Recently, I am witnessing low CTR on my websites. I am wondering if this is due to low quality ads being served by adsense - should I start using Ad Review Center to allow/block ads and advertisers. However, I have read somewhere that it is an unnecessary pain and doesn't help much with the CTR.
Can someone provide first hand experience. It would be helpful. Thanks.
avalon37
1:54 pm on Mar 20, 2015 (gmt 0)
Well it doesn't tell you which ads are producing higher or lower CTR so it's really not that helpful. It's only helpful (for me) to review ads that I have a gut feeling are not good for my site - and then I will block them. That said. a very small percentage of the ads served on your site are actually shown in the Ad Review Center. Should be called "partial ad review center" :)
trebuchet
2:29 pm on Mar 20, 2015 (gmt 0)
Yes, I used to review it and block annoying, low value ads like the 'Download now' buttons. But in the end I gave up. As avalon37 says, it doesn't show all ad inventory, and from experience blocking ads doesn't do much to improve CTR or CPC.
MarkBrownAdGuy
5:21 pm on Mar 20, 2015 (gmt 0)
Yeah, with thousands of ads and no useful mechanism of filtering/sorting through them - I think it's just a Google's way of saying - sure, sure, you can always opt out of low-cpc ads if you want - but we will still make it practically impossible for you to locate them. :)
buckworks
9:42 pm on Mar 20, 2015 (gmt 0)
Maybe once a month I go patrolling in the ad review centre, usually while sprawled in the easy chair with something interesting on TV.
Most ads are fine but there's a certain type of advertiser that I don't want and I block them if I spot them.
Note that "Block All" will block recurrences of previous ads but won't block new ads from the same advertiser. You have to block unwanted advertisers by URL.
A feature I'd find useful would be the ability to review only the ads which appeared on a specific site rather than having to scroll through all the ads from all my sites. Or is it there and I've missed it?
netmeg
10:12 pm on Mar 20, 2015 (gmt 0)
Not that I know of.
My biggest gripe with it is that once I block some of the really gross ads, there's nothing to prevent them from coming back from a different URL and/or advertiser. I've complained about this to Google a lot. I don't care how much it pays, I never want to see this stupid fish on any site I visit, let alone any site I own. Google has the technology. Why can't I block this now and forever?
That said. a very small percentage of the ads served on your site are actually shown in the Ad Review Center. Should be called "partial ad review center
I don't understand why they don't show all of them to you. Otherwise, how will you be able to find all the ads you might want to block from your site?
trebuchet
7:08 am on Mar 29, 2015 (gmt 0)
If people could review more ads then they'd block more ads. That would lead to drops in fill rate and revenue. As suggested above, G doesn't want to give you that much control. It just wants you to think you have it.
piatkow
10:19 am on Mar 29, 2015 (gmt 0)
I found it so useless that I had forgotten that it was there until I saw this post.
netmeg
2:12 pm on Mar 29, 2015 (gmt 0)
The other big problem I have with it is that it's terribly user unfriendly. I mostly use it to block gross looking or sleazy-looking image ads (see previous post). I have a lot of sites, and if I scroll through it (having filtered out text ads) and find one to block (plus block all the related ads) then I have to START ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. After you go through 20 or 30 pages, this gets to be a real PITA. And if you filter out the ads you've already seen (and tacitly approved) then it wipes out the text ad filter. Really really really poor usability.
