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AdSense Nonsense (Continued)
OK, so I've got an ad on my blog right now that says:
That is crazy. I post about a lot of stuff, but video mingling is not one of them.
If this is Google's powerful contextual engine in action, I am underwhelmed.
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Posted March 8, 2005 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
But Fred, this means you're a "sexy guy" - right?
Posted by: John Battelle | Mar 8, 2005 9:24:56 PM
Probably google needs to publish Adsense algorithm or guidelines to write an article to fetch the correct advertisements..:)
Posted by: Ruchit | Mar 9, 2005 1:10:31 AM
I'd like to think its because I started commenting on your posts. "Sexy" just follows me around... I can't help it.
Posted by: Charlie O'Donnell | Mar 9, 2005 7:09:08 AM
I am no AdSense pro but I believe you can filter this ad from appearing on your site by specifying the unwanted domain in your AdSense control panel. In case you were not already aware.
Posted by: Earle | Mar 9, 2005 8:48:16 AM
I'm sure you know this, but still the "mingling" ads probably have much more to do with the words that advertiser is bidding on than on how Google crawls your site. I manage and create pay-per-click ad campaigns everyday in my current position, and it's almost never Google that screws up. The advertisers usually bid on an obscure keyword or an industry jargon phrase that happens to have some overlap with another industry so you get two totally unrelated things connected by advertisers who don't know that certain terms overlap.
The second thing is that your site might contain incidental keyword phrases that advertisers have bid on. A good example of this is when the oldest person (the one person over 40 here) in our company wrote an ad campaign for a chocolates and candy website. He thought he should bid on the keyword "Chocolate star" and "Chocolate starfish" because the client sells both. A week after he placed the bid he noticed that the words had spent their budget for the month already. He couldn't figure out what was wrong so he came to me, and after five minutes of staring at the word "chocolate starfish" I remembered that in the late 90's Limp Bizkit released an album with that phrase in the title. So what had happened was his ad had started showing up on music content sites. The same thing could happen in thousands of ways, and it's exacerbated for you by the fact that your blog doesn't have one over arching topic. Adsense is a decently designed market so advertisers just need time either to succeed or be weeded out slowly.
Posted by: Cole | Mar 9, 2005 11:36:22 AM
There's a point at which just straight, blind advertising outperforms contextual algorithms. I was Chief Architect and later Director of Technology for Bolt (community site for young adults... I think Flatiron were investors?). We designed and implemented some very fancy and flexible segmentation and targeting tools to deliver both ads and editorial based on "interests" the users/members volunteered. Although this strategy sometimes did result in increased click-through (and/or more efficient use of inventory), we quickly discovered that some ads just perform better than others, no matter what the contextual relevance (especially anything vaguely sexual in nature). Put another way, teen and preteen girls click on Britney Spears whether or not they rank “music” above “movies” in their preferences.
How well do you think the ad performed from your blog versus the others that were shown at the same time!?
Posted by: Waldron Faulkner | Mar 9, 2005 1:03:58 PM
Are you breaching the adsense terms of service by "drawing any undue attention to the ads"?
Google has some smart cookies. Not only do they track the clicks (and I noticed that you kept their "googlesyndication.com" tracking link), but they search for violations as they crawl your site everyday. I speak from a personal experience.
Do the TOS suck? Yes, they do,
Posted by: Michael Weiksner | Mar 10, 2005 9:19:03 AM
Successful advertising depends first on getting the attention of the right audience (target market). Editorial context can be important (and increase response rates), but the audience and its attention is primary.
A nicely trafficked blog written by a male with content on music, New York City experiences, business models, VC, etc. might indicate a predominate male audience that's affluent and educated.
You may not write on high-end vacations, but if I sold them, I might consider placing an ad on your site.
Attention precedes response.
Posted by: sam parker | Mar 10, 2005 9:41:44 AM
Chocolate Starfish means asshole
Posted by: Chris | May 31, 2005 12:03:22 PM
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