Adsense Section Targeting

In this example, we automatically scan web pages and report any errors with Adsense section targeting.

The Google Adsense program attempts to match ads to page context, but doesn't always get it right.  To help the Adsense ad matching AI, you can use "hints" to emphasize or downplay sections of page text.  These "hints" take the form of HTML comments.

For example, to emphasize a section of HTML content, you might do this:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
[...]
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

To downplay a section of HTML content, you might do this:

<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->
[...]
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

If your CMS (Content Management System) or your hand editing of web pages has mistakenly omitted or mangled a section targeting tag, or ordered them out of sequence, you might mislead the Adsense ad matching AI, making ads more off-target than on-target.  You would want to be alerted to any misuse of section targeting, of course.

The ReportAdsenseSectionTargeting script might send an alert message like the following:

                                PIKT ALERT
                         Sat Dec 31 06:38:59 2005
                                 calgary

WARNING:
    ReportAdsenseSectionTargeting
        Report any errors with Adsense section targeting

        /var/www/html/pikt/todo.html: =ignorestart tag without preceding end tag
        [...]
        /var/www/html/pikt/links.html: invalid tag: <!-- google_ad_section_begin -->
        [...]

The script follows.

#if piktwebsys

ReportAdsenseSectionTargeting

        init
                status =piktstatus
                level =piktlevel
                task "Report any errors with Adsense section targeting"

                input proc "=find =piktwebdir -name \\*.html -print
                            -exec =egrep google_ad_section {} \\;"

        rule    // new page
                if $inlin =~ "^=piktwebdir"
                        // final start tag with no following end tag
                        if    @inlin eq "=ignorestart"
                           || @inlin eq "=emphasizestart"
                                output mail "$page: start tag without following end tag"
                        endif
                        set $page = $inlin
                        next
                endif

        rule    // =emphasizestart tag without preceding end tag
                if $inlin eq "=emphasizestart"
                        if    @inlin eq "=emphasizestart"
                           || @inlin eq "=ignorestart"
                                output mail "$page: \=emphasizestart tag without
                                                    preceding end tag"
                        endif
                        next
                endif

        rule    // =ignorestart tag without preceding end tag
                if $inlin eq "=ignorestart"
                        if    @inlin eq "=ignorestart"
                           || @inlin eq "=emphasizestart"
                                output mail "$page: \=ignorestart tag without
                                                    preceding end tag"
                        endif
                        next
                endif

        rule    // end tag without preceding start tag
                if    $inlin eq "=emphasizeend"
        //         || $inlin eq "=ignoreend"
                        if    @inlin ne "=emphasizestart"
                           && @inlin ne "=ignorestart"
                                output mail "$page: end tag without
                                                    preceding start tag"
                        endif
                        next
                endif

        rule    // invalid tag
                output mail "$page: invalid tag: $inlin"

        end     // final start tag with no following end tag
                if    $inlin eq "=ignorestart"
                   || $inlin eq "=emphasizestart"
                        output mail "$page: start tag without following end tag"
                endif

#endif  // piktwebsys

The script makes use of several section targeting macros defined in our macros.cfg file as follows:

// Adsense section targeting

emphasizestart          <!-- google_ad_section_start -->

emphasizeend            <!-- google_ad_section_end -->

ignorestart             <!-- google_ad_section_start(weight==_ignore) -->

ignoreend               <!-- google_ad_section_end -->

So, for example, we might use section targeting macros as in

=ignorestart

<div id="header">
[...]
</div>

=ignoreend

It is much more convenient, and we are much less likely to make a mistake, using (for example) "=ignorestart" in our page source code than entering its equivalent, "<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->".

Since the =emphasizeend and =ignoreend comment strings are identical, we were able to simplify sections of the script code.

This is just one program example.  You could write new scripts to:  check the value of other fields in the Adsense JavaScript code (example); make sure that you have not violated the Adsense rules about total ad units (example); and so on.

For more examples, see Samples.