I've been throwing sites into the banlist lately. Belly fat ads, background check ads, topics that have nothing to do with my site.
Poor user experience = Banlist.
Been using your banlist lately?
netmeg
7:28 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
Nope.
HuskyPup
7:37 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
Me neither, all the ads I see on my sites seem pretty well targetted.
Chapman
7:41 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
Oddly, I am using that option less all the time. The combination of shutting off interest based ads, scrutinizing ads through the review center and blocking certain AdWords accounts has provided me with an ad set that I'm actually quite proud of.
I've even been able to go back to the ban list and remove a significant number I had previously added - except for a basic set of offenders like ask, bidz, ebid, yahoo, etc. I found that without interest based ads being shown, the belly fat ads and the like seem to stay away.
[edited by: Chapman at 7:45 pm (utc) on Mar 6, 2013]
ember
7:44 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
I don't use it and we have a very healthy CTR, so I don't think we need it.
martinibuster
8:41 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
I found that without interest based ads being shown, the belly fat ads and the like seem to stay away.
Wow, that's really interesting! I allow IABs and now I'm wondering whether I should continue.
The responses by publishers that they're not using the ban list is interseting as well. I haven't used the AdSense Ban List in years. But looking around the site the last few days I realized there were too many poor user experience type ads. So I started again.
Chapman
8:47 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
@martini
Surprisingly, I make more now with IBAs turned off than I did with them turned on. I have to assume some of the CBAs are still counted as interest based if they fit the bill - which is why I'm still showing income.
Anyway, once I turned the IBAs off... all ads were right on target no matter what technique I used to view the sites.
netmeg
9:24 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
My problem is once I start with that, I can't stop. It kind of triggers an OCD like response.
netmeg
9:28 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
My problem is once I start with that, I can't stop. It kind of triggers an OCD like response.
I also repeat myself
jadebox
10:06 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
I used to use it often, mainly to get rid of the ads that are just an image of a "Download" button (why would Google approve those images for ads?). But, I haven't seen those ads on any of my sites recently.
piatkow
11:26 pm on Mar 6, 2013 (gmt 0)
That made me look and I saw one straight away. That one went straight on the blocked list although I haven't usually been bothering with it this year.
