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Ask HN: How is Kosmix hacking up Google Ads?

12 points by jarsj ↗ HN
1) The ads seem query aware, and AFAIK Google adsense for search comes with its own everything (searchbox + searchresults + ads) and there is no API to simply fetch ads on the query terms. See http://www.kosmix.com/topic/Iphone_Android_Gandhi

2) The ads are embedded into the page, which means they were generated on the server.

16 comments

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zaidf
That is weird. Even more surprising is the missing "Google Ad" text. Instead we've a superlight "Sponsored" link which is almost certainly breaking the TOS.
Raphael
Quite a mystery. It's definitely Google ads. My guess is they have automated a web browser to extract ads. Although, that seems like a lot of work without any much benefit. (It does eschew the default Adblock+ filters.)
omarchowdhury
What ads are you guys talking about? The set of of link under "Web Search" just returns organic links using the Google Search API... all I see is a normal Adsense unit to the right of that.
jarsj
- Normal adsense unit can not have query terms high-lighted. - These ads look targetted to the query. There is no way Google can crawl such a long tail so quickly to target ads on the content. - Do a view source, these ads were generated on the server, compared to typical client side google ads.
dabent
Do they have enough traffic to merit a special deal with Google? Maybe they can negotiate a way to get a custom layout? Alexa (for what it's worth) shows them getting OK traffic, but not a ton.
omarchowdhury
yes, actually Google Search Network Partners get different terms/customization options than regular Adsense accounts.
theli0nheart
In the inline style tag right before the ads, there's a reference to

  http://2.afs.googleadservices.com/images/partners/COi4yqbh-p0CFQJciAodOTAbrQ/kosmix.png
which is the "Sponsored Links" image. This strongly suggests that Kosmix and Google are working together to provide these links. Given that, there's nothing too weird about this.
gyardley
That functionality's available, but not to everybody - you need to have a relationship with Google.

When operational, Findory did this client-side - each page included a list of space-delimited keywords based on the content of the page and the user's past behavior.

If you look at some of the Findory pages at archive.org you can see the premium publisher AdSense call, with the keywords listed under the google_kw variable.

To learn a bit more about what premium publishers' ad call can do, just search around for google_ad_request_done.

vitriolic
"AFAIK Google adsense for search comes with its own everything (searchbox + searchresults + ads) and there is no API to simply fetch ads on the query terms."

This is where you are wrong. Google does give out XML ad feeds.

jarsj
I am curious to learn about this. Would you care to provide a link ? Is it something available only to Google Partners or everyone in general. A lookout on web for this doesn't fetch me anything relevant.
earl
You can get them by asking your account manager; it's not an automatic approval thing. If you don't have an AM, well, you're probably not big enough.

Also, I believe (but am not 100% sure, and certainly don't want to be quoted on) that: 1 - AFS pays very competitive rates; 2 - in order to get an XML feed, you will probably have to agree to exclusivity. This isn't all bad though as you often get a better rev share if you go exclusive. Typical periods are two years.

kalendae
would be great to know at least the order of magnitude of the amount of traffic considered big enough to warrant an AM and possibly be able to get this kind of partnership?
ankjain
Kosmix is not hacking up Google Ads. It is getting ads in an XML Feed and this kind of program is available to publishers/websites which have traffic beyond certain threshold. Lots of large websites have this kind of relationship with Google.