In response to popular request, block domain ads looks to be coming, along with other blocking features.
I have reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that some AdWords advertisers are now able to block categories of sites, plus they are able to block domain ads and error page ads. Back in August, Google told us that AdSense For Domains Opt Out Coming To AdWords Advertisers. It appears that some advertisers are now able to take advantage of that feature.
The Site Exclusion features, which I personally do not yet see myself, reportedly include:
* Block sites by domain, sub domain or folder (has been live for a while)
* Block sites by category (so if you do not want your ads to show up on technology sites, you can specify that)
* Block your ads from showing on AdSense of Domains (domaining ads)
* Block your ads from showing on Error PagesWe do not have confirmation from Google on this release yet, nor do we have screen captures. This is all based on a DigitalPoint Forums thread that has discussion about this new feature. I hope to update this post when I hear back from Google on this.
And if you visit that forum (last link) you will read the second message:
Yup, excluded all the suggested categories this morning and monitoring the results on our high traffic campaigns.
Domain Ads and error pages have ALWAYS performed best through ALL accounts that we manage so there is no way they will be excluded.
Looks like it could be a nice timesaver.
Temporary losers are domain owners but long term, domain owners win. Biggest losers are those who do not understand traffic, just go with their feelings rather then analyzing numbers. biggest winners long-term are domainers as smart marketers will now be able to analyze the traffic better, convert better, and focus on competing for it.
More about it here.
Overall, nothing to worry about. Life is good.
Sahar
Glad to see that Yahoo and Google are finally allowing this. Over the years I’ve had to put up with a lot of non-converting traffic from YSM and Adwords that I was unable to opt out of, even though I was not using the content network on either. Absolute bunk names that would NEVER receive direct navigation traffic sending me 400 paid clicks per month each… leads a boy to wonder how they’re driving the traffic and if I want my company’s name associate with their page. If the value is truly there, which I believe it is for some (not all) domains, then it will be like you say: the smart marketers will win.
Sahar, I don’t think this is a good solution for either domainers or advertisers. Some of the traffic flowing through the AdSense for Domains program comes from nonsense names and typosquatting names. Google, despite its mission to organize the world’s information, is reluctant to report to advertisers the domains upon which their ads are placed. Advertisers tracking traffic on their own sites and not relying on AdWords reporting tools will realize they’re paying for garbage traffic and will jump at the chance to opt out.
Such a reaction would, obviously, hurt domainers in the short term. It also hurts the advertisers, though, because they’ll be throwing the baby out with the bath water. It’s a case of a few rotten apples spoiling the whole bunch. Just as domainers like Whizzbang are calling for more transparency from parking companies, advertisers are calling for more transparency from PPC advertising companies. Instead of a blunt tool like excluding all AdSense for Domains traffic, advertisers need to be able to block parked domain traffic at a more granular level, by individual domain names or perhaps by domain owner or even parking company.
I’ve been posting about some bad examples of AdSense for Domains traffic and how it’s essentially being routed through the AdWords search network as contextual advertising. This kind of behavior on Google’s part is going to prompt advertisers to choose this new opt out, not realizing they could be shooting themselves in the foot.
Bad move on Google’s part, IMHO. Both domainers and advertisers need a better solution.
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Hi Richard,
Been following your blog about the topic, great insight. Yes, more solutions ,better solutions are better, but I think it’s a move in the right direction. There’s something to be said for timing. Few years ago you would have told someone domain traffic worth something and they would be like “what is domain traffic?”. Today things are better, however, I’m sure many still don’t know what domain traffic is. The solution is gradual, not drastic. One step in the right direction, analyzing, and moving forward again.
At the end of the day the only way I would judge if traffic is gold or garbage is by conversions, not by the source. If it converts, I would keep it. If it doesn’t, get rid of it.
Business is really not as complicated as some make you believe it is.
Cheers
Sahar
P.S.
Typo domains usually convert better then most traffic sources. While there’s the legal cloud over such traffic, from conversion standpoint, it is pure gold.
Sahar,
Good to see this topic getting covered in the domain world.
As it turns out, one of Monster Venture Partners’ largest investments to date has been a company called Demoxi. The Demoxi technology just shipped public beta on Wednesday. One of the core features is personal privacy protection — including automatically wiping out all of your cookies on regular intervals.
The path forward for tracking is OPT-IN. Demoxi users opt-in to be tracked, via their OpenID which all Demoxi users have by default. Demoxi is an OpenID client but stores all personal data locally in an encrypted vault. Data is syndicated only if the data is unvaulted.
Incidentally, another current development I am backing is a dynamic site generation platform that leverages the Demoxi ID technology. The result is a web experience that is PERSONALIZED but is also PRIVATE/ANONYMOUS. More on this soon.
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Sounds interesting. The holy grail of search I believe is real personalization with complete privacy. I invented such a system but I believe it’s way ahead of its time. Would be interesting to see how this technology does it and how effective it is.
I discussed personalization many times before, sometimes here on the blog and others elsewhere. I also mentioned the issue during Ron Jackson/DNJournal interview.
http://www.conceptualist.com/?p=13
Cheers
Sahar