An explanation of why Google ( and not as many thought, the EU ) insisted that non EU adsense publishers had to put in place an EU cookie privacy notification system by September 30th 2015, even if they had just one EU visitor ?

The EU didn't ask Google to tell publishers to do this..

Is that "notification" really mandatory for non EU publishers ?..

If it is not ?..

Can non EU publishers ignore it ( not bother placing it ) without having any risk to their accounts..now or in the future, from Google ?..

Yes someone from Google spoke about it in passing ..but a confirmation / clarification directly from the "Google's new Head of Publisher Policy Communications"..AKA , new "Adsense Guy" ..would, I'm certain set many non EU publisher's minds at ease..

For EU publishers the EU cookie privacy notification when a visitor ( EU or Non EU ) arrives at their site, is already ( has been for a few years now ) mandatory under EU laws..

And..Yes..This..

The solution: a whitelisted channel
Offer publishers a Whitelisted Channel they can opt-in to so as to display only non-intrusive Adblocker approved text ads. That way we too can have our ads show up, just like Google's own search ads.

Why are ads not rotated as much as they used to be?

I went through one of my sites the other day and the same ad was shown on 20 consecutive pages plus it was not even relevant to my widgets. If there is such a dearth of ads I would rather have 20 irrelevant ads on 20 pages rather than the single one.

I've been told that we can ask questions here and that this would be forwarded to John Brown, the new AdSense Guy.

But do we have any mechanism to track that he has read the comments addressed to him? And if so, what is the mechanism for him replying? Get those basics out in the open,, and clear and I'm sure this thread will go ballistic.

If not, it's all a bit pointless. I've farted too often into the wind just to be ignored.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. My bad. He will be replying on a post in SearchEngineJournal.com. He will be reading these questions here on WebmasterWorld.

I just hope we don't burn John Brown off - I've seen it happen on too many forums in the past. Sometimes with good reason for speaking the truth about failings of a particular programme, however more often not justified. This usually led to the representative throwing their arms up in the air, never to be heard from again.

Scoring our own goal.

Agreed - as frustrating as AdSense can be right now, there's no point in us shooting the messenger. We should welcome Google's new willingness to engage with publishers, and treat John with respect. The more constructive we can be, the more everyone (including Google) stands to gain from this relationship.

I often wish Google would treat publishers more like partners - but that cuts both ways.

Anyway - here are a couple of questions:

* Has any consideration been given to allowing publishers to help adsense with ad targeting via hints? I have been able to do this for adsense for search in the past when I had an account manager - and it made a dramatic and positive difference to relevance, CTR and revenue.

* Would Google consider expanding the Experiments feature to allow more comprehensive split testing, perhaps including testing different sizes of ad unit in a given position, or even different ad positions within the page.

* Would Google consider making it much easier for publishers to sign up new advertisers for their sites using the AdWords / AdSense platform to serve the ads?

Thanks!

Here's a question: I now, unlike the past, am able to make these large (basically unlimited pages), so I wonder if there's the possibility of putting more than three AdSense ads on a page?


FarmBoy

I wonder if there's the possibility of putting more than three AdSense ads on a page

Which of course prompts me to ask the question - why do we see the proliferation of AdBlockers?

Can't Adsense serve ads simply?

Why can't it simply be:

"show_ads.js?google_ad_client=ca-pub-xxx&google_ad_slot=xxxxx"

and then return the javascript code:

document.write("<a href="xxxx"><img src="xxxx"></a>");

Actually, there are tons of files being loaded, and tons of redirects to all kind of domains. Why all these stuff can't be done on server side, and just return the javascript code?

Which of course prompts me to ask the question - why do we see the proliferation of AdBlockers?

Or to ask my same question in a different way -

Suppose I have a page with lots of content, but I'm limited to having three AdSense ads on that page. So in an effort to increase my ads, in hopes of generating more income, I decide to break down that page into 10 different pages, each with NEXT Page links, and now with 3 ads per page, or a total of 30 ads, on what was previously just 3 ads on 1 page.

Would more people want an adblocker when seeing more ads, or the single page with fewer ads?

Note: If you see a question and want to start a discussion about it, please start it in a new thread. I'd like to keep this discussion focused on questions.

Thanks!
mb

I'd add a comment about the general trend on the value of mobile to AdSense. As a publisher, I want my site to work well, so i've invested my time to make it so for my site visitors, but i also want AdSense to be effective in a mobile environment. I'd be keen to know what plans there might be to help achieve the goal of an effective AdSense on mobile. Then, of course, there's the big problem of ad blockers on mobile, and desktop. This really is a big problem for any publisher.

Thanks

Isn't it possible for Adsense to use an alternative method to serve ads? Beside Javascript, can't we have an API which can be used on the server side?

We could make a call to this API to retrieve the HTML code of the ad. And this code can embed graphics in base64. Like that it wouldn't be blocked anymore by ad blockers.

And if there is a risk this HTML code be altered on the fly to abuse the system, I am sure that Adsense's engineers are smart enough to figure a way to prevent it.

Isn't it possible for Adsense to use an alternative method to serve ads?

That is not a viable solution because it goes against the wishes of the user. Violating the user's express wish is not a good approach. Focus: It's not about the ad blockers. It's about the users who choose to use them. To go against the user violates Google's policy of putting the user experience first, so I'm certain that circumventing ad blockers is off the table and not going to happen. I am certain that is the reason Google has chosen not to violate the wishes and intent of the user.

If you wish to discuss that topic further (and it's a good topic :)), I encourage you to begin a new discussion (so as not to take this discussion off topic). Thanks! ;)

Focus: It's not about the ad blockers. It's about the users who choose to use them. To go against the user violates Google's policy of putting the user experience first, so I'm certain that circumventing ad blockers is off the table and not going to happen.

I'm in full agreement MB.

While another thread may be useful, and certainly has the advantage of not distracting this one, I think to some extent we have already thrashed to death the rights of the user versus the rights of publishers to ram advertisements down visitors throats.

For every action there is often a polar opposite reaction. For users, AdBlockers are merely a self defence mechanism.

Another question of Google, if even they read it. Isn't it the time to diversify Adsense to include other kind of advertising material? For example, like for affiliate programs, serving ads which are showing products from Google shopping? Serving articles-like ads, like Taboola does (no matter what you think about their ads), etc...

Isn't it the time to diversify Adsense to include other kind of advertising material? For example, like for affiliate programs,

Sounds like something they've tried before, PPA I believe it was called.

It would be nice to know if they ever consider giving that a second try.

Why wouldn't Adsense also propose surveys rights into the ad blocs? I am sure companies would be interested in paying for this, and with the power of Google at tracking us, I am sure they can draw the profile of who answered.

How about updating the AdSense Heatmap for 2015, with alternatives for different layouts? Google must by now have all the data as to what works on every type of screen, but I believe the only image they still have is the desktop verison.

It could be great also, if we can pass "hints" to the Adsense code, for the kind of ads we would like to see on such or such page. For example, to mention if we would prefer to display on a given page "entertainment" ads, on another "sports" one, etc, etc... I know that Google is supposed to know best, and read in our minds. But still I wish we can add this kind hint.

Media.net has a hint parameter for example.

I also wish Adsense could open in a tab or window, like in China, and like "premium publishers" have the right to do (they have so much more rights than averages ones, unlimited ads per page, ads in floating boxes, ads under titles, ads under images, etc... *sarcasm*)

Pro tip - it's probably less than effective to put your sarcasm in the same post as your suggestion/wish list. You might want to spread it apart a bit more.

I do believe I have the best question. If we think back we had a discussion here about some double action ads that some publishers were rumored to be dealing with. A very tricky one to diagnose... If this was BS and is BS, then it would have to be the Google giving the official word. This is a portion from that original publisher post on the matter:

i discovered that my ads (i only run text ads) became those 2 clicks ads where the user need to click the arrow and then the arrow will change it's form into a "Visit Website" button. In this type of ads a user needs to click 2 times in order for a click to be counted. After 3 days like this my overall CTR dropped by 80%.
It happened both on mobile and desktop (not on tablets though).

I couldn't find any info about it on the web.
Does anyone know why it happened? is it a punishment? is it another google test? will it stay forever on the domain? is there a way to get rid of it?

So my question is.... Is there a situation where a publishers ads will require a double click to action rather than the typical one click.

MrSavage, I'm not sure if I'm missing the obvious here, but Link Units require the user to make two clicks.
1. user clicks on one of X text headlines and is redirected to a landing page with X new ads
2. user clicks through one of the ads

In this case, however, the first click will result in an impression, and only the second one as an actual click. Does that answer your question?

Reference: "Visit Website"/Double Click Ads [webmasterworld.com] (i.e. not Link Units)

Can anything be done to make AdSense faster?

I've just gone through a process to speed my main site up - and after a lot of effort I've got the load time for a lot of pages < 2s. Apart from the AdSense that is, which often takes a further 6 or 7 seconds to load.

Considering Google cares a lot about site speed, AdSense can be very slow...

Question 1:
Is there a way to see the type of ads that actually get clicked? The current ad review center is some what worthless in my view, we can view ads that are shown, but we have no way of telling how often people actually see those and where they saw those, and the interface is pretty hard to use. It gets worse for people with more than 1 niche of sites under their account, may be an ad is good for 1 site but horrible for another. Perhaps a general break down of target sites and ads that visitors actually click on with the landing page information.

Question 2:
Right now we can see the stats based on the sites, could they be fine tuned to be on the URL? If information can be given about pages where the ads that actually get clicked on. This way we can also get more clues about "pages" that actually convert from the standpoint of ad clicks. And perhaps create more content based on those URL specific CTR.

It'll be a nice information to have to know what kind of information visitors are interested with, then create content based on that data. Sometimes as a publisher I do feel like shooting at the dark and hope something sticks.

Frankleeceo - I have a feeling that if we could see the type of ads that actually get clicked, the amount of click fraud grow even higher. As for your second question - you can do that be assigning individual channels to your ads and you can also get good information by linking your AdSense account to your Analytics account (for seeing how much a page earns for example)

I just wanted to mention, that I don't think its necessary to ask him if the 2 step ads exist, they definitely do. I can take a video of it for you right now, it happens all the time.

@poppill, supply a official Google statement on those and how or when they are implemented. The question is intended on taking the guesswork out of Adsense ads and policies. I can run different ad networks if I I'm getting double click for pay ads. Those are link unit characteristics which everyone knows when they put up a link unit. The other ad units? Yeah, who woulda thunk it.