Well according to Adsense, Arabic is not supported yet every now and then, I notice an Arabic ad on my website. The primary language of my site is English but I have one article in Arabic so Adsense must be reading the Arabic article then. Can someone shed some light on this?
Arabic is supported by AdWords, so there are Arabic ads in the ad pool, so it's not that there are no ads available. The problem is that AdSense's contextual analysis algorithms don't support Arabic well enough yet, so it's not on the list of officially supported AdSense for content languages. (But it is supported by AdSense for search.) Note that you're not supposed to display AdSense ads on Arabic pages according to the rules, not until Arabic is officially supported by AdSense for content. If the page is a mix of languages then it's OK as long as the primary language is one of the supported ones.
Thanks Eric for the clarification. My website is primarily in English so I don't think I am violating the TOS. It just bothers me that ever since I added this one Arabic article, the ads on the whole site got messed up; i.e. totally irrelevant. I was doing good in terms of relevancy so I am now pissed as you can tell. I do not want to remove the article because it generates a very reasonable amount of traffic so go figure
You should use section targeting, then, to exclude any Arabic text on any of your pages. When multiple languages are mixed on a page, sometimes Google gets mixed up itself as to which is the most important. There's also a way you can force Google to serve up ads in a specific language for any given page, but I'm not sure that's necessary in your case. The section targeting will probably fix it, though it'll take a few days before it fixes itself in all likelihood. (Shameless plug: I discuss multi-lingual site issues more extensively in Uncommon AdSense...)
Thanks Eric, I am using section targeting but I guess it will take some time to settle. Can you tell me how can I force google to serve ads in a specific lang?
No, you can't force google to show ads in a specific language. It will show ads in languages according to the language of the user, not of your site. I've seen Dutch ads here on DP for instance. [Checking my own site: DP is perhaps an exception. On my own site I do not see Dutch ads on English pages] I'd still interpret what you are seeing as google experimenting with Arabic ads, in preparation to accepting Arabic as an accepted language. I would not think that one Arabic page would have anything to do with it - though you could indeed try the targeting option.
kh7 I am also surprised that one post in a blog showing 5 other posts on the front page could cost so much headache. Looking at other pages, ads are normal except for this page with the Arabic post. The problem is not just that Google shows Arabic ads, it stated showing totally irrelevant ads ever since I posted this arabic article. I never had any relevancy issues before so this is causing me headaches now that I am thinking of removing this article in question
You can force a specific language using a snipped of JavaScript embedded somewhere in your page above the first AdSense block. Note that I'm not telling you to modify the generated AdSense code in any way, shape or form. The last time I mentioned this that's precisely what someone said I was doing, which is why I was hesitant to mention it here. I would only do this as a last resort, you should try the section targeting exclusion first, and if that doesn't work then contact AdSense support and tell them about your problem. They may in fact tell you to set the language as above, or they may tweak something on their side to fix things. My recommendation to anyone reading this is that if you're going to put content on your site that's in a different language, using section targeting to exclude it right from the start and you'll avoid these kinds of issues.
I don't think I've ever seen Arabic adsense ads. I would be curious to see how they look if you for instance have a western character set on your machine, but surfing in an Arabic location...will the ads be "blocks" or will the Arabic text come through?
tonyrocks, if you're lucky (and I am unlucky) you might find some Arabic ads in the site in my sig. if you did, let us know if the text came through. Eric interesting technique, I have never heard of it before. I will wait a few days for everything to settle down and then post here if section targeting did not work
I very much doubt that westerners looking at a page with only one Arabic article will see Arabic adsense ads. I would advise, in general, to have different languages on different parts of your site, or even on separate websites altogether. After all, most people who prefer to read Arabic, will not read English fluently and vice versa. This would also prevent the trouble you got yourself into here.
kh7 you're right, I was just trying the Arabic article to monitor the traffic and demand. If I chose to have them, I will perhaps put them in a separate page. Everything has settled down now and things are back to normal
I have only English content on one of my sites - yet I keep getting ads in local Indian languages...is there anything that can be done about it?
Well, that would be because you live in the area where those local languages are spoken? Visitors that also speak those languages would not be bothered by those ads, neither should you. Now if I were to see your site and (living in The Netherlands) see those ads, that would be something to worry about. This is called geo-targeting. It has (probably) nothing to do with your content, unless of course you target very specifically Indian (or even regional Indian) topics.
The thing is not everyone in India knows the local languages. India has 1000s of languages. I live in Gujarat state and the most common local language is Gujarati here, but not everyone here knows Gujarati (I myself have trouble with it.). If Google keeps showing Gujarati ads to me..I am never going to look at them. It is a waste of ad space. I would prefer that Google shows ads in the same language as the site or content.
Here's an extract from Uncommon AdSense that explains the workaround. Hope that helps. There's more information in the chapter about how AdSense decides what kind of ads to serve. As others have mentioned, the (assumed) location of the visitor plays an important part in the determination. Again, you shouldn't try this kind of workaround until you've tried the other, less extreme fixes.
Well, yes, I know India has a lot of languages. I did not know the likelihood of someone not knowing the local language was that low though. I suspect google doesn't know either. I'd let them know, if I were you. You can use the adsense feedback form to reach the local Indian adsense team. The work-around posted here is also a good idea in your case, obviously - if you want to risk not showing gujarati ads to gujarati speakers.