Check Your Adsense Ads

posted in Strategies |

Something that puzzled me with one of my sites for quite some time has been the predominance of “ringtone” ads which were showing in my Adsense ad blocks.

Now the site in question is a (legitimate) directory site, and every page should have a different keyword emphasis, depending on the web site listing and description that is displayed. And up until about late last year, that’s what was happening.

Then I noticed these #%^#% ringtone ads started appearing… and they were absolutely everywhere!

Well off into the Adsense control panel to start to block a few of these domains from appearing… 50 blocked domains later, it was becoming a battle that I was never going to win.

At the time, I had to move quite a few of my web sites to another web host… the old one “upgraded” their system to improve web site security, which meant my cgi scripts and shtml pages (LOTS of them) all needed to be re-written to be compatible with the new one… So it was simpler to move to another host without those (stupid) security measures…

So with my attention diverted elsewhere, those blasted ringtone ads just kept reappearing – like a plague of locusts that couldn’t be stopped – except I didn’t notice how severe the problem really was.

And after the move, I just straight out forgot to go back to that issue… It was only by chance that I discovered the cause of the whole thing several months later.

Any ideas on what was the cause? I’ve given you a big clue so far, so have a think on that, and then click on page 2 below to find out what happened…

It’s something you absolutely MUST keep an eye on!

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1 On February 9th, 2009, Pitambharadharaya said:

It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place.

Response by Stephen

First up.. I have removed the URL you submitted – I don’t want to link to your domain when it is “For Sale” Good luck with that tactic!

Secondly, you said I’m creating problems for myself by
1. trying to solve the issue
INSTEAD OF
2. looking at why their (sic) is a problem in the first place

Sorry mate, but aren’t they the one and the same thing??? Until you find out what the “real” problem is, it can’t be fixed!

In the mean time, you’ll “waste time” fiddling with other possible causes to the problem… Seems pretty normal problem solving process to me!

And as someone who HAS been on the net for longer than most, I published this post and the “solution” to save people like you the hassle of trying to solve a problem that even a “veteran” had difficulty with.

You might actually thank me one day