Saturday, March 17, 2007

A Plea for AdSense Simplification

Google's Adsense is a great idea, and after I had made $3.97 over the first week
or so of the craigslist advertising effort (see first post), I was hoping that the
little snowball at the top of the hill would continue to grow as it rolled on and
on and eventually, Adsense revenue would be a great source of income.

It's not happening yet, and I think part of the problem is the way Google selects
the ads that are run on my site.

Because my site deals with tickets,
naturally, the word "ticket" appears often on the site. However, Google uses this
word to display ads from other "ticket" sites, usually resellers. They offer a
"Competitive Ad Filter", which allows me to list the domains I want to prevent from
displaying ads on the site. Over the last week I've accumulated the following list
of such domains:

4team.biz
aceticket.com
admitoneproducts.com
baseballticketdirectory.com
baseballtickets.us
beantowntickets.com
bestseat.com
broadwayticketsinfo.com
capitals-tickets.com
easystreettickets.com
findticketsfast.com
footballencounters.com
frontrowseatsllc.com
gctickets.com
goboston.com
gocheapticket.com
hallmarktickets.com
indemandtickets.com
justbuytickets.com
metrotickets.com
mytickethouse.com
poconoraceway.com
preferredtickets.com
racetickets.com
ringringmobile.com
stellartickets.com
stubhub.com
ticket-center.com
ticket-venue.com
ticketbizdomains.com
ticketcity.com
ticketdirectory.info
ticketfinder.com
ticketkingonline.com
ticketliquidator.com
ticketpro.com
ticketreserve.com
ticketsamerica.com
ticketsnow.com
ticketsolutions.co.uk
ticketsolutions.com
ticketstogo.com
ticketstub.com
ticketville.com
ticketzoom.com
top2tickets.com
top4picks.com
trademarktickets.com
webticketstore.com

Since my ad is targetted to season ticket holders, WHO ALREADY HAVE TICKETS,
I'd much rather see ads for products or services that will enhance my customers
game experience. How about some ads for sports paraphenalia (MLB caps, jackets,
t-shirts, bobble heads) or sports bars and restaurants? I would love for
Google to provide a way that I could specify these keywords (e.g., sports gear, MLB
caps, bobble heads).

I'd much rather provide a finite list of 49 keywords that select ads I want instead of a
list of 49 (and growing!) domains that provide ads I don't want.

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