InsideGoogle

Findory Adds Ads, Personalizing Google AdSense

Findory has done the impossible, personalizing Google ads to the user on its site, presenting surfers with mostly high relevance ads on all its pages. Greg Linden announces it.

First off, a quote from Greg’s blog:

This early version is built on top of Google AdSense, but these are not normal AdSense ads. They are not targeted merely to the content of the page, but to the individual behavior of each reader.

This is a very interesting statement, particularly where he says “built on”. My assumption is that Findory has somehow worked out a system that integrates its user data with Google’s ad network to generate much tighter ad matching than Google’s page reading contextualizing algorithms. Of course, he could mean something else entirely, so I’m waiting on more info from Greg. Greg would only say that it involved some work with Google, but most of the work is done on Findory’s end that allows Findory to better target the ads.

How good is the system? Very good. Greg actually uses the Findory source page for this very blog as an example. The ads I’ve seen are related to search engines, PageRank, newspapers (a recent post), blogging, RSS, XML, Newsgator, enterprise software, AdSense, AdWords, affiliates, portals, although they sometimes miss, such as when I saw a bunch of ads for cars or freight trucks, or clip art. The Slashdot page saw the world’s geekiest ads. The reason these ads were useful? Most of the keywords in the ads appeared nowhere on the page, but where completely relevant to my blog. I can only reason that Findory is passing along accurate data to AdSense about the source on the page, allowing for a variety of useful ads.

Now, while the source page ads can be generated irrespective of who is viewing the page, the Findory home page ads cannot. Every Findory home page is customized, even if no one is logged in, and has no unique identifier. It is impossible for Google’s bots to see my Findory home page, so the data being fed to personalize them must be coming through a different channel.

The ads on my personalized Findory page detail Google Local, popup blockers, search toolbars, RSS, MSN, music purchased online, Internet Explorer, antivirus, Google Desktop Search, XML, SOAP, news tickers, Windows, the stock market, email, spyware, left-wing attack ads, Launchcast, radio, surveys, web cams, blogs, source code, IT, spam, the legal system, the pope, audio software.

What did you not see in that list? Not a single ad for a physical product. No ads for cars, books, cameras, food, porn, even electronics. Why? Because I am a non-commercial surfer. I use Findory a lot, but I am never reading about products or gear or clothes. Even though articles about those topics appear on the page, the ads only reflected what I read. Notice what else isn’t there? Celebrity based ads. Nothing about Britney, or Desperate Housewives, or Rebecca Romjin. And those certainly appear in the non-personalized news stories. However, I don’t read those stories, and Findory doesn’t have any information that says that I do.

How does it work? It appears Findory is feeding Google keywords through the keyword suggest tool, keywords that are altered on every load of the page. In the page source code, I see this:

google_kw = "Tech about blog believe here three source been radio open checkpoint because police monday running currently support john spam simon";

Reload, it changes:

google_kw = "just Tech radio believe talk about listening being child General kiss another blogs record explorer treasure records hour been format";

Reload:

google_kw = "Tech just about talk believe radio says interviews treasure prague major trustrank Science beta apprentice said Personal hours newspapers around";

Reload:

google_kw = "Tech just radio believe talk about glitch newspapers trackback podcast length format times around explorer listening loves extra riffing record";

You get the idea. What does Findory do to get those keywords in there, changing on every page load, different for every single use? Is it a hack, a brilliant script, a deal with Google, or something else? Either way, its very effective, and I wish I could use it on my site. Its very similar to how I have WordPress automatically insert a post summary in the (still malfunctioning) Y!Q code on every post page, just far, far, far more advanced. Great way to make sure AdSense actually knows what the hell is going on, since it tends to make a lot of mistakes.

Oh, and congratulations to Findory. I’ve always loved the site, and it is good to see they are at least going to start seeing some revenues. Interestingly, Findory needs these mega-targetted ads more than most. Its site finds such accurate content, that if the ads were not equally accurate, they would be so below the level of the page content as to ensure that no one ever clicked on them. Now that I know that the ads are pretty accurate, I’ll be paying close attention to them (and hopefully send a little coin their way).

May 31st, 2005 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Advertising, General | 18 comments