This is absolutely wonderful news. And not only for the advertiser. If I can select and monitor what sites give me the higher quality leads, I will of course pay more for clicks on that site and hence, the publishers (Should) get paid more.

The content network quality is completely diluted by arbitrage and crappy quality sites. *Cough Myspace Cough* and it's unfair on real quality publishers.

I mostly ignore the content network, but this will certainly make me take more notice.

Another great move by Google.

Is there a better way to get a list
> of relevant pages to acquire links
> from than to run a content targeted
> AdSense ad campaign and ping
> those webmasters?

Good take on this; although the URL data has largely been available through your website's log files for some time. I've done some targeted campaigns to Adsense advertisers to try to get them to join our affiliate program. Most of the webmasters seem to be MFA guys or arbitrage guys and don't like messing with individual advertising deals. For me this strategy hasn't generated much, but still worth a shot.

Good post :)

I think this is a great move. It will help honest/quality publishers, and hurt scrapers.

I get the feeling that this "tool" will not be exactly what everyone thinks it will be. I'm guessing you'll only get a partial list, possibly sorted by authority.

I like your link shopping idea though.

Actually David, it's possible to get the URL info of your Google Adsense advertisers using the Google Adsense Preview Tool. You can get this via your Adsense control panel (just log into Adsense and search for Google Adsense Preview Tool). You can then see a whole pool of advertisers AND the URL landing pages! This works when you install the preview tool and right-click on the page where the ads are shown on (only works in IE). You can then see all the advertisers and landing URL pages.

The point being you can then contact them to request a link swap. I find this useful in finding relevant link partners.

I would love to be able to pay more for a specific set of sites rather than have to pay the same for the whole content network!

i really want to know on what pages my ads occur...its all about targeting, but how can one target if there is nothing to aim at? we need some light in the dark age of google-ad...:)

Is there a better way to get a list
> of relevant pages to acquire links
> from than to run a content targeted
> AdSense ad campaign and ping
> those webmasters?

Good take on this; although the URL data has largely been available through your website's log files for some time. I've done some targeted campaigns to Adsense advertisers to try to get them to join our affiliate program. Most of the webmasters seem to be MFA guys or arbitrage guys and don't like messing with individual advertising deals. For me this strategy hasn't generated much, but still worth a shot.

Good post :)