My Big Mistake With Google AdSense Section Targeting
By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News NetworkWednesday, August 13, 2008
I was one of the early adopters of Google AdSense section targeting technology for getting more contextual ads. Almost as soon as it came out I implemented them to highlight the key content of the site (or so I thought) for AdSense. However I made a BIG mistake.
First let’s look at the relevant documentation from Google:
“To implement section targeting, you’ll need to add a set of special HTML comment tags to your code. These tags will mark the beginning and end of whichever section(s) you’d like to emphasize or de-emphasize for ad targeting.”
The HTML tags to emphasize a page section take the following format:
“You can also designate sections you’d like to have ignored by adding a (weight=ignore) to the starting tag:”
My big mistake was to think google ad section start was for identifying ad content on my site, which I duly indicated. I didn’t realize I was getting less contextual ads as a result but if Google is to be believed it must be so.
I don’t know if there was any ambiguity in the original documentation or just a silly mistake on my part. However I am normally very careful with such things and if I could make such a big mistake I am sure some others can too.
Are you clear about what the tags mean for AdSense section targeting?
Now I will wait for few weeks and see if things improve (in terms of revenue).
Update: In hindsight (after 8 hours) I am not sure if Google’s documentation is correct. It could even be that Google’s implemented of section targeting leaves much to be desired. I was told from very very reliable source to remove section targeting as ads went haywire after I implemented following Big G’s guidelines.
Tags: AdSense Section Targeting, Google, Google AdSense, Google AdSense Section Targeting, Google is, Things
|
September 8, 2010: 11:11 am
But something different happened with me I used it and my earning increased 50 % |
|
June 23, 2010: 11:43 pm
Nice site.I agree with your post, Adsense section targetting appears to do more damage than good in my opinion.Thanks for sharing |
|
January 9, 2010: 7:37 pm
I agree with your post, Adsense section targetting appears to do more damage than good in my opinion. I’ve been using adsense section targetting on my site for sometime and I found that my ads (most of the time) were way off base. Cosmetic surgey ads being served for blogging articles? Well, after reading your post, I removed the adsense section targetting (but I left the weight ignore section targetting in place) and all of a sudden, my ads are now relevant to my content! I will monitor it for a week and let you know if my revenue is increased by this change. |
|
November 8, 2009: 8:49 am
infoadsense.com/context_sensitive_targeting.html In this website I have told exactly how to add HTML syntax in your website for context sensitive targeting. |
|
August 4, 2009: 5:13 am
Section targeting simply gives google suggestions which part to give more weight. You still have to make your site SEO friendly to have more relevant ads. |
|
April 10, 2009: 3:19 am
Google AdSense section targeting doesn’t appear to be functioning correctly. You might find your ads going way off base with section targeting. Try it out and you will know what I mean. |
|
August 23, 2008: 7:37 am
No and no. In fact after correctly implementing section targeting, I realized Google’s implementation of section targeting is screwed up. The ads were all completely wrong and apparently AdSense disregarded my correct (as per specs) section targeting! |
|
August 23, 2008: 2:41 am
Did you get the section targetiing to work again and if so did it reflect in revenue ? |
farman