What Are Google AdSense Hints?
Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable (and the new blogger at Search Engine Watch Blog) has a quick review on Google AdSense Hints and a discussion going on at Webmaster World.
Google AdSense Hints are a way for publishers to add keywords in the AdSense code of their ads which helps Google determine the theme of advertisement to serve. Such a program of course requires a bond of trust between Google AdSense and the publisher. Because of this credibility hurdle and huge spamming potential, Google AdSense Hints usage are by invite only.
Seems that Google, like Yahoo Publisher Network, may be open to more pubisher insight to deliver a more targeted advertisement based upon the site owner’s understanding of their readers and reader states of mind.
YPN offers a form of ‘tagging’ or classification of the publisher into YPN categories which help define the target of the served ad. Yahoo calls these ad definition variables ‘matching expert’s, which include:
* Contextual Engine : Targeting based upon the content of the page
* Ad Targeting : Publishers can “tag” their own site by defining their ad targeting category in the YPN admin
* User Data : Behavioral targeting or profiling (geographic & demographic)
