A long time ago I stopped displaying Adsense ads on several of my blogs, including this one, because of the types of ads which were showing. On a health-related blog I did not want to advertise drugs and weight-loss fads, and on this blog I did not want to advertise scams or get-rich quick schemes.
While I could filter out Adsense ads from certain URLs, using the Adsense filters, this was sometimes not enough. There were simply too many … erm … questionable (or maybe we should say, slimy) ads showing. Why would I advertise something which I would normally tell people not to touch with a ten-foot pole?
Apparently I was not the only person to notice this.
On the Google Adsense Blog an announcement was made recently about Category Filtering.
You can now log into your Adsense account and choose up to 5 categories of ads that you do not wish to have displayed. The categories to choose from are:
- Cosmetic Procedures & Body Modification
- Dating
- Drugs & Supplements
- Get Rich Quick
- Politics
Religion - Ringtones & Downloadables
Sexual & Reproductive Health - Sexually Suggestive
Video Games (Casual & Online) - Weight Loss
By selecting to filter out five of the above categories, you are basically telling your Adsense account not to display ads of that nature on your website.
So, in my case, I am able to filter out Get-Rich Quick (for this blog), Drugs & Supplements (for my health related sites), and a few other obvious categories 
This means I can tentatively start placing Adsense ads on a few of my sites from which I had previously removed Adsense for reasons of ethics. I will of course watch the ads and see how this goes – and decide whether to keep the ads on or remove them again.
To apply filters to your own Adsense account, simply follow these steps:
- Log into your Adsense account
- Click on “Adsense Setup”
- Click on “Ad Review Center”
- Configure your filters as per the instructions on the screen
I will see how this goes on my sites – like I said before, I will still watch the ads to see how well the filter is working. There is nothing wrong with displaying contextually-placed advertisements on your site with information that might be useful to your visitors. But no one wants to mislead his or her readers, or send out mixed messages.
If you are running Adsense ads on any of your sites you may have run into this situation before – so I hope this is useful for you!
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That’s always been the bad thing about Google AdSense. It’s not always relevant. More often than not dating sites shows without having something related to the content at all.
.-= Stefan´s last blog ..How to Backup and Restore Your Wordpress Blog =-.
Wow, thanks for sharing this! I definitely understand your frustration at the dodgy scam sites that turn up sometimes. I’m going to go and try this new category filtering right now.
.-= Web Career Girl´s last blog ..The Week’s Progress – Fri 21 August =-.
Thanks for the info.
Currently, I’m only running adsense in RSS, figuring if people want to read ad-free they can click through.
The big reason of course is I don’t like a lot of what adsense is serving up.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..WIAW Week in Review: August 15 – August 21 =-.
Wow thanks. I never even noticed this…. I need to get filtering!
.-= Forest´s last blog ..Musically Motivated Monday – Wake Up! =-.
Thanks for the tip Anna, I noticed this on some of my blogs but didn’t realize there was a way to fix it.
Do you use a certain plugin for your adsense or one you find works best?
.-= Jenny´s last blog ..Internet Marketing Frustration =-.
Hi everyone – glad the post was useful. I also hadn’t noticed the change right away. My email filters were a bit to rigorous! Adsense-related emails are now going straight to my inbox. If you do use Adsense, it’s always a good idea to subscribe to the “Inside Adsense” blog.
Dave, the filters can now be applied to Adsense for Feeds as well
Jenny – I simply insert my Adsense code into “Text” widgets on my Wordpress blogs. Unless there is no widget in the area I want to use due to the layout of the theme. In this case, I use this plugin:
http://websitesandwebhosting.com/goto/mbp/maxbannerads/
There is a paid version and a free version of that plugin. The free version includes a link to the plugin itself (which can be an affiliate link). The paid version allows you to remove the link. It is an awesome plugin, I love it, and it also has a great interface which makes it really easy to add ads and banners to your blog, rotate different banners, and track click-through rates of different banners at a glance. I have been meaning to write a post on it one day. But, I digress …
Web Careeer Girl, I hope it works out well. Let me know how it goes.
I did not know about this feature of AdSense.
I had also stopped AdSense on my blog about 5-6 months ago. I started experimenting again with it and this time, targeting seems to be improved(I guess keyword optimization also helped a lot).
.-= Mr. I´s last blog ..Daniel Scocco’s eBook- Make Money Blogging =-.
Well said. Many people don’t even follow these methods.
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i have a real bad experience with adsense.. i have been trying to get approval of the adsense account.. but with out any success. i have been updating my blog at least twice a daily
Nice information on category filtering. This along with the competitive ad filtering should make ads that are served more specific and content targeted. If only I knew the average eCPM for this categories
.-= Ajith´s last blog ..Blog Search Engine Optimization – Simple Tricks via Reorganizing Content =-.
Actually Ajith, and I should have mentioned this in the post, when you go to filter your ads, your account will show you what percentage of your income is coming from the types of ads you are about to filter out. So you can make a more informed decision from the financial side as well.
I am no adsense pro, but I think the adsense that shows on your blog depends on how you write.
Another one I wish that could be done is how to stop the same ad from showing on the same page. For instance if you have 2 adense ads in a post, adsense can show the same text link twice.
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However, you cannot automatically (or use the wizard) to do it. The wizard does not offer channels for it. You have to go in and open the code of your template, then find where Adsense under posts are placed and replace it with the code that has the channel
Hey, I did not know about this. Thanks for sharing Anna.
Regardless of the method you use, we highly suggest testing your ads. Every blog is unique and will see different results for each method used. The more you test, the more information you will have to optimize your blog for the best earnings.
@itinfocube1 – Did you read the post? It seems like you are referring to something else other than what I wrote about.
I set up my Adsense with my new blogger blog and was wondering how to filter out Ads which were not at all relevant with my blog, I think I missed a trick by not logging into my Adsense account and finding it out myself, instead I was looking for options into Blogger’s Monetizing area.
Thank you, will set it now.
@realator – you are correct, you can’t change these settings within blogger. You have to log into your Adsense account. I hope you’ve been able to figure it out now.
I’ve always been reluctant to use adsense, because I am concerned about the content of the adsense ads that would be displayed on my site. I don’t want questionable material on my San Diego real estate website. The content filtering is a great idea, and it may now make sense to use Adsense.
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That is informative of you. I haven’t used adsense due to those irrelevant topics that I might be incorporating. I’ll be giving that a try, being able to filter those that are not related to my site. Thank you.
Thanks for the insight on adsence I am just now starting out with adsence this was helpful info for me.I will be applying this.
.-= Sid´s last blog ..Ways to Earn Money Online updated Sat Nov 7 2009 1:59 pm CST =-.
I don’t really care what ads that adsense will put in my site. but I don’t really like if adsense put public ads. However, I come to adsense setup but I don’t see any option for ad review center just like you said above.
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@Ruri – I am not sure why you don’t see it, it is the first thing on the screen when you reach the ad review center and kind of hard to miss. But if you don’t want to filter categories anyway, then I guess it doesn’t really make much of a difference for you.
Ok, I was also concerned about such ads on my blog but I think I will check out the category filtering now too.