Tailoring specific ads with Adsense

[Alvin63]

I've just started using Google Adsense and have one vertical sidebar ad on the forum page. I'm using Ads Manager Lite, which helped a lot, but in terms of the types of ads I could do with some help from those who know more about it.

In adsense I've blocked various categories. I'd like to block more but some aren't available to block (says too big to block). Also there isn't a category I would like (ie no specific category for pet products - assume that comes under home things).

I'd like to really streamline the type of ads that show - is there any way of doing that? Eg choosing specific advertising sites?

 

[bzcomputers]

I wouldn't waste too much time on trying to block specific ad categories other than those that may be offensive to your audience.

Adsense was coded to show ads to your visitors that are both a combination of relevant to your site content and relevant to the visitor, leaning more on the later. Adsense knows what makes the most profit for them and in turn the most profit for you and will always be better at making that happen than any individual site could do on their own.

That being said, I understand that it is nice to show mostly ads specific to your forum content even if it means less ad income. The truth is limiting AdSense's total ad inventory by blocking lots of categories will significantly lower your ad income. Individual ad interest is calculated by demographics, personal interests, browsing behavior, time of year (holidays), etc. Adsense takes this all into account, something a site admin could never do on there own.

Some things to remember with Adsense:
1) If you are new to Adsense, and/or have new ad positions. It takes time for advertisers to find and bid for those positions. Be sure your keywords are accurate, your site is popular, and advertisers will eventually come bringing better more relevant ads and more profit.
2) The ads you see are likely not the same ads someone else visiting your site will see. Ads are tailored to not only your site but to individual visitors.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks, that is very helpful. When you mention keywords - I'm not that up on that. Where specifically are you talking about keywords? Do you mean on my site, or is there a place to enter keywords in Adsense?

I'm also trying to look at adjusting colours to go with the forum colours. I did see that option at one point on adsense but can't see it now, after going through all the menus. Is it something that only appears when you first set up an ad and choose the size etc?

 

[Alvin63]

I'd like to put a border or header on the ads to tone in with the forum or some other kind of colour adjustment. I'm also using Siropu's Ads Manager Lite 2.

 

[bzcomputers]

Thanks, that is very helpful. When you mention keywords - I'm not that up on that. Where specifically are you talking about keywords? Do you mean on my site, or is there a place to enter keywords in Adsense?

I'm also trying to look at adjusting colours to go with the forum colours. I did see that option at one point on adsense but can't see it now, after going through all the menus. Is it something that only appears when you first set up an ad and choose the size etc?

AdSense use to allow for a description of where each ad unit is displayed, the keywords placed there allowed for advertisers to more easily locate ads relevant to there ad inventory. Now this is all done behind the scene and the keywords are automatically propagated from your site content where the display ad code renders.

I'd like to put a border or header on the ads to tone in with the forum or some other kind of colour adjustment. I'm also using Siropu's Ads Manager Lite 2.

As for colors. It is recommended to not place borders or other distinguishing marks around ad content. AdSense does its' best to blend the ads into your content so as to not make them stick out. They have found blending the ads in is visually less intrusive and more acceptable to site visitors.

Siropu's add-on works great for AdSense and is very well maintained. The Lite version works well, especially when getting started. If your site grows to the point where you are selling ad spots directly you will need to upgrade to the full add-on version. At that point the small cost for the add-on will be insignificant compared to your ad income.

 

[Alvin63]

Thank you very much for the help. Initially the ads were dominating the forum colourwise, but since I have unblocked topic sections in adsense, and left them all unblocked, they are seeming to tone in more with the look of the forum. I am actually wanting to sell ad spots directly - just not sure how to go about approaching companies - apart from emailing them and asking and being a bit vague as have no idea what they'd normally pay.

Good to know I don't need to worry about keywords. But - the names I gave each ad were pretty boring - like "sidebar ad". So maybe I should change those names (if it's possible to do so after the event).

 

[bzcomputers]

Yes, be descriptive with the name. At some point you may have multiple "sidebar ads" at different locations on your site. The name at a minimum should include the ad position.

Example Names:
Global Below Top Breadcrumb
Global Above Bottom Breadcrumb
Forum Below Every 5th Post
Forum Sidebar Top Widget

AdSense years ago warned that changing anything about the ad unit (i.e. Name, Description (no longer used), Size, etc.) would cause you to lose existing bidders for that ad unit. I did a quick search and didn't find anything currently mentioning this. That being said, I wouldn't want to continually make changes once an ad unit is setup just in case. Set the ad unit up and if you want to make a slight change / move it just create another ad unit.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks. I had already changed the names earlier! Hopefully as it's just started up in the last couple of days, it won't have too much impact. I won't change them again.

So you think it could be better to just set up another ad unit with the new name and not use the other one?

 

[bzcomputers]

If it has only been a couple of days, just edit it. It is very unlikely a new site to advertising will have bids on it that quickly. Ad units on busy sites with years on them are the ones that will have the most competitive bidding.

For instance, some of my highest paying ad units haven't been modified in over 10 years.

 

[Alvin63]

Is it normal for the ads to be slow loading? My one ad at the moment is at the top of the sidebar. When you go onto the forum page there's a good few seconds before it appears.

 

[bzcomputers]

Just checked your site, I was seeing less than a second delay before ad rendered. That is fine.

 

[Alvin63]

This is on a different topic but related as it's stopping me set up adsense fully on one forum. I have it all set up on my second forum but my first forum there's an issue with canonical url. When I first set that one up I hadn't a clue what I was doing and didn't understand what it was about and remember something about it at the time.

Anyway I've been using https://www.forumname.com everywere for years and in links etc. But now I set up Search Insights (not sure if that's needed before adsense but thought I'd like to see what's going on first) it says it can't index any pages because they'd be duplicates because it seems the canonical url is https://forumname.com (ie without the www).

I've been searching and reading on how to change the canonical name with google to www. And haven't got very far - all I did find was that google decides based on what's in your code. So I looked in Page Contained and it just says it's as board name. Looked in ACP at board name and sure enough I just had https in there without the www.

So I should have just left well alone, but I changed the board name to the url with www. Thinking that would solve it.

Now it says there is no canonical name! And I realise now that all the page indexing from the last 2 or 3 years might get lost and affect the position on google if it tries to start all over again with the www version.

So not sure what to do now. Should I change the board name back to just https and use that for google in search console and google ads (even though most of my links include www?) Or just wait to see if it changes the canonical name?

Or is there somewhere I can go and change the canonical name? Can't see anything in search console to allow that.

 

[Alvin63]

Just checked your site, I was seeing less than a second delay before ad rendered. That is fine.

Thanks - I'm getting about 3 seconds. In that 3 seconds it momentarily shows the widget then replaces it with the ad, which looks slightly unprofessional.

 

[Alvin63]

Oh and also, what's all this about needing residency forms for tax status for Ireland for payments? I've established that it's because Google is based in Ireland (for Uk people) but seems to need a lot of paperwork!

 

[bzcomputers]

Oh and also, what's all this about needing residency forms for tax status for Ireland for payments? I've established that it's because Google is based in Ireland (for Uk people) but seems to need a lot of paperwork!

Unfamiliar with Google Adsense international requirements. In the States they just require a valid Federal Tax ID for your business.

 

[Alvin63]

I've got that sorted now anyway - needed to fill in both for Ireland and US. Ireland was simple - just no and no. US one had to upload quite a few documents to verify address and Uk residency.

Thank you very much for your help on this. One more question - should adsense bots be crawling the forum now? Haven't seen any.

The other forum is stuck - adsense waiting to be ready - the one with the messed up canonical url's - I've started another post on that specific SEO thing as I'm stuck with it and don't want to make things worse.

 

[bzcomputers]

One more question - should adsense bots be crawling the forum now? Haven't seen any.

If they haven't shown up yet, they will soon.

Be sure the are not blocked by robots.txt. Do this by adding these two lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

Also be sure you have ALL non-content templates listed in the "Prevent ads showing in these templates" setting under Setup -> Advertising. This is a comprehensive list of "non-content" templates for XenForo 2.2.x including Media Galley and Resource Manager.

account_alerts
account_avatar
account_banner
account_bookmarks
account_connected
account_connected_associate
account_details
account_email
account_following
account_ignored
account_preferences
account_privacy
account_reactions
account_security
account_signature
account_upgrades
account_upgrades_purchase
account_username
approval_queue
contact_form
conversation_add
conversation_edit
conversation_invite
conversation_leave
conversation_list
conversation_reply
conversation_view
error
find_threads_list
forum_post_thread
help_index
help_page
login
login_password_confirm
login_two_step
lost_password
lost_password_confirm
message_page
news_feed
register_complete
register_confirm
register_connected_account
register_form
report_list
search_form
search_results
watched_forums_list
watched_threads_list
whats_new_profile_posts

If you have Media Gallery add:

xfmg_category_add
xfmg_media_edit_image
xfmg_watched_albums
xfmg_watched_categories
xfmg_watched_media

If you have Resource Manager add:

xfrm_category_add_resource
xfrm_resource_edit
xfrm_watched_categories
xfrm_watched_resources
xfrm_overview
xfrm_resource_view
xfrm_resource_updates
xfrm_resource_history
xfrm_thread_view_type_resource

If you have additional add-ons be sure to check them for "non-content" templates also.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks. Any tips about the issue with my other site not being indexed after I messed up canonical urls please?!