Problem with ad URLs exceeding 1000 characters

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Problem with ad URLs exceeding 1000 characters

Seems like Target and Macy's so far

beggers

9:07 pm on May 20, 2008 (gmt 0)

My site is getting these ads with huge URLs -- too long for Internet Explorer to display, apparently. When I use the Adsense Preview tool, I get "Ad Request URL is longer than 1000 characters". Anyway, the bottom line is that the ads just displays as a white box or in the case of Target, a logo on the left and the rest of the space white.

It's just mind boggling that a URL would be longer than 1000 characters, but here's what a partial one looks like:

EDIT: I had to remove the URL because it screws up the formatting of the board.

fredw

10:40 pm on May 20, 2008 (gmt 0)

According to Microsoft, the maximum URL length is 2,083 characters in Internet Explorer. So, I wonder where this "longer than 1000" error message is coming from?

beggers

11:51 pm on May 20, 2008 (gmt 0)

I get that error message when I right-click on the ad and click on the Adsense Preview Tool. This is in IE7. Now that I'm looking at it again, I believe the error is coming from the Preview Tool.

I don't get that error on any other ads (and they all display fine).

All these URLs start off like this...

[ads.gmodules.com...]

I haven't been able to figure out how to block them, though. I can't tell what the target web site is. I tried blocking Target.com and that didn't work.

phranque

11:57 pm on May 20, 2008 (gmt 0)

this thread contains some information about practical url length limits [webmasterworld.com] for various browsers and servers.

Hobbs

1:30 am on May 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

I get that error message when I right-click on the ad

That's what you did wrong:
Right click on your page not the ad

The ad iframe will not bring up relevant ads to your page in the preview tool.

fredw

1:54 am on May 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

If you're trying to get the URL of the ad for filtering purposes:

1. Don't right-click on the ad in the preview tool, right-click on the ad in your page.

2. Don't right-click on the ad space, right-click on the ad title link. Then, in the resulting info, part of that will say "adurl=" and the part following that is the ad url.

beggers

5:38 am on May 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

Yes, I tried right-clicking on the page itself but the Target ad wasn't listed.

But the point of this was to determine why the ad wouldn't display and why I was getting an error about the URL being too long.

I wrote to Google and I think a robot responded. It didn't even mention my problem about the too-long URL, just a canned response about how to block the domain.

fredw

4:38 pm on May 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

In other words, you're only seeing this ad in the Preview Tool, not on your page?

I wouldn't worry about it. The preview tool is only a guide about what could possibly be shown on your site. It's not necessarily (and not usually) what's actually showing.

beggers

10:14 pm on May 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

No, I'm seeing the ads in my page. However, they aren't loading properly. I either get a partial ad or a white block. I've asked for these to be blocked. It's not the best way to solve the problem but at this point it's the only way.