Most of my experience is with very defined niche sites, and Google's ads have been very on-target. However, how does G determine what to place ads on when there are two equally represented terms on a site? Also, consider that both of them are somewhat competetive phrases. Here's an example, let's say that "coffee" is a keyword paying up to $3, and "hot doughnuts" is a keyword paying $5. Example site has a title of "Hot Doughnuts and Coffee, a Combination Made in Heaven". h1- Coffee and Hot Doughnuts Body text here with a discussion on coffee and hot doughnuts. Will G serve ads with information on both? Thanks in advance.
It depends on several factors. What could happen is ads telling you about heaven or the forthcoming apocalypse or whatever else can be spawned from the keyword, 'heaven'. Assuming however, that you have successfully triggered the keywords, 'coffee' and 'doughnuts', or 'donuts' for our N. American friends; the determining factors involved are a little more complicated than just keyword=ad. Not widely so, just a little. Don't forget the eternal Google cookie residing on many computers. It contains a search footprint and some of the advertising served could be slewed towards previous user searches. However, I believe you mean can both text ads be served on the same page at the same time? It is possible but unlikely.
Since you're curious about this, I'd suggest setting up an experiment which embodies whatever it is you're pursuing, and see if you can draw some conclusions from the observations. But keep in mind the message of wiser voices in this forum who occasionally remind everyone that you'll have much more success in the long run focusing on quality content rather than trying to outsmart Google (et al.) for short-term and trasient benefits. Nonetheless, if you figure out which G. prefers -- hot doughnuts or coffee, publish your findings. I gotta believe it would depend an awful lot on the quality of the doughnuts, and esp. the coffee. sure would for me...
I've seen ads triggered by nothing else but incoming links as well. So if the majority of the IBLs have the anchor text 'coffee' then that's likely to play a big part in what they decide to output.
so were the inbound links off-topic for the content where the ads displayed? If not, how could you say it was the IBLs that prompted the ads' content?
Yes they were (off-topic). It was actually a forum member's nickname which linked with that as anchor text to his homepage. The homepage had nothing to do with the word in his nickname yet Google plastered AdSense ads related to this nickname all over the place.