Does changing Google adsense keywords on a site in some areas damage adsense across the whole site?

Recently I have “hardcoded” some keywords for the Google adsense for a site. As the site is mainly user generated content this is one way to have tighter control over the kind of adsense ads which are showing.

Adsense uses contextual advertising and, as such, is for the most part playing catch-up to what is actually on the page.

You might ask why this is the best was to control adsense; after all, doesn’t Google work it all out based on the page content for you?

Sadly not.

Users do not necessarily talk about what they want. In most cases the opposite is true – they spark a debate with a question. It is their lack of knowing what they want which causes them to write anything at all. This is problematic for the Adsense system – it has to guess at what is actually desired by the user of the sites. And it’s chances of getting it right are really quite low.

I, on the other-hand, think I know a reasonable amount about our users – and their desires. The code tells Google to pick ads based on the keywords I have manually entered – rather than that which appears on the page. I have begun this process on some areas of the site (those which currently do not make a great deal of money) and it does seem they are performing better.

The Good:

These areas which are performing better have previously had high traffic and low click prices. Now there has been a 100% profit increase. This was achieved by simply requesting higher cost keywords. As this area also has a large amount of “blindess” we have allowed graphical google ads as well as text. This will temporarily knock the blindess away from these users and has pushed up the CTR (click through rate).

The Bad:

There have been some negative effects as well. The areas which were previous making a great deal of money have been cut by 50%. As the top earning areas have been hit hard so the overall profit has been slashed by around 10%.

Several theories why this is so:

1. When we coded in the keywords we gave google a “prod” and received a new box of creepy crawly spiders poured over our heads. This would mean the content on the pages has dictated particularly acurrate ads. This is no good because, as we mentioned above, people aren’t always talking about the soloution – in fact they are mroe likely to be talking about the problem.

Given time this might “settle” back into familiar and high earning patterns.

2.There is a google conspiracy against our site. Google is watching our movements and attempting to thwart us at every turn. This is quite unlikely!

3. There has been a change to the way adsense is delivered – possibly due to a new social media bias. Maybe now the freshest content has more weight compared to the old. “Fresh” becomes king and therefore dictates ads more specifically targeted.

While I currently have no solution for the situation I will report back once I do understand how to win back that orginal 50% – if there is anything for me to do at all!

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