Adsense Is REALLY Ticking Me Off!
Lately Google Adsense seems to be cloaking the Display URL on their Ad Units. And this really ticks me off for two very good reasons:
1) If I want to add a specific advertiser to my Competitive Ad Filter, so that it no longer displays on my site, I have no way to do that. The only way to do that is to put the Base URL into the filter. NOT cool for publishers!
2) If I am interested in something an advertiser has to offer, I NEVER click on the Ad Units on my own site. Instead I mouse over them (if the URL doesnt display with the ad itself) and note the address then open a new window to visit that site.
The screen shot of the Ad that you see in the top right corner of this post is a good example. They are showing up all over my sites, and obviously site-targeting my domains. And I have no way to remove their ads from my sites.
Why in the world would Google do this?
If anyone has a good answer for this, I’m all ears!
Just this morning I posted an update about my Free Weekly Webinars. I am looking for a new conference solution, so I was particularly interested in the related Ads that displayed in my Google Adsense unit.
I cant click on my own ads. And I cant even find out which site to check out!
Grrr 
Does this not TICK YOU OFF?
What gives?
Tags: google, adsense, google adsense, contextual advertising
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You know I haven’t even noticed this problem. I guess I haven’t been paying attention to the ads running on my site.
That is a little strange!
I would be willing to bet its hitting advertisers in the wallet too. I’m less likely to click on an ad when I cant see the URL. And as a publisher, I’m forced to go search for the ad title on Google and then click their paid listing to ever get to their site…
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Looking at it from Google’s side, I’m thinking that their move to remove the URL is for their bottom line.
Having the URL in the ad unit means that people can simply go straight to the URL without needing to click through on the advert (though unlikely…sometimes people can be lazy) and that means less money for Google in the end.
Google may also be trying to increase the click through rates somehow.
And I agree with you — it does make it difficult to filter out websites when they don’t show you the URL. Maybe enough advertisers complained they were being filtered?
Of course, that’s just wild speculation. I have no idea why they made the move.
But, like Stefani, I had no idea until you brought it up. I guess that ad blindness really has set in for me. LOL
~ Teli
Lynn, there is a way for you to find out the URLs behind the adsense ads: just right click on the ad, and a box will pop up: copy and pase the very long string you find there, and then paste it into notepad, and you’ll find the URL there, towards the end.
It’s not as easy as hovering over the ads, but you can get the info you are looking for.
Hope that helps.
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Thank you Adriana
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Lynn
If you insall the Adsense Preview Tool (from Google)
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10005&ctx=en:search&query=Google+AdSense+preview+tool&topic=&type=f
That lets you see the url plus is useful to show what ads may be shown on any page
Thank you- That should prove very helpful!
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I know exactly what you mean! I noticed this as well! Sometimes I really want to see what is on the other side of that ad! Sounds interesting but I can’t enjoy.
Hmmm. This is weird. Why is it that I still have adsense that have the display url on it? How did you do this? Is this automatic?
On the advertisers’ side, this can be a disadvantage. They can be paying more because of this.
Its not anything I did on my end, Geoff – but its still a problem. I assume you can see that by viewing the ads at the top of this page?
It bugs me :p
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
not sure what you mean at point 1. If you want to deny ads from a url/advertiser just add it in your competitive filter and it works.