsense admin area, select the check box next to each individual keyword you are using and give each one its own URL. So if you URL is www.example.com/widgets.html make it www.example.com/widgets.html?AW-individual-keyword.

This will show up in your server logs as a separate URL from widgets.html, indentifies AW as the source ad program and the specific keyword.

Also, if you suspect you are getting invalid/fraudulent clicks from Adsense or other Google partner content then you can use this same tactic to identify the exact keywords that are being abused. I have used this tactic twice to get full AW refunds/credits in click fraud cases.

You can also grab anything after the? and stuff it into a cookie using some simple javascript. You can see the javascript on my main page at <link removed>.

Note that the "?" does not have to be after an actual file name as seen in the above example.

Note 2: That javascript will be coming down in about a month or so with a site redesign in which the javascript will be called from a file to improve search term density. If it's not there when you go to look for it just sticky email me here and I'll email it to you.

=A=

[edited by: eWhisper at 10:29 pm (utc) on May 2, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't drop links. See TOS. [/edit]

[leadegroot]

an alternative, if you have a processing intensive site and you worry about mucking up the rewrite rules or parameter handling is to use:
www.example.com/widgets.html#AW-individual-keyword
Its generally easier to keep track of "I don't have an id of AW-individual-keyword on my page" than it is to track the processing

HIH