Why Does Adsense Do this?

Try using this WP plugin - Better AdSense Targeting

See if the situation improves. HTH!

Targeting sections is crap. Google takes forever to recognize it,
and, they feel it is not a good practice. Too ripe for abuse.
Completely useless in most cases. They even admit they
may ignore it.

Problem with adsense is that google will show ads depending on
the visitor's demo.

BUT....remember google has 10+ (pun intended) years of doing this
stuff. They know what works. They are in the business of showing
ads that they think will a)make the most money. b) get the most
clicks. Sometimes this seems diametrically opposed to logic.
Our logic, that is. You could toss in the towel and let google
have a go and see what happens.

Make sure you are using a different browser than your main one,
and are not logged in to google. You might see ads that are local.
Well, forget about those ads. Nobody anywhere else will see them.
The filter is useless here, as you can block every local ad for every
city, state, country, etc. You can't turn this off. Google will always
show ads based on locale and other things.

If you see ads somewhat in the niche, global, those are the ones
to filter. But the problem with filtering unwanted ads, is that there
are 100 more to take their place.

And, you run the risk of actually getting worse or no ads.

So, what can you do?

Here's where my advice gets dicey. I do sites for adsense. Period.
However, I make such a large web footprint of links that google,
the search engine, cannot ignore them either. But I have learned
that getting ads that people will click is a different animal than
"SEO" for the most part.

Here's what I have done. I have made each and every title and
description the same. That's right. The same. I pick a a sentence
with some targeted keywords. In other words, now each page has
the same keywords I am targeting in the description and title.
Title is one thing the adsense bot will take into account.

Also, the h1 tag. You have to be careful. Choosing this unwisely
could give you bad ads.

Here's what I do. Again, it will look bad on the surface. I do
the same, yes the same, h1 tag on each page. Basically a
rewording of the title. Then, I do the h2 for the headings of
the article, looking like a subheading on the page.

Now look what we have. We have the title and h1 with nothing but
the keywords I am targeting, looking like a readable sentence for the
visitor, however.

I always have a left side menu. I use h3 and h2 headings to name
each section. BUT...they are all the same keywords as the above.

And here's the last piece. Create an intro paragraph of 3-5 sentences,
explaining what the site is about, emphasis on keywords. You could
even bold this whole thing if you want. Put it at the top of each page
somewhere. I like to put it at the top of the side menu. Something
like: "Welcome to domain.com. We have articles and resources for
keyword keyword keyphrase etc etc..."

Voila! I have a site that is geared for the adsense bot, but still looks
good to a visitor.

There's a few more things that you might not have thought of.
Negative words. Eliminate them in your title and h1, h2, etc. You want
to watch the ads to see what may be a negative word. Case in point:
I had an article on childhood discipline. I was getting dog training
ads. I had to rework the words to eliminate them. Yes, I did use
the filter, but who knew what someone else was seeing?

Oh.. Just an example. The above article would be on a parenting site.
So, the title would be something like "Parenting Resources blah blah blah"
h1 would be Resources for parents. h2 would be raising children tips.
(notice I got rid of the word discipline?)
Side menu paragraph would be We have articles on parenting for mothers,
fathers, and raising children. Being a family takes hard work blah blah.

In other words, the content of the article is overpowered by all the
other signals.

Watch what words you bold. The adsense bot may over-emphasize
these.

Watch your external links. Using anchor text for outside links that
have nothing to do with your niche may be a good ad killer.

Now the above is not for everybody and I only use those techniques
on sites that get a hodge-podge of ads.

Some sites I do have get 90% targeted ads.

If you really want to let google just do what they do naturally,
don't filter any ads and turn them all into image and text. See
what results you get. After all, like I said, they have 10+ years
at getting people to click on ads.

Paul