Anyone Else See Problem with Adsense Preview Tool?

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Anyone Else See Problem with Adsense Preview Tool?

Preview not showing same ads as appear on site?

MikeNoLastName

10:55 am on Dec 7, 2007 (gmt 0)

I've noticed this for months now, but, recently especially when I try to track down the URL of MFA spam sites (in order to comp-filter them) which put different URLs in the ad than they actually redirect to, that they don't even show up in the Adsense preview! When you input the showing URL the domain is non-existant. They show up on my page, but when I click on the preview tool they are nowhere to be found, thus it is harder to filter them as you have to risk accidently clicking them to get the google-code and parse it.

greatstart

6:25 pm on Dec 7, 2007 (gmt 0)

I noticed that too. I don't know why people spend so much money on advertising only for the visitor who clicks the ad to wind up on a 404 page or a dead URL.

MikeNoLastName

10:06 am on Dec 10, 2007 (gmt 0)

I'm not so sure, that visitors are finding NOTHING(404), as much as the fact that the DISPLAYED URL is not matching the linked URL. However my point is that the Adsense preview tool is mostly broken because the ads IT displays are only about 50% of those that ACTUALLY display.

loner

5:02 pm on Dec 10, 2007 (gmt 0)

Nothing to worry about, it's just helping google to obscure data. One of the many nit-like things they could fix but won't.

My favorite is in the advanced reports, clicking on the year provides a selection up to 2037. I was thinking it might be a forecast, but it comes up with 'no data available.' I'm hoping this isn't an ominous prediction :)

My theory is that Google throws as much mud as it can at you on the way to anything that may help you have a contiguous look at what's going on. Really, how hard can it be to correct this kind of minor stuff? I mean, they have computers and artificial intelligence and all.

mmontala

10:11 am on Dec 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

I have that problem too but luckily the ads showing have a URL that I copied in the browsers address bar and saw the site. MFA is not the problem but the only thing is that the advertiser seems advertising on the wrong site. I have other sites that could fit to his/her ads but it frequently shows on my site not fit to his/her ads.

I have no choice but to filter it coz it is affecting my site's performance and competes with the other many good relevant ads.

tim222

1:46 am on Dec 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

The AdSense Preview tool is barely useful. For me the best way to deal with unwanted ads is to right-click the ad link and choose Copy Shortcut. The next step is to open Notepad and Paste the copied shortcut into the text editor.

Near the end of the pasted text will be something like "&adurl=http://www.blahblahblah" That is the actual destination.

Using this method is legitimate and in fact suggested by Google somewhere in their help pages. But the danger is you have to be really, really sure that you right click instead of left click :)

Side note. I don't have so much of a problem with MFA's as I do with off-topic ads, and advertisers who post a telephone number in their ad text.