On my last post about making money with Google AdSense, I talked about the Google Bid Gap and how having less ads could equal more dollars. Today, I want to talk about Google section targeting.
Google section targeting is an often unused resource for many bloggers. This is no doubt due to the fact that most blog owners don’t even know what section targeting is. If you want to make money online with Google AdSense, then section targeting is something you need to understand and use.
What Is Section Targeting
Are you having trouble getting Google to show more targeted AdSense ads on your blog? Most of the time, this comes about because the blog content isn’t highly targeted to the keywords you’re after. This is especially true for a blog because the posts can ramble from one topic to the next. Google tries its best to figure out what the general theme of a blog is and serve the most appropriate ads. However, you can help it out by section targeting your content.
Section Targeting allows you to recommend key sections of your article for AdSense to emphasize or downplay when selecting ads for your blog. In other words, instead of having Google spidering your entire page to select AdSense ads, you tell Google which parts of your content to target and which parts to ignore.
How To Use Section Targeting
The following HTML tags triggers Google AdSense section targeting:
<!– google_ad_section_start –>
This is the section of text I want Google to use when selecting ads for my blog. All the keywords and key phases should go here and I should stay highly focused on my theme, which is make money online, making money online, make money from a blog, blogging for dollar, root of all evil, John Chow has the best online moneymaking blog on the Internet, etc.
<!– google_ad_section_end –>
In the above example, Google will use the section of text I designated for the targeting of AdSense ads and ignore the rest the article. This is how most sites do section targeting. However, I find it easier to use the weight=ignore tag to tell Google what not to target.
By using the tag <!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –> on sections of my site that I want Google to ignore I can keep my AdSense ads on target to the theme of my blog. Have a look at your blog and see if their are pages with ads that are not related to what you’re writing about. The miss-targeted ad could be caused by just a small section of text. By enclosing that section with a section weight=ignore tag, Google will ignore it and use the reminder of your article to target ads. That should put the Google ads back on target.
The weight=ignore tag allows me to ramble about anything I want and still keep the Google ads targeted to the main theme of my blog, which is to make money online. If you want to make more money on your blog then you should take advantage of section targeting.
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{ 96 comments }
I have used the section comments before in my blog but I was unaware of the ignore feature.
section comments?
wouldnt sectioned comments be more like this threaded comment thingy
you didn’t read the blog, did you?
That’s very good technic let adsense to foucs on the main content and get more related ads.
I agree. It seems that that is the only way to prevent much irrelevant ads from just popping out of nowhere. That’s what you don’t want.
Indeed, combine this with a list of ‘bad’ made-for-adsense websites and you should be giving yourself a good time.
Yeah, I was wondering how blogs get so specific on their ads and we get the occasional weight loss ad on our career site.
I really like that ignore feature. Especially when we have those rambling posts that have a topic that maybe touches on real estate or finance.
This is really helpful John, thanks!
Hey John, in your opinion, is it safe to start implementing these kind of monetizing features on a new blog? I mean a blog with about 50 visits a day. Can these ads not be disturbing?
Well, if visitor see them on their first visit, then it’s not a big deal – plus, you blog could be five days old or 5,000. Ads are ads, the age of your blog doesn’t matter to AdSense!
I say go ahead and place the ads if you want to monitize!
Either do it or don’t. As long as AdSense lets you show the ads why not?
If you’re going to have ads ever – why not just start showing them right away so users know what to expect. Otherwise it’s like watching a commercial-free TV show for a year that all of a sudden starts putting in ads.
i think we talked about this earlier this week . . . personally, i think it’s better to incorporate your ads now, so that your readers will know right away that you will be placing ads
Yep! Ads are everywhere these days – your visitor wont care!
Agreed. If your community is similar to John Chow’s I think most of your readers will ignore the ads anyway.
Well, I think quite some visitors do care, but wont complain as long as you’re not overdoing it. Personally I’m pretty much of an ad hater, but some websites just offer content that is worth the annoyance.
Yeah, but then having ads can break up the content so that it’s not just an essay that you are looking at. Ideally it would have pictures, graphs, etc. to make for a better read.
Agreed, that’s why I don’t have ads in my content!
I would say to go ahead as well. It would be better to do it and experiment first hand now to get a feel of it than later.
I agree. Each time someone goes to your site and sees ads, you want them to think that the ads are related to your text and get them to click.
Thanks for all the answers guys. Let the real monetizing begin!
Hehe, I blogged about this awhile back as well.
http://www.johnhok.com/2007/03/06/more-relevant-ads-ad-section-targetting/
I had a more detailed look at it than that but I was in a rush so I didn’t use a word processor and I accidentally hit the back button on my mouse then *poof* went the post.
That’s happened to me too… so now I use a greasemonkey script called Textarea Backup!
I wrote a blog post about it here: http://www.jonlee.ca/2007/03/18/never-lose-your-post-again/
Thanks a lot, I forgot what the name of that script was, I’ve been looking all over the web for it. Together with PrEmail for blog comment forms it’s a perfect combination
Hey, thats a nice piece of info on adsense will try and use it!!
now you just have to go through your whole blog and add the code . . .fun!
What do you mean, people don’t spend their weekends going through each post looking to make them better
Definitely so. It is a nice piece of advice to actually target related ads to your blog. My blog is not really fixed to a single topic, so the ads can be rather jumpy at times.
I can see blogs like yours REALLY benefit from this because the nature of your topic. We have a specific niche so it’s a bit easier.
hmm….good info to know…I didn’t know about this…
I don’t either! That’s what’s great about John’s blog: You can learn so much!
oh no kidding!! I’ve learned so much from this blog, its unreal!! and I never seem to stop learning…haha…so I’ll probably keep coming back to it..
Haha. Then you just got to keep coming back. There’s so much to learn and share around here.
You hit it on the head, I think in addition to the great content, what makes this blog so unique is that the community is so engaged. Love it!
Here’s a tip for you
Sam, go to the AdSense blog on Google.
>Do they have the Top Commentator’s
>plugin running? Can I spam the hell
>out of that site to?
They will think you’re a robot like Daniella said.
I don’t think they have it there, Saman!
I wish they did, their blogs got a fairly high PR
That would have been opening another flood gate..
can’t wait for that ebook . . hahaha . . . actually, can’t wait to see who buys it!
Yeah, that ebook is going to be a money maker when John comes out with it in a few months. There’s no reason not to create one, he has the content.
Ask and ye shall receive. Thanks John for putting this up after my Adsense Nonsense email.
I’m happy to hear that John posted this after an email question…it proves that he does really help people out!! Good on ya John!!!
No, he didn’t help people. He only took advantage of other people since he’s the real evil. The one that helping people is his twin, what did you call it? The opposite of the evil one.
Both ways, it benefits. I’m glad that he’s actually ‘taking advantage’ like what you say. There can be no other better way!
Hmmmm, the opposite of evil…forgot what someone called him, but we still think he’s a humanitarian
Perfect advice! The adsense ads on my blog are at times strange to say the least. Will give this a whirl and see what happens. Thank you John!
Hey, when are you going to fill out that Yumcha page? The front page look nice. Did I missed the link to your blog?
Yumcha.com.au —> Where you from Yumcha? I don’t see to many .au around.
Wow this is just what I have been needing. Great post, John. You rock.
Another great tip – so when are you writing a book John?
He’s planted the seed. I would expect it in the next couple months. Its going to take a bit to correct the typo’s hehehe…sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Have to hand to you John…Great Post..as always
Another great tip. I was actually reading the Google adsense online help looking for tips to help keep my Google ads as relevant to my audience as possible. The section found here was faster than plowing through Google’s help section. Thanks again.
I think that was the same reason why we love this source of all evils very much.
I wasn’t aware of this..good to know. Thanks
This is some good info. I’m going to try to frequent your blog more often. You post some good stuff.
I remember reading this on the google adsense help but when John Chow says it..it’s like “Holy words”!
Thanks John! No idea this feature existed, hopefully it’ll increase my CTR
Try including a leader board with adsense to increase CTR. We did and it doubled our percentage!
Is it me or has John really turned it up with the tips after we all went off on him for doing too many Reviews?
Looks that way Gary, he’s going back to what has brought in the traffic!
which is definitely one of his smartest moves of the month . . and that’s saying a lot!
I still need 10 more comments so not being kicked out again.
I couldn’t post for 9 hours and every body just ran and left me out. But seems like we are run out of comments that I could reply. Learn from you, buddy. 
Hurry, catch up Aris cuz after the technorati post that John left, everyone’s going to be shooting for the top commentator list.
No doubt, I can just see a ton of spam coming!
I think he’d be getting dugg like mad if he could.
He’s going back to basics. That’s the old JC that everyone wants!
Nah, he’s always coming out with great tips. It’s just that it’s not as saturated with review’s right now.
Awsome tip John. Tiny, easy, simple and actionable. Thanks.
yeah, john! nice tips!
I would say it was a smart tip
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timeable
awesome post, google says that it takes two weeks for update by adsense crawlers.
Two weeks?! I was hoping to see results within a few days
If you check the new post, John is in page two now. Can’t wait to see when he is going to surpass problogger on page 1.
yea me 2, but when I used it it was just a day or two
i now see with about 1-2 ad blocks.. increase in click value. some clicks generate over 1$ which is big for me
yea but it really depends on the costs of the keywords
$1 are awesome! Congrats on that.
I guess it is great for those who wants to eliminate unwanted ads (like me). Nice tip, and I should be giving it a try soon.
Didn’t see that on the Google AdSense site. Thanks for the tip, now I can finally get rid of some annoying fire truck ad’s.
amazing tips. I will try to use it.
i think that if you give good content in your articles, good titles and good urls, you dont need that!
define good content? You mean specific to target a specific niche? If so, I would agree, but it depends on the individual blog
John,
Rack it up to another informative and very useful post! I’ve implemented section targeting before, but never heard of the ignore section.
Thanks for the tip!
I used to do this technique! it’s really effective!
Good information, thanks for sharing.
Very, very useful post John, I will be implementing this technique as soon as possible.
yeah this shouldn’t be a big deal
Thanks for the tips. Your so smart.
Holy Smacks, there is like a million comments on this post. Rightly so though, this is a great adsense tip, I will definitely be giving it a try shortly. Sometimes, I get funeral ads on my post…very strange. This Google ad sectioning idea should get rid of those morbid ads.
That is awesome, I was just wondering how to get more relevant ads from adsense on my Page, I am going to apply that as soon as I finish this comment!
i tried it on my blog it works!! now i see more relevent ads on the blog!! thanks
This google section targeting isn’t working out for me very well. The problem I have is having too many posts on one page that don’t have the same topic, so the ads are irrelevant. I wish I could tell google to look at the latest 2 posts for determining what ads should be used.
Google Section code is a legal or not?