I've been checking lately a game site and noticed they're showing only PSA's. I've tried to guess what could be their problem and I've noticed two news items , one about a game called Faces Of War that was announced and about a new demo called Act of War: High Treason I guess that's why only PSA's were shown but I'm not sure. If this could be it, I'm thnking it would be wise to pass the news text through a function which would add "addsense ignore" tags around these sensitive words. Does anybody know about a list with "bad" words ? If such thing does not exist, how about creating one? Are my suppositions correct ?
I am pretty confident AdSense uses a separate crawler. This is why new sites can have non-PSA ads but still not yet be indexed by Google. However, Google's AdSense robot does not auto crawl your pages. In my experience, it will show PSAs the first time a page is loaded and before the site has been fully indexed. However, not long after a page has been viewed it will start displaying context sensitive ads.
The Mediapartners bot should crawl fairly quickly after the ads are added to a page. It is worth noting the section targeting is only for "suggesting", it doesn't completely ignore it. And the stop word filter doesn't seem to take it into account either. As for content, yes, it could have triggered the PSAs. But if the page is constantly changing (you mentioned it is news), it might not even be what is currently on the page right now. The mediabot might only check the page once in 30 days, so there could be up to 30 days of PSAs until the mediabot comes by again to reindex.
Cancer is allowed, as is many others that have been basically myths passed through this site/that list. I'm not only running a cancer ad on adwords, but have a cancer page with cancer-related adsense ads showing up on it. I've found that list to be basically innaccurate. (minus maybe profanity & sex.. but sex actually may be ok given it doesn't have 'profanity' IN the sex page, i'm sure this is 'somewhat' difficult/hit/miss) I don't have a stroke page so i can't say about that one, but MANY+ in that list are not true. It may be slightly dependant on what google feels your site is etc.. if they are considered 'stops' - I wouldn't bother using that list as an accurate reference. Others that aren't stops (from that list) that i'm actually running successfully both ways (displaying ad on adwords & displaying related adsense ads on the associated page): cocaine, heroin, medication, funeral, jail, terrorist, poison, drug (but not drugs, but probly considered the same really, ads are drug+drugs related pharm+) attack, prison, drown (shh +titantic ads) terrorist, abortion, crash (haha got some 'crash (the movie) ads here) murder, suicide, burn (hmm 'burn fat' ads) killed (showing patriotic/military ads) marriage (although not 'married' (from the 'stop list') i doubt there is a difference -showing singles ads) etc.. - some of these had no prior (real) traffic but after i waited and reloaded the ads came up (mediabot came by) i have a marijuana page but no ads on it oddly, given the cocaine, heroin & drug(s) ones have related ads my guess is also that marijuana is not a stop word either. I suspect sex is also not a stop word (hello same-sex marriage?) by itself but can't quite prove that yet. and i'm sure more. i don't have time to go through that whole list, but that should give people the general idea that many of those are in fact not stop words. I don't have a las vegas page but i doubt that is a stop either.
I think Google not only looks at the potential stop-words but how they are used and how frequently. I had a page about car insurance that used the words "killed" a number of times and got nothing but PSAs for a couple of months after the page was created. When I learned about stop-words and removed the word "killed" the PSA's disappeared INSTANTLY.
i have a killed page not showing PSA's ^ (just checked) if you guys have some other words you are suspicious about, my site is fairly large (i'll check) - I would almost venture to say that whole list is bullshit (minus profanity? - i can't say on that, no swearing on my sites content) - At any given time my main page for the site has any of those words going and i'm 100% the ads are not cheapos (on the main page) very targeted/specific) i've not really had a problem with PSA's on the main page or any sub-page really.
There is a lot more to the stop word filter than there just being the word on the page. Of course, AdSense won't reveal it because then publishers with not-so-appropriate content would game it to show ads where there really should be PSAs.
I had a page with PSA's that I finally determined was due content about the kill-ratio, (as in germs & disinfectant). Once "kill" was removed, the PSA's were gone.
Bottom line is no one except Google knows what trips the psa filter. I can confirm that on my specific page, "kill" was the offensive word. I've also seen a page with "death" doing the same thing. Perhaps it's when a word (according to Google) is out of context of the theme, but who knows? The page I was referring to earlier with psa's was on cleaning a bathroom. The "death" psa was mentioning the date of death. Both were appropriate, in the context of the page, but tripped the filter none-the-less. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find out what was triggering the psa's. I'm embarrassed to say I actually thought the problem on the first page was the word "toilet". . (Now that I think about it, I almost posted this question on DP to see if "toilet was a dirty word" ) I'm glad I didn't! It was a frustrating process to troubleshoot, especially if you don't know what to look for... At the time, I though the instructions on thoroughly cleaning a commode were much more offensive than a 1 word mention of the disinfectant kill-ratio for germs. The link I posted above itself mentions that words IN this list will sometimes not trigger PSA's, but it gives you guidance in the words tripping the filter. So I guess just take it with a grain of salt, IMO that list is a good start. BTW- I am not affliated in any way with that site/link. I bookmarked it long ago, and though no one states it is all accurate, the info provided is very well thought out. He's got summaries on several topics. Check it out and see what he says about DP!
corinaw- Two grains of salt might even be better. JKE- Think of the damned thing as a hint list, OK? Something to make you think, that's all. All of the words had been mentioned by more than one poster. NONE of the words may trigger a PSA in any given situation. Did you read the many disclaimers that accompany the list? We're talking hints here, mere suggestions. There are no "rules" to be followed. As Jenstar mentioned above, context is everything. We don't know the algo rules. And most importantly. Everything is always changing. What was true yesterday, may not be true today. Tomorrow will be different. IN GENERAL, yes, I think that there has been an overall, general loosening of the rules, after the publicity of the few horrendous examples of inappropriate ads have died down, and been forgotten. But I am sure that Google is STILL very wary of serving inappropriate, machine-generated ads. Over time, I believe the algo rules get more and more sophisticated, resulting in fewer and less noticeable attempts at clumsy, broad-swath censoring. samskpunk- Regarding "self-abuse" - It's interesting that Google even censors misspellings of the dire deed. This must be one of those words that is spelled incorrectly more often than correctly, such as "effect". I wonder how many euphemisms are recognized and filtered - flogging the bishop? spanking the monkey? choking the chicken? Dunno. The words "choking" and "chicken" alone are innocent, but together, there can be NO DOUBT about the meaning - is Google this smart?
I just received this email - "Hi Thanks a lot for your note about Google Adsense "stop words"; it solved my problem with PSAs. Please note that also "shot" (personal experience!) should be added to the list, even if used as a synon. of "photo" in a photoblog. Best regards GB" So, although many are skeptical, some do benefit from the suggestions.