TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads?

Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads?

DevilsPGD (devilspgd@crazyhat.net)
Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:18:23 -0700

In message <telecom23.565.10@telecom-digest.org>
bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

> It _is_ possible to get a 'fairly' accurate count of how many times
> any ad was actually "seen" by people viewing your page. It *does*
> require a fair amount of skill in web-page programming, however.
> Starting with reverse- engineering the 'drop-in' code provided by
> google. Then you replace their target URL with a reference to a
> 'unique' URL on _your_own_ server. _THAT_ page does not 'really'
> exist. it just returns a 'redirect' to the _actual_ google ad image.
> *BUT*, you get a 'hit' in _your_ logs on that dummy page, every time
> the ad is pulled up.

You don't need to go to all the hassle of redirecting it, just add a
second JS block (above or below) which points to a location on your
website.

> Note, _even_ this method will somewhat *overstate* the actual counts.
> Not just for Google, but for anybody who in the business of 'serving'
> ads -- e.g. doubleclick.com *spit* -- the ads tend to live on
> _dedicated_ machines in the source domain. An INCREASING number of
> people are using 'router' filters that block _any_ access to those
> *specific* servers. As a result, when the web-browser tries to
> retrieve the ad, the router blocking steps in, and returns either a
> 'host not found', or 'page not found' error, and the 'request' _never_
> even gets to the server to be counted.

It can be part of the browser (FireFox' Adblocker extension, for
instance) too.

The cigarette does the smoking, you're just the sucker.

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