Page off topic and I can't figure out why

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Page off topic and I can't figure out why

fredw

9:19 pm on Oct 31, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'm usually really good at eliminating words from pages that would get Adsense ads off target for that page. But I have one page on one site that's been ridiculously off target now for awhile. The ads currently coming up are all "security" related (alarms, firewalls) but for the life of me I can't figure out what words on the page are triggering these ads.

(I am looking at the served view source of the page, BTW, so no hack is involved here.)

Is there a place one can go to look up keywords that certain advertising niches typically use?

Tropical Island

10:03 pm on Oct 31, 2006 (gmt 0)

Write support with the URL and they will look at it.

I had exactly the same problem with the same kind of ads for my tourism site and they corrected it after I wrote them.

ken_b

10:06 pm on Oct 31, 2006 (gmt 0)

If you write support about this, include a screen capture so the can see the off topic adds. Sometimes that helps for some reason.

joelgreen

10:11 pm on Oct 31, 2006 (gmt 0)

If some visitor clicked on badly targeted ad then smart targeting may think that ad's subject was good for your page, and continue showing ads on that subject. It will get better as time passes. IMO.

fredw

12:50 am on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

Yeah. To go the "contact support" route I'd have turn Adsense back on for that page. (I had that page showing alternate ads rather than show the badly targeting adsense ads.)

I've done this and emailed support, so we'll see what happens. The page will just have to show badly targeted ads for a day or two...

fredw

7:15 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

Adsense fixed the page for me. In the past they've said they couldn't do anything to fix targeting. Thanks, Tropical, for suggesting that course of action.

Tropical Island

9:07 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

You're welcome. Glad to help.

Marcia

9:11 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

There could be a homonym involved. That's a word that has two completely different meanings. Like a page for backgrounds (for web pages) could run ads for background checks (investigating people's past). Background - same word, two completely different meanings.

stuartmcdonald

11:00 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

I had a similar problem -- like TropicalIsland on a travel related site. The main intro page for one country consistently showed off-target adverts. I emailed Adsense asking them to take a look, they replied thanking me and saying they'd fixed it.

When the adverts continued to show I emailed them again and suggested what I thought was the problem, they replied again, saying (and I'm paraphrasing here) that the adverts which are displayed are based on the overall page content, not just keywords or categories and specifically said they're not able to manually change what adverts appear on what page, saying instead that their "targetting" uses linguistics, keyword analysis, density and font size to determine what ad gets shown.

They then suggested I try section targetting to resolve the problem. I opted not to, as to my mind this is a problem on the adsense side of things, not mine (the page in question hasn't changed in ages) and it could become a bit of a slippery slope...

This is the sole page (on a site of thousands of pages) that has had me blocking individual advertisers -- dozens and dozens of them, and the rubbish just keeps coming -- all related to a single topic that has nothing whatsoever to do with the page. All other sub-section pages related to the same country show consistently on-target adverts. Frustrating!

In the end I removed one adblock, but I've kept the other to keep an eye on things and wait for the day the dial is spun back the other way and I once again start seeing the very relevant, on target adverts I'd seen on the particular page for the previous 18 months.

Still on a positive note, they answered all my emails in a helpful manner.

fredw

11:12 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

I've got those responses in past times this has come up. In all those cases, I eventually found the offending word or phrase and was able to change the page and get it back on course (eventually, that always takes a day or three for the bot to catch up).

In this instance, the page was getting wierdly off topic ads, page full of "child security" ads, then page full of "Volunteer" ads (not PSAs). There were no related words or even homonyms that I could even imagine could cause these targetings.

But unlike those other times when Adsense responded to the effect of "the trageting is the targeting, we can't change it", upon inspection of the page, this time Adsense agreed with me, apologized, and fixed it, and the page is now magically on track.

So, even though many times they'll say they can't help, it can't hurt to email them about it, sometimes they can fix it.

Tropical Island

11:39 pm on Nov 1, 2006 (gmt 0)

But unlike those other times when Adsense responded to the effect of "the trageting is the targeting, we can't change it", upon inspection of the page, this time Adsense agreed with me, apologized, and fixed it, and the page is now magically on track.

This was the exact situation on a number of pages on my site. Once I sent them the URLs they fixed it.

Couldn't be happier with their customer service.