I would expect a thread like this one to generate ads for Buying Tickets to Baseball Games and Memorabilia instead it has Buy Mailing List?
I’d like to know that too. Someone mentioned the “24 Hour” timeframe for the ads to become context sensitive - It’s been more than 24 hours now, and all I’m seeing in every thread are still spam mailing list ads, and Katrina Relief Fund ads.
The relevancy of the ads depends on when Google decides to crawl any particular thread. There is no time frame that I’m aware of in which I can state that a thread will have been crawled and thus should have more relevant ads. While I don’t in fact know exactly how and when Google will decide to crawl a thread I’m assuming the following for the time being:
- The more the thread has been linked to from outside of the SDMB the higher the likelihood it will have been crawled.
- The older the thread the higher the likelihood it will have been crawled.
- There is no guarantee of relevancy.
This leads me to the following conclusion:
It’s unlikely that the newest threads are going to have relevant ads.
If you want to check some threads that I know Google has crawled to see how relevant the ads are then peruse the following:
There is no supernatural.
Sequels you have decided don’t exist.
My Tivo thinks I like mexican porno
I’ve noticed that even when I view a thread that I know has been crawled that I don’t always receive relevant ads. This could be a few things. Google may not be able to determine the content of the thread or may not have ads relevant to the content of that thread. It’s also possible that upon my first view of a crawled thread I do in fact receive relevant ads. On subsequent views of that same crawled thread within a short time frame Google may be aware of my past view and may change up the ads to show something different and possibly less relevant. I don’t really know but I’ve seen a thread give me both relevant ads and not relevant ads within the time frame of a few hours of repeated viewing. Why? I only have fuzzy theories.
Jerry
Interesting…
Until I read Jerry’s post above, I was getting ads for smaiing companies. Interestingly, they were all Australian ones, so the software must be smart enough to take my IP into consideration. When I tried the example crawled threads Jerry gave, I got:
1. There is no supernatural: Psychic readings (one Sydney-based)
.Sequels… : Star Wars stuff
Mexican Porno…: Ads for Foxtel cable TV
“Smaiing”, good word that it is, is meant to be “mailing”.
Does this mean that we will be seeing mailing list ads in new threads forever?
I saw ads for TIVO and DirectTV w/TIVO. Sadly, that’s much more mundane than I was expecting.
The interactions between Google and the SDMB are complex and dynamic. I can’t really make any definitive statements because things are continously changing. Until a thread has been crawled Google will deliver ads that have nothing to do with the content of the thread. I suspect the ads delivered are based on a strategy of revenue maximization for Google and consequently the SDMB. If we’re getting a lot of mailing list ads on the uncrawled threads it’s because Google believes mailing list companies are going to maximize their revenue when they don’t know what ads yet to deliver. Once Google has crawled a thread they then understand the content and deliver ads they believe are relevant to that content. This is Google also trying to maximize revenue but doing so with much more information.
So, will we see mailing list ads on the new threads forever? Probably not. I suspect we’ll see whatever advertisers Google believes will generate the most revenue at the precise moment in time that they deliver the ads. That changes as their information about a thread changes. If another set of advertisers start paying Google more for ad placement we’ll start seeing more of those advertisers on the uncrawled threads.
Jerry
Is it possible for a website to tell Google that it would prefer not to get a specific type of ad?
For example, can the SDMB request not to get Viagra ads?
I don’t see any ads, since my HOSTS file filters them out.
And I am grateful.
But I can fantasize…[ul][li]A thread on astrology will have ads for astrologers’ web sites.[]A thread on bigfoot will have ads for plaster cast-making equipment and gorilla costume rental.[]A thread on cooking will have ads for Tums.[]A thread on Iraq will have ads for explosives.[]A thread on the evils of gambling will have ads for offshore casinos.[]A thread on the evils of gamboling will have ads for lambs.[]Any thread Lekatt posts in will have an ad for a NDE website and “love” stickers.Any thread Hal Briston posts in will have ads for hand-knit wool sweaters.[/ul][/li]The mind boggles.
Similar to requesting not to get certain kinds of ads: can your ad rep start sending certain genres of ads toward us? While Google obviously knows what they’re doing in general with ads, I can’t help but believe that (for example) the Star Wars ad would get more clickthroughs than the mailinglist ads, even in an uncrawled thread on the site.
Hmm. Maybe the mailinglist ads pay per view instead of per clickthrough, and that’s why we’re seeing them?
In any case, would it be helpful for folks to brainstorm over what broad categories of ads they’d most like to see (or at least object to the least), and have this information passed along to Google?
Daniel
A specific type of ad as in all ads that refer to Viagra? I don’t believe so but I’m still researching things. At the moment I’ll say no. We can request that a specific advertiser’s ad not be displayed but that is also limited by Google’s “competitive ad filter” mechanism so we can ask them not to give us ads from a total of 200 URLs and their subdirectories.
That being the case I’m sure there will be requests to block certain ads found offensive. Since this request is subjective, it reduces the revenue that the SDMB will generate AND there is going to be an ad in that space anyway I’m going to rely on Google to determine what they want to deliver us. This is a copy and paste from Google listing what standards they have in regards to what they say they will deliver:
As a general discussion with the users of the SDMB I’ll continue:
Keep in mind the mailing list ads are considered targeted ads. When you see a PSA that is an untargeted ad. I want to be clear on the distinction between ads delivered to an uncrawled thread that are still considered targeted ads (the mailing list ads for example) and what Google calls untargeted ads which are the PSA ads. So my choice of a default ad will only effect the PSA ads that are occasionally seen.
I understand that some find the ads objectionable and there are a number of ways to avoid them:
- Adblocker on Firefox and perhaps some other ad blocking software for other browsers.
- A modified HOSTS file.
- A request that the SDMB do something about a particular ad.
Two of those options are completely under an individuals control and certainly much faster. The third option relies on me doing something and therefore is not the most effective means to resolve the problem in a timely or even satisfactory way. Why is the 3rd option not the most effective? Because I have to weigh off a number of competing factors when I make a decision on what to do:
- I don’t want people to be offended but this is also a subjective matter. There is no right answer. One person’s offensive ad might make another person laugh due to it’s irony.
- I do want the SDMB to generate additional revenue and therefore I want Google to deliver the ads they believe most likely to generate that revenue.
- I don’t want to spend a lot of time deciding what ads should not be displayed especially since it’s dynamic system and thus will need to be done repeatedly over time.
Since an individual doesn’t have to take into account anything I may be concerned about you can just drop me out of the equation. That seems pretty effective to me and if I had to guess the most effective for you as well.
Jerry
I’m the ad rep. 
No, I can’t tell Google what to send us just what to not send us (in a very specific and limited fashion). In my preceding post I outlined why I’m going to rely on Goggle to make the decision on what to send.
If I could tell them to send us a specific genre as the default ads for an uncrawled thread I’d be happy to do so. While it’s probably hard to fathom that the mailing list ads are effective revenue producers I trust Google to be very concerned about maximizing their revenue and thus very concerned about what they deliver to us when they haven’t crawled a thread. Will Google’s decisions maximize revenue for the SDMB? No. Will it still be a good decision? I think yes since Google is the entity that knows how much an ad will pay if it is clicked on. They also know how many times a specific ad is getting clicked on by the general Internet population. The SDMB may differ to a degree from the general population but I don’t think it’s completely different. I suspect Google looks at click through rate and what an ad will pay them if clicked through and is continously trying to maximizes that equation.
Jerry
I hesitated posting the following specific instructions about how to avoid the ads until I saw the SDMB policy, but there couldn’t be a better person than Jerry to break the ice, so here goes:
There’s no place like 127.0.0.1
The HOSTS file (an old version, actually) I got from that free source seems to blank the SDMB/google ads without modification although it can be further customized.
I hope, in the interest of FFF (Free speech, Fair play and Fighting ignorance), the mods do not delete this post, although I don’t expect it to become a sticky.
Thank you for the answer, I am use to seeing Google ads that are more relevant on Computer & Games Discussion Boards.
I think this will only generate revenue and reduce hostility to the ads if the links are occasionally useful.
Now that is funny. The Ad just changed to ticket brokers. LOL
I guess there is hope.
Is it possible to let google crawl before putting up the ads? If so, I think that would have reduced the hostility towards it significantly.
It seems to be working well in more and more cases now. I just opened the “Ferrets” thread in GQ and all the Google ads were right on target.
The SDMB had been open for Google to crawl eight days prior to my displaying the ads to the user community. Would more relevant ads reduce some of the hostility? Probably. Can I control what threads Googles decides to crawl and when they decide to crawl them? To some degree. I can influence those events but it is generally a decision out of my control.
Are the newest threads on the board ever going to have more relevant ads? Maybe but I’m not surprised that they don’t. A dynamic web site is hard to keep track of. The threads on the first page of a fast moving forum are most likely too new for Google to even have noticed their existence. Is it therefore likely that the threads people spend most of their time on will have the least probability of having relevant ads? Yes, I’m pretty sure that is going to be the case.
After saying the above am I unhappy that non-relevant ads are being delivered? No, the non-relevant ads are revenue generators as well. I’m actually kind of impressed by what Google has been doing with their delivery of ads at least from a revenue perspective. Somebody there has done their analysis and the SDMB is a beneficiary of it.
Finally, before it is asked I’ll just say I will not reveal any specific information I have about the effectiveness of the Google ads. People can ask if they want but please understand those questions will not be answered.
Jerry
Just to clarify, I truly asked just for information sake, not to cause any more grief. I see nothing wrong with the ads, I would possibly use them occasionally if they relevant.
When I was shopping for a Lawn Sweeper, I found google ads more helpful than Froogle, Yahoo Shopping or even Epinions.
I imagine that especially in the Cafe, when a movie is being discuss a link to buy that movie or to Netflix might eventually appear at the bottom and some would use the link to make a purchase.