Advertising: Google Adsense/DFP -- How to Identify and Block an Obnoxious Ad or Videos from Appearing On Your Site

What is Google's Problem?

Google's AdSense network is still #1 in the world in 2016, though revenue is a fraction of what it used to be.

Much of the problems facing AdSense (and all Advertising networks) are Ad Blockers -- browser plug-ins or other software that stops ads from being served on publisher's websites. On my company's site, about 7% of people are using Ad Blockers, according to PageFair, a service that will attempt to monitor the use of Ad Blockers for you.

Why do so many people use AdBlockers? Because too many of the ads being served are Flash-based or otherwise sending out slow video ads or ads that open pop-ups or ads that redirect or spy on visitors in unwanted ways.

Obnoxious Ad Blocking On Your Site

One thing you do to help your visitors is to identify these terrible ad schemes. It can be difficult sometimes to do so, but Google does provide one good tool for identifying bad ads.

Get the plug-in.

Open a Chrome browser.

Visit the Google Publisher Toolbar page to install the plug-in.

  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-publisher-toolbar/omioeahgfecgfpfldejlnideemfidnkc

After a minute it will install, and then you need to activate it in the upper right corner of the Chrome Browser.

It will require you to activate two of the components -- Google Adsense and DoubleClick for Publishers.

Find the Bad Ad

Next, go to your site, and reload until you get one of the ads. It's tedious, but if the bad ads are showing up repeatedly, then you should see one eventually. One ad on our site claims to be for a YouTube martial arts page, however, after a few seconds, the ad loads videos and plays them with sound. It's very jarring.

Once you see the ad, an overlay will appear. It may show the ad slot size, and maybe the URL of the link, and also the name of the Ad Network that bought the ad.

Block the Ad URL and Publisher in AdSense

Now, go to your AdSense account.

https://www.google.com/adsense/

Once, there click on [Allow & Block ads].

There's two tabs you want to investigate here -- [Advertiser URLs] and [Ad networks]. 

Under [Advertiser URLs], copy and paste, or type in, the link's URL into the input field and hit save.

Under [Ad networks] search for the name of the offending Network. Once you find it, click on the slider to not allow it to show up again.

Then, just hope it works, and be patient -- it may take a few minutes to go into effect.