If you are an AdSense publisher, do Google use info about your site to target ads to you when you visit other sites? I have recently added AdSense to a site related to broadcast video technology. This morning I visited a site that was not related to broadcasting at all (although it did contain the phrase "video games" in one part of the page). At the top of this page was an AdSense ad for a company selling second hand broadcast video equipment!
strange. i highly doubt it. did you refresh that page a couple of times, see if the hand broadcast still appears?
i highly doubt it! adverts are based on the html page not the visiting user! Unless i missunderstood your question(statement)
Even if you are a publisher google has no way of telling what pc you are physically using (unless you have a static IP) and no way to target ads to a specific PC (as far as I know) so I would have to guess this is highly unlikely. If google could target ads to a specific PC that would probably be a huge money maker for them!
It doesn't seem to be targetting publishers, but I did notice something funny, too. On my bird flu blog (see signature) sometimes I get weight loss ads displayed, which I believe happens because I host the blog on a server where I have a weight loss program running. Or maybe Google thinks you can prevent bird flu by losing weight
Let me interject something here: read the AdSense patent, specifically the claims near the end (around #50). You may be surprised.
You can prevent a lot of things by losing weight, but I don't think Bird Flu is one of them. Butt cheek chafing yes. Bird flu, doubtful...
Hmm, so it may have brought up an item relavent to me because I am a recent visitor of the site and I have recently searched for broadcast video terms on Google. Interesting...
Had someone already published the idea of recording searches by each user and serving ads specific to those searches when a user visits an ad site? They don't seem to have included it. Although if Y is small enough then it seems to be much the same
How long had the site been up and running before you added Adsense? We have found that most of our new sites with Adsense will display web hosting related ads (regardless of the new page content). It seems this is because our "coming soon" pages link back to our hosting and design services and it takes Google a few days to index the 'new' site. After that relevant ads are delivered..
The site had been running for over 6 months before adding AdSense. However, the ads I saw were on someone elses site!