You might want to just turn off graphic ads entirely. At least then you can see who to block.

Unfortunately for many of my sites turning off graphic ads isn't an option as there are some that are very well targetted and get a lot of clicks.

I'm absolutely fuming as it's happened again today and has hit my earnings hard; a number of my sites have been full of flash image ads from a well known British bank. Not only have they been taking up the main slot on the page, they've been taking up EVERY ad slot on the page, all showing identical ads.

My site is being hit with these ads today and it's apparently seriously hurting CTR and earnings.

The ads are completely off target for my site.

It's something like having a site about basketball and running ads for plumbing services. It's just nuts!

Unfortunately for many of my sites turning off graphic ads isn't an option

It is an option; it's just one you don't want to use. But a short trial might not be all that bad. Text ads might even get more clicks.

I've already experimented in the past eeek and disabling image ads isn't worthwhile and nets less clicks on average for me, apart from the odd day like today where I get hit with totally irrelevant ads from large corporations.

For now I've had to disable images and I've blocked as many URL's as I can find that relate to the company, I'll try enabling images again in the morning once the filter has (hopefully) kicked in.

I just wish we could specify minimums for placements. If i'm going to display ads that nobody will click on, at least pay me well for it.

Use firefox, then view page info menu when you right click on the page. You'll be able to see all the media sources appearing on your site, including flash.

Right click on many of these ads and paste the shortcut into a text file. Isolate the destination URL and paste into a browser window, when you get there compare the site you landed on with the ads content.

Don't be surprised if it is not only totally unrelated to the ad in question but, of course as we know, it also happens to be irrelevant to your site.

Oh! If the shortcut contains keywords don't be surprised to see your page title there.

ASA where can we complain about this, send screen shots and the content of the above text file?

These are not interest based ads. I don't surf dating sites.

Right click on many of these ads and paste the shortcut into a text file.

That just gives you the Flash menu.

Use firefox, then view page info menu when you right click on the page. You'll be able to see all the media sources appearing on your site, including flash.

Well, gee, the source is Google:

[pagead2.googlesyndication.com...]

I think we already knew that.

That just gives you the Flash menu

Not the one I encountered last week, possibly not a flash ad but none the less a downright annoyance.

Not the one I encountered last week, possibly not a flash ad

That sounds like a regular graphic ad.

why cant google give us a preview type tool, that lists the URLS for ads shown on the currently viewed page, whether they be text , image or flash ads ? rather than the current tool that could show 1 of 100's that may be shown. why offer a filter, when you cant filter the ads you want gone....

why cant google give us a preview type tool, that lists the URLS for ads shown on the currently viewed page

I wasn't all that long ago that Google didn't even bother checking if flash was install. I normally run Opera with plugins (i.e. flash) disabled and I'd see blank ads quite a bit. Now they check and don't send flash if you don't have flash.

I've been hit again, this time with ads from a dating company, taking up every ad box on a page. Fortunately they are standard image ads so it's easy to find where they are and block them properly but it's still annoying when they occupy every ad block. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen with any ads; I accept that the odd overlap with text ads can occur but it's wholly unnacceptable with images like this as it just completely kills a sites earnings.

It would be nice if ASA could look into this.

I have among my visitors young high school children researching homework.

I don't think some of these ads are appropriate at all.

The unrelated image dating ads really kill income.

How to kill those infernal dating ads? Adding the domain to your filter only gets the same ad again with a new domain name.

Frustrating.