Irrelevant ads

[Ben]

Post here if you find any ads on SSC that are completely irrelevant. There are a lot of ads on SSC for things like water storage tanks, water tower painting, water pumps, water jet cutting, etc., that people here don't care about and thus won't click on. We could make more money by having more relevant links. I've tried to remove a good deal of these irrelevant ads today, but I don't have time to track down all of the irrelevant ones.

Right click on the irrelevant ad and select "Copy Shortcut" in IE or "Copy Link Location" in Firefox. Post that URL here so I can take care of the ad. I can remove specific ads from our website if I have the URL the ad points to.

[CROC]

Here's one:

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=Bx_doS_8pSJa_KIT4rAPMhsj8DKzZt1H4zs7bBcCNtwGAtRgQAhgGINTOsAYoAjgAUNb_xrEFYP2ojYHoA6ABxNOs8QOyAQ1zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnugEJNzI4eDkwX2FzyAEB2gEVaHR0cDovL3NzY2VudHJhbC5vcmcv4AECqAMByAMH6AOwA-gDQegDrgGIBAGQBAGYBAA&num=6&adurl=http://try.alottoolbars.com/tb/games/games_all_systems.php%3Faff_id%3Dgoogleionic&client=ca-pub-5970944604549044&nm=10

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BIeihS_8pSLHZJ6LkrAOjnOTIDYHDkUChw5z5BcCNtwHQxJUBEAMYAyDUzrAGKAM4AFDV0pSE-P____8BYP2ojYHoA6ABl9Dg_gOyAQ1zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnugEJNzI4eDkwX2FzyAEB2gEVaHR0cDovL3NzY2VudHJhbC5vcmcvgAIB0AIBqAMByAMH6AOwA-gDQegDrgGIBAGQBAGYBAA&num=3&adurl=http://www.patriotsafe.com&client=ca-pub-5970944604549044&nm=9

Does this mean only the pointless ones like water tower things, or things included like game ads?

[Ben]

If it's like video game ads, sure, post them here. I'll check each one out to make sure that they're not really helping too, so don't worry if you post something wrong.

Anything you don't think someone interested in water guns would like is what I want to remove. Stuff like water filters is obvious. Airsoft/paintball is borderline, as is video games.

[CROC]

what about actual guns? I posted one that was like half price guns... I'll keep looking though

[Ben]

Actual guns should be removed. I don't know how much crossover we have from that... paintball, airsoft, and Nerf make enough sense that I'm tempted to just keep them. Real guns don't make much sense, to me at least.

Some of these ads are actually funny now that I look at them. Here's one for John McCain's presidential campaign.

[Spinner]

Originally Posted by Ben

Some of these ads are actually funny now that I look at them. Here's one for John McCain's presidential campaign.

That's pretty funny. I doubt that it's a good idea to have political advertisements on the site though, so it's probably best to remove it (as I expect you've probably done).

EDIT: Here's another irrelevant ad (camera accessories, I think):

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BvitKXq4qSJ69KYSsjgKM1OGoAon-jBndtcOGA8CNtwHgxQgQERgDINTOsAYoBDgAUJaRqrgEYLu-roPQCpABBbIBEXd3dy5zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnyAEB2gEZaHR0cDovL3d3dy5zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnL4ACAakCmP0Y_H9RwD6oAwHoA7AD6ANBiAQBkAQBmAQA&num=3&ggladgrp=11052907244996660836&gglcreat=16075295026780800978&adurl=http://www.camerabox.co.uk/products1.asp%3FDepartmentID%3D43&client=ca-pub-5970944604549044&nm=9

And another (confetti - huh?):

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BItKxXq4qSJ69KYSsjgKM1OGoAoDNwDe6x6aZBMCNtwGwzAsQEhgEINTOsAYoBDgAULzli8YFYLu-roPQCpABBbIBEXd3dy5zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnyAEB2gEZaHR0cDovL3d3dy5zc2NlbnRyYWwub3JnL6kCmP0Y_H9RwD7IAurq1wWoAwHoA7AD6ANBiAQBkAQBmAQA&num=4&adurl=http://confetticreations.co.uk/confetti.html&client=ca-pub-5970944604549044&nm=5

[Ben]

After some thought, we'll keep paintball, Nerf, and airsoft ads. Real gun, political, and completely irrelevant ads will be removed.

I'm also going to add a feature to remove ads from pages if the page seems to have no relevant ad results. While this shouldn't increase the amount of money made, it will help clean up the website.

[Silence]

Ben, if those ads are pay-per-click, I wouldn't bother having a banner at the bottom. Unless the stats show otherwise, a location like that is usually suboptimal.

[Ben]

I don't think having two ads on the same page counts as two impressions, so it wouldn't decrease my CTR to have two.

Interestingly, after I removed the ads our earning dropped dramatically. I have no idea why because they don't seem to reflect what people here are interested in, but it was very clear. Yesterday we earned a little more than $8 compared to maybe $3 on a good day with blocked ads. I'll experiment to see which particular type of ads people click on.

[Silence]

You're talking about the removal of irrelevant ads, right? (ie, not the bottom banner) I guess research into what people clicked on would be necessary. That is a weird response.

[Ben]

Yeah, I was talking about removing the irrelevant ads, not the ones on the bottom. I have done nothing to remove those ads because I don't think it will help generate revenue. Once I figure out how to read some of these adsense statistics better I might be able to figure that out without testing.