This topic was created by disgruntled yank .
What in the world is going on with your ads? First, I get an ad for tax-break advice. Well and good, it knows that I'm a US citizen, but the ad depicts a baby bottle (at least I can't guess anything else). Then I get an ad "Want to Learn French? Watch this video!" with a picture of a young woman of fine if improbable figure.
If El Reg thinks I'm an idiot, it is free to tell me directly--the commentariat hasn't been shy that way.
So - in the US we run quite a lot of inventory through Google's Ad-x program, in which slots are to the highest bidder.
We block categories of ads - e.g. gaming (that is because some ads are salacious), porn, diapers - the latter is a weird one. But basically, diaper / nappy makers can swamp a site's ads, if you are not careful. If there has been a significant change recently in the ads you are seeing, it is possible that we have relaxed some categories.
We also block individual ads - for that we require the URL of the landing page of the ad. So if anyone sees something you think we should block - please ping webmaster@sitpub.com
Lastly, on relevance of ads: in this world advertisers are deciding what is relevant - and we are deciding if we can or want to play.
Things still seem to be a bit off where the ads are concerned. Yesterday I kept on seeing ads for how to keep your teeth white complete with an example in the image of how bad things can get - not a particularly pleasant image. This has been the case for the preceding few days too.
Today the ads seem to be in Spanish - or Portuguese? - for some reason that I don't understand (it's not as if I'm using a VPN connection or anything else that would hide my real location, and I'm in the UK).
At least the auto-playing and auto-resizing ads have disappeared though. That is certainly a welcome change.
These will be ads served by Google. Typically, we serve much fewer of these in the UK compared with elsewhere - but in very quiet times like late December or early January you will see more.
We block entire categories of Google ads - e.g. gambling, gaming (unpredictable but often NSFW ads), porn - and nappies / diapers. Don't know what the economics are there - but you could soon fill your site with nappy ads if you are not careful.
Also we set our floor price at relatively high price - which takes care of bottom feeders - and we remove ads on taste grounds if we spot them or if readers alert us.
As for Spanish and Portuguese - Google does do geo-targeting - and it will do this better than anyone else, so that is weird.
If it is a Google Ad, in the top right corner of the ad there is an option for an individual to disable an ad and provide feedback as to why they don't want to be served that ad. I'm sure if an ad annoys enough people, Google will stop serving it as much on other websites.
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