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Don't Be Embarrassed By Your Google Ads

by Jeff 7/27/2008 10:34:00 AM

embarrassed monkey I'm sure its happened to all of us at one time or another. You're checking out your blog, reviewing comments or editing an article. Then you see it...the Google ad that is sticking out like the drunk guy with the tie around his head at your sister's wedding. Not that you have anything against the lifestyle of course, but let's be honest...it can be a little embarrassing when you're blog about cute little puppies starts displaying ads for "Hot Lesbian Lovers".

This happened to me very recently on my entertainment blog, Buzz Pirates. I made a bad joke about Hilary Swank being the object of affection for a certain lifestyle. And wouldn't you know it...the Google AdSense script picked those few words out of the crowd and decided to use that single phrase as the focus of their ads. So I decided to do a little digging to figure if there was a way to block certain words from being used by popular ad services. It turned out to be easier than I thought, but may not be something everyone is aware of. So I hope this little tip will help you to ensure that ads displayed on your blog remain relevant to your actual content.

The two primary ad services I use on BuzzMyBlog.com are Google AdSense and Kontera ads. It turns out that both of them have simple tags that you can place around words that you don't want to be used for generating contextual ads.

Google AdSense

In order to block certain phrases from being considered for AdSense ad generation, simply enclose the undesired text between HTML comments labeled "google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore)" and "google_ad_section_end". Like so...

Every lesbians fantasy, Hilary Swank

Kontera ContentLink

Kontera has a similar approach for filtering unwanted phrases from being labeled with their in-text ContentLink advertising. Simply enclose the text with <span></span> tags that have the attribute "name='KonaFilter'", like so...

<span name="KonaFilter">
Every lesbians fantasy, Hilary Swank
</span> >

Using these simple tips, you can ensure the advertising on your page remains relevant to the topic of your niche. I will be sure to update this post with any tips for other ad services as I learn them. Let me know if you have any requests or questions by leaving a comment.

Jeff

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Tags: adsense, kontera, filters, contextual advertising

How To

2 Simple Tips for Getting the Most Out of Google AdsenseHow to get the most out of Google Adsense for your particular blog.Monetizing Your Blog Part 3: Pay Per Click AdsPart Three of my Blog Monetization Strategy focusing on Pay Per Click Advertising.An AdSense Tip You Cannot Afford To IgnoreAn amazing tip to help you earn more with AdSense.

Comments

7/28/2008 5:47:14 AM

Hey thanks for the tip. Is there a code to reverse this? You know, instead of picking which phrases you want filtered out you pick what phrases you want the ad to focus on. Is this possible?

Luis Gross

7/28/2008 6:34:55 AM

Yes...you can instruct AdSense to only focus on specific content by putting it in between the following tags:

Jeff

7/28/2008 6:46:06 PM

Thats really great info. I was looking for such thing.

Guttu

7/28/2008 7:26:01 PM

I needed that. Thanks for the tip Jeff!

Luis Gross

7/29/2008 1:02:15 AM

This is a great tip , but does this violate Adsense policies ? I mean you can add some high paying keywords and tell Adsense to target them although your blog is not relevant to those key words

Nishadha

7/29/2008 1:23:27 AM

Hi Nishadha. I am sure this technique in general is not against AdSense policies. I found the information buried deep in the AdSense help pages.

However, taking advantage of this tip to focus on none relevant keywords might be a different story.

As far as I know, the AdSense engine needs more than just a couple words to generate ads. If you tried to wrap these tags around just a word or two, you'll probably get nothing more than a public service announcement! Might be worth a try though!