URL Channels could be flawed

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URL Channels could be flawed

AdSense url channels differentiate

Andem

9:06 am on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

I was curious if anybody else recognised a difference between the url channels and the standard adsense channels? The reason why I'm curious is because of a discrepancy between a url channel and a typical channel.

Here's an example:
URL Channel http://www.example.com/bluewidgets/ received 5,000 views
Standard Channel "Blue Widgets" received 5,150 views

Both channels would also show a different amount of clicks and revenue.

This leads me to believe that AdSense relies on referer tracking to count on its URL channels and hense Opera users with no referer tracking or mozilla users with certain plugins would not be counted in URL channels.

This is purely speculation on my part, but it does beg the question of why URL channels show lower numbers compared to the standard channels.

It's like this in virtually every channel, and each standard channel that I run .is duplicated by a url channel.

Your thoughts?

[edited by: Andem at 9:07 am (utc) on July 26, 2006]

dlcmh

9:43 am on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

For a URL channel, use domain.com rather than www.domain.com - some visitors to your site might be browsing under [domain.com...] mode

Andem

11:32 am on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. There is no way to access this site via anything but www.. It's a rule I've set in the httpd.conf.

Ganceann

3:54 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Possible that it could be cache views that make up the difference?

topr8

3:58 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

is the discrepancy with 'historic' data or just today?

i've found that the channels don't add up properly or match during the day.

topr8

3:59 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

another though is this:

is the url channel always less?
if so are you sure the named channel isn't active elsewhere as well?

if not then that theory doesn't apply.

Hobbs

4:30 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Could be:

- Discounted clicks or impressions from the same source

- Imprssions and clicks put on hold pending review

- Impressions or clicks counted but not credited yet, will be added to the next day.

Andem

9:09 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Nope.. As I look back, this has been going on for a long time, throughout the months.

No, I do not re-use channels on other pages.
The URL channels always have less than the named channels.

The theory about the cache views makes sense. I've wondered how many people browse the web with S.E. cache.. I suppose I have some very interesting sample data to form a conclusion if it is infact cache views.

---------------------

But wait.. I just did a few searches for my site, came onto the pages and they are not showing ads. I've look at 5 now and zilch (there are no PSAs in custom ad formats).

Cache servers robots.txt:

User-agent: *
<snip>
Disallow: /search

So the mediabot can't even access cached pages -- hense it would not be able to show ads.

Yahoo cache robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search

MSN traffic is dismal, so the adsense numbers are a little high to even bother checking msn's robots.txt file.

So afterall, it doesn't look like its cache browsing.

[edited by: Andem at 9:09 pm (utc) on July 26, 2006]