Undocumented & Little Known AdWords and AdSense Features

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Did you know that there are features in AdWords and AdSense that are, as yet, undocumented (at least, they're not officially documented)! There is other functionality that, even though in Google's published help, is not widely known among users. Below you will discover some of these hidden gems.

This great undocumented feature enables you to create the headline for your ads on the fly—within limitations. Using the code below, you can use the keyword/phrase triggered by the user's search as the ad headline, with a default provided for those instances when the keyword/phrase is longer than the 25 character maximum.

The format for such a headline, which you enter directly when creating an ad, is {keyword: default text} or {KeyWord: default text}. You must include the curly braces and the word "keyword" is what you actually type in. If you use the "KeyWord" alternative each word in the text of your keyword/phrase will be capitalized and the "Keyword" option capitalizes only the first word.

For example, suppose I have an ad campaign for green boxes and I want the headline to reflect my keywords dynamically, with "Green Boxes" as the default text. When creating the ad I would enter the following, exactly as typed below:

{KeyWord: Green Boxes}

Now, supposing I set up the following keyphrases in my ad group: green boxes; green cartons; cartons that are green; boxes that are green, lime colored boxes, etc. If a user searches for "lime colored boxes" the headline of the ad would be "Lime Colored Boxes." If the keyword/phrase would take up more than the maximum 25 characters, the default text would be used instead. For example "looking for lime colored cartons" would trigger an ad with "Green Boxes" as the headline.

Note: It is the keyword that is triggered by the search that is inserted, not the user's actual search term. For example, if I searched for "Where can I buy cartons that are green" it would cause the "Cartons That Are Green" keyphrase to be inserted as the ad's headline.

Dynamcially Inserting Keywords into a Phrase

You can also use the above functionality to insert keywords into phrases in your headline. This is achieved in exactly the same way as above, only part of your headline remains constant.

For example, suppose I sell dog and cat accessories and I have two keywords, "dog" and "cat." I set up the headline of my ad as follows:

{Keyword: Dog and Cat} Accessories

If the user searches for anything that triggers the "dog" keyword, the ad headline will be "Dog Accessories" and likewise for "cat." Cool, eh!

Specification Summarized

In the examples below bold text is used for constant text that you do not change. Whereas italicized text needs to be replaced with your own text.

{keyword: my own text}

keywords will be in lower case, default headline will be "my own text"

{Keyword: my own text}

First keyword will be capitalized, default headline will be "my own text"

{KeyWord: my own text}

All keywords will be capitalized, default headline will be "my own text"

My Phrase {keyword: my own text}

keywords will be in lower case, inserted after "My Phrase ", default headline will be "My Phrase my own text"

My Phrase {Keyword: my own text}

First keyword will be capitalized, inserted after "My Phrase ", default headline will be "My Phrase my own text"

My Phrase {KeyWord: my own text}

All keywords will be capitalized, inserted after "My Phrase ", default headline will be "My Phrase my own text"

Don't forget that you can insert the dynamic keywords anywhere in your phrases; at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.

Word of Caution

This functionality is very appealing but it does have limitations. Also, you need to be sure that you would be happy with every keyword you have created being used as an ad headline (or in an ad headline, when using phrases). However, it can be very useful when you have a very generic product and you want to trap all of the variations of that product—and I'm sure there are countless other good uses!

Section Targeting with AdSense

If you have text on a web page that you do not want the AdSense bot to use in deciding what ads should be displayed, or you have text that you particularly want to emphasize for AdSense purposes, you need section targeting!

Section targeting is implemented by the simple insertion of special comment tags into your HTML code, as follows:

To particularly emphasize a section, enclose the text in these tags:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

To have a section of text ignored, use the following variation:

<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

These tags can be used as many times as you like in your pages. However, it may take one or two weeks before you see any changes. Also, you need to ensure that a good amount of text is included between the targeting tags - the bots need plenty of food to help them decide what ads are pertinent to your site's content!

google_hints and google_kw appear to be two similar features that Google is currently testing in order to enable publishers to have a greater degree of control over the ads that display on their websites. However, at the moment these features may only be used with Google's express permission! It appears that google_hints is currently being tested by the Google AdSense team for a very limited number of publishers. Similarly, google_wk seems to be only available for premium publishers to use to improve the targeting of their ads and may still be being beta tested.

google_kw simply adds extra lines to your javascript code as follows:

google_kw_type = "broad";
google_kw = "adwords adsense profit google money earn income seo";

google_hints works in much the same way as the google_kw line above:

google_hints = "your keywords here";

As mentioned above, using these features without Google's permission violates their Terms of Service (TOS). SO DON'T DO IT!