Does Google serve irrelevant ads for certain domains on purpose.

[oldtimer]

Does google serve irrelevant ads for certain extensions on purpose.

Has anyone noticed that no matter how much you optimize a site around certain keywords and no matter how clear it is as to what your title, description and domain name are about, google still manages to serve the wrong ads that are of no value to the visitors. I am not talking about sites that are shady or of inappropriate nature, but legitimate sites that might be about travel or real estate for major and popular cities in the US, now google always wants to blame the lack of content for not giving a site high ranking, but if the visitors are already on the site either through type-in traffic or long tail searches, then who’s fault is it that they can’t see relevant ads to what they are interested in.

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[alien51]

Based on the explanations i have read in the past regarding that issue, they said it is because if your website/domain has low page rank, you tend to get matched with low-ball cheapskate Google Adwords bidders. And these lowball bidders (because they bid cheap), can post their ads on a wide range of niches and it is inevitable that some of these ads won't match your domain as accurate as what you might have wanted.

If you block out these lowball bidders, the end result is that your domain will show Bible ads or Ringtone ads and all other ads that give you 0.02 cents per click.

What is your page rank on the said domain anyway?

 

[oldtimer]

Based on the explanations i have read in the past regarding that issue, they said it is because if your website/domain has low page rank, you tend to get matched with low-ball cheapskate Google Adwords bidders. And these lowball bidders (because they bid cheap), can post their ads on a wide range of niches and it is inevitable that some of these ads won't match your domain as accurate as what you might have wanted.

If you block out these lowball bidders, the end result is that your domain will show Bible ads or Ringtone ads and all other ads that give you 0.02 cents per click.

What is your page rank on the said domain anyway?

The page rank is on the low side, but even then the question is when you clearly define a site as to be related to a certain subject which I am sure that google recognizes, then why does google serve totally irrelevant ads and once they do so who’s fault is it that the visitors don’t get what they are looking for.


For example:


Domain Name: clearly related to travel to Los Angels

Title, Description, Content: all optimized towards visiting Los Angeles

Ads served by google: totally irrelevant, not necessarily useless, but irrelevant to Los Angeles nevertheless.


One expects to see ads about Los Angeles attractions, restaurants, hotels, and airfare and alike, but there are no such ads anywhere to be seen.

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[alien51]

I think the answer is because Google pays top dollar to domains that are as useful as possible to consumers.

And domain "usefulness" is measured by Google using page rank.

And page rank is not centered around just having keyword domains or optimized keywords inside them.

Evenif your domains are honestly helpful to travelers to Los Angeles for example, I'm sure you got beaten out by other domains that are much much more useful (in the eyes of Google) to readers (that's why they have higher page rank than yours).

So again, what is left out are the cheapskate ad bidders, which unfortunately do not care much whether their ads are relevant to your domain or not.

And lastly, Google Ads are served by a machine. So evenif you are an honest domainer providing useful content, you still need to overcome the "Google Algorithm" which is based on page ranking.

 

[oldtimer]

I think the answer is because Google pays top dollar to domains that are as useful as possible to consumers.

And domain "usefulness" is measured by Google using page rank.

And page rank is not centered around just having keyword domains or optimized keywords inside them.

Evenif your domains are honestly helpful to travelers to Los Angeles for example, I'm sure you got beaten out by other domains that are much much more useful (in the eyes of Google) to readers (that's why they have higher page rank than yours).

So again, what is left out are the cheapskate ad bidders, which unfortunately do not care much whether their ads are relevant to your domain or not.

And lastly, Google Ads are served by a machine. So evenif you are an honest domainer providing useful content, you still need to overcome the "Google Algorithm" which is based on page ranking.

I understand “page rank” and "Google Algorithm" and their effect on where a site might end up on google as far as whether its shown on page one or page ten of the search results, I also understand the fact that we are dealing with a “machine”, but this is not 1999 anymore today’s super intelligent machines can recognize what a site is all about because they understand the content and the theme of the site regardless of all the SEO tactics that we are brainwashed to believe over the years. These are the same super intelligent machines that can eavesdrop on millions of phone conversations simultaneously and if they can understand what all those people are saying to each other every minute of the day then I am sure that they can recognize what a website is all about even if the writings are backwards or upside down.

If google requires a certain level of quality, usefulness, and popularity for a site to be shown on the first page of the search results then that is perfectly understandable and how those factors are determined through page rank and google algorithm is totally up to Google and I have no issues with that (provided that certain search results or ad placements are not skewed by human factors to benefit certain businesses more than others), what I have a problem with is if the visitors to my travel or real estate site are coming there because they saw my domain name in a brochure or heard it on the radio and when they got to the site google serves them totally irrelevant ads which makes my site look bad, which in this case it is google that is failing to provide useful content for the visitors not me.


PS: It seems like this thread has just been moved from the "Domain Name Discussion" section to here by one one the mods.

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[enlytend]

Page rank has NOTHING to do with what Adsense ads are displayed on your site.

When you see irrellevant ads (and they're not PSA's) it's usually one of three things:

1) A small advertiser pool.
a) You can have a lot of advertisers for certain topics, but they may have requested that their ads are shown only on specific websites.

2) Too much untargeted content on the page.

3) Are the ads related to sites you've visited or topics you've searched recently? You're seeing personalized results based upon remarketing and/or interest categories.

 

[oldtimer]

Page rank has NOTHING to do with what Adsense ads are displayed on your site.

That was my thinking too.

When you see irrellevant ads (and they're not PSA's) it's usually one of three things:

1) A small advertiser pool.
a) You can have a lot of advertisers for certain topics, but they may have requested that their ads are shown only on specific websites.

What you are saying is probably true if the site was about an obscure subject, but I doubt that there are not enough advertisers when it comes to Los Angeles travel and tourism, and I doubt that all those advertisers have opted out from advertising on my site.

2) Too much untargeted content on the page.

As I said before google certainly knows what a site is all about if the theme of the site is geared to a certain subject regardless of how little or big the content is.

3) Are the ads related to sites you've visited or topics you've searched recently? You're seeing personalized results based upon remarketing and/or interest categories.

I have noticed this kind of ads too which relate to the visitors previous searches or interests, that’s why when I go to my site I see some ads related to my local area instead of Los Angeles, but these are only a few ads here and there.


I think that there is a flaw in the way that google wants to put all the responsibility for having quality content on our shoulders and then they themselves turn around and serve irrelevant ads which will have a negative effect on the visitors by giving them a bad experience about the website. If google is causing the visitors to become unhappy then who is going to hold google accountable for the lack of quality and relevant content on their part.

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[enlytend]

I doubt that there are not enough advertisers when it comes to Los Angeles travel and tourism, and I doubt that all those advertisers have opted out from advertising on my site.

They don't opt OUT of certain sites - they choose targeted placements (pick the sites they want to bid for) instead of network-wide placement.

This is what made me think interest-based/remarketing:

not necessarily useless, but irrelevant to Los Angeles nevertheless.

What do your pages look like with the Adsense preview tool?

Just what I've seen as the usual suspects - without knowing your site it's impossible to do more than guess.

 

[oldtimer]

They don't opt OUT of certain sites - they choose targeted placements (pick the sites they want to bid for) instead of network-wide placement.

This is what made me think interest-based/remarketing:



What do your pages look like with the Adsense preview tool?

Just what I've seen as the usual suspects - without knowing your site it's impossible to do more than guess.

Thanks for your reply anyway, I wonder if there are a lot of other people who are getting irrelevant ads on their site, if so then this is not a problem with just one site, but more about how google expects quality from us, but doesn't deliver when its their turn.

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[alien51]

I experienced this myself. I had a couple of domains getting irrelevant ads before as well, that's why i'm replying to your thread. I did ask this before in the Adsense discussion forums elsewhere on the internet, so i'm just relaying here the info i got from there.

The irrelevant ads were showing up on my domains related to FASHION and FOOD & DINING. Checking out the competition, i don't think there is a shortage in advertiser pool. But the domains affected where usually newly developed ones. I have 8 other fully developed domains on FASHION and FOOD & DINING, and they are not getting irrelevant ads.

Analyzing back your previous post, i think what you meant with "irrelevant ads" is that you want the ads to be an exact match to your article. For example, if your article is about Dining Places in Los Angeles, you want Google to show ads from restaurants in the Los Angeles area - not just ads about any other restaurant or perhaps a sales pitch on a cook book about the meal you mentioned in the article (which by your standards, would have been irrelevant).

 

[oldtimer]

I experienced this myself. I had a couple of domains getting irrelevant ads before as well, that's why i'm replying to your thread. I did ask this before in the Adsense discussion forums elsewhere on the internet, so i'm just relaying here the info i got from there.

The irrelevant ads were showing up on my domains related to FASHION and FOOD & DINING. Checking out the competition, i don't think there is a shortage in advertiser pool. But the domains affected where usually newly developed ones. I have 8 other fully developed domains on FASHION and FOOD & DINING, and they are not getting irrelevant ads.

Analyzing back your previous post, i think what you meant with "irrelevant ads" is that you want the ads to be an exact match to your article. For example, if your article is about Dining Places in Los Angeles, you want Google to show ads from restaurants in the Los Angeles area - not just ads about any other restaurant or perhaps a sales pitch on a cook book about the meal you mentioned in the article (which by your standards, would have been irrelevant).

My domain and website is about Los Angeles travel and tourism and so the ads can be of a more general nature as long as they relate to visiting Los Angeles, but if google shows ads about airfare to Alaska or getting the best deals on kitchen appliances from a store that is not even close to Los Angeles then that’s what I consider irrelevant ads and even though I might get a few clicks on those ads here and there, but they just don’t go with the theme of my site.

Anyways, thanks for everyone's comments, I will do some more research about this to see if it has to do with my site or if there is a bigger problem with the way that google delivers these ads.

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[alien51]

I guess that's a common problem with contextual advertising. Otherwise, not too many Los Angeles-based advertisers are really targetting your website in terms of ad placement - and that's where website preference comes in. They told me that if an advertiser is targetting to do placement ads, he'd rather choose a website with a high pagerank where he has much better chances that clicks will turn into sales.

 

[enlytend]

They told me that if an advertiser is targetting to do placement ads, he'd rather choose a website with a high pagerank where he has much better chances that clicks will turn into sales.

When you do placement targeting, you browse a list of sites by category (all of which have opted in to display placement-targeted ads.) Each listing includes an estimated range of site traffic levels.

Since the higher traffic sites are likely to have more backlinks, they will probably also have higher TBPR.

I manage ad campaigns for clients, and personally I never bother to look at toolbar pagerank - it certainly isn't an across-the-board predictor of conversion rates! But if I liked the traffic stats, I would check out an unfamiliar site to see if it looked like a good match and not something that would reflect badly on the client.

 

[dadooo]

Hello,

Specialist used to thinks that the ( Title, Description ) has the upper hand in determining the ads that will appear.I agree with them. But words density has a good impact to in this process. I have saw many irrelevant ads, but they were appearing in queer subjects like science and these stuff where there are no enough ads.