Jason notes on his blog a forum post that explains why Findory can suggest keywords for its AdSense but you can’t.
I searched around online and found a forum post which explains that: “This is something some publishers can use with permission in extreme cases where there are targeting issues (primarily Premium publishers, I believe). It is against the terms to use it without permission from the AdSense team. ” So Google must allow you to use the feature.
So, why can’t everyone just use the feature? Can you imaging if Google ads received your post categories or tags on a per-page basis, and how much that would improve targetting? Now, Google will say that widespread use would lead to widespread abuse, but I say that’s crap. AdSense is already abused by being put on pages with fake, keyword rich content and on parked domains, and this would be a step up.
If Google is not prepared to open these features to the whole Google Network, then it is going to continue to see lower than necessary clickthrough rates on blogs. Blogs lose a lot of ad clicks because AdSense decides the most relevant keyword is the word “blog”, and there isn’t a person on earth who actually needs to click on an advertisement for blogs.
If Google wants to see low-traffic bloggers actually satisfied with AdSense, they need to let them do the targetting, or at least keyword banning. Back when I was on BlogSpot (and my traffic was a fraction of what it currently is) I had AdSense, and I was so dissatisfied I marooned those ads when switching to my current hosting. Even though my current traffic might net a little more cash, I’d still rather put a shiny (and low-paying) Napster ad in my sidebar, because at least it doesn’t detract from the user experience with great ad copy like:
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Am I the only person who feels ads like that insult the user and marr a perfectly good page, while a small image protrays professionalism and can be chosen to fit the target audience? So, yes, I’d rather put a lower paying image ad chosen from Advertising.com in my sidebar than AdSense, because I chose to put it there, and I know you guys are more likely to be interested in Napster or T-Mobile than whatever Google has wrongly determined to be relevant.
Those ads are currently sitting at the old InsideGoogle, a site with the same exact content as this one! Without the ability to tell Google “No, my users don’t care about these ads, or any like them” AdSense is useless to me. I’d love the ability to have relevant ads, but I’m only seeing it from other networks which present me with a list of ads, and let me put them on my page.
You want statistics? That Expoactive text link on the right-hand side has earned me $278.20 over two months, the first $200 coming in a four week period. AdSense can’t compete with that, not with ads for “Free Blog Creator” or “Victorian Web Templates”. And guess what? I inserted my referral URL in this paragraph so I could earn my commission if you want to see why they earned me so much money. That’s an ad too! And Google can’t offer me that.
Links:
Jason’s Blog Entry
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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