How to block Scientology ads from your website
The Church of Scientology is currently running a huge advertising campaign across the web (and on US TV). Part of the web campaign involves serving ads through Google’s AdSense service. AdSense serves ads to millions of websites, including this one, and my TV Ad Music website, based on website content, location and other factors. That’s an AdSense unit at the top right of this page.
Usually this works out OK. I’ll write a post mentioning the iPhone or Sky TV, and Google will serve ads relevant to the iPhone or Sky TV. (And if readers click those ads I’ll get a few pennies – hooray!) But recently, particularly over at TV Ad Music, the AdSense units have been overrun by Scientology ads. This seems to be happening across the web, and some website owners are having problems filtering the ads.
Up until today, none of my websites had featured any content that was in any way relevant to the Church of Scientology. And so there was no reason for Scientology ads to appear here. Also, like a lot of other website owners, I don’t want to use my webspace to promote this organisation.
If people want to believe in a religion founded by a science fiction writer – with the specific intention of making money – and based on sci-fi staples involving past lives, UFOs and alien overlords, then I have no particular problem with that. Each to their own.
If people want to believe in a space ruler called Xenu and ancient extraterrestrial societies called the Helatrobus and the Marcabians, and that when people die their souls go to the planet Venus to be re-planted into a new body and then dumped back on Earth in the ocean off the coast of California, then that is their prerogative.
But I would rather they did not attempt to recruit members via my websites.
If you’re an AdSense user who is being plagued by Scientology ads, here’s how to block them using the competitive ad filter and the AdSense Preview Tool:
1. Find the ad URL. To block specific ads you’ll need to determine the display or destination URLs. It’s not sufficient to use the organisation’s main URLs, for example scientology.org and dianetics.org. My Scientology ads don’t show display URLs, and clicking on your own ads violates Google’s policy, so this method uses the AdSense Preview Tool, which works with Internet Explorer.
To install the Preview Tool, right-click the link below and save the registry file to your desktop. Then double-click the file from your desktop to install it. You’ll then need to close and restart Internet Explorer.
Open your website and right-click anywhere on the page outside of the your AdSense units. Select “Google AdSense Preview Tool” from the context menu.
A window will pop up showing adverts that AdSense will serve to your website. Tick the Scientology ad(s) and click “Show selected URLs”. The destination ad will appear. For example, for an ad offering a Scientology video on my website, the destination was at (Google-owned) YouTube (FYI: youtube.com/watch?v=zgsFh87RCU0). Copy the destination URL, and now we’ll block it.
2. Block the ad URL. Log in to Google AdSense and click “AdSense Setup” and “Competitive Ad Filter”. Paste the ad URL into the box under “AdSense for Content filters”. You might also want to paste it into “AdSense for Search filters”. You can also add Scientology’s main URLs, scientology.org and dianetics.org, to the filter lists. Click “Save changes”.
And you’re done. Google say it could take 48 hours for the changes to take effect, but the ads disappeared from my sites within a few minutes. You can confirm that the ads have been filtered using the Preview Tool again. If the ads reappear for another destination URL you may need to run through the process again.
Like I said earlier, this isn’t an anti-Scientology issue. It’s an anti-irrelevant and/or unsuitable ads issue. I’m sure that all Scientologists are very charming, very good-looking, and not at all bonkers. All I know is I would rather have red-hot knitting needles poked into my eye sockets than ever watch Battlefield Earth…
This could be useful for other sites. I found a blog devoted to interesting insects whose adsense invariably had exterminator ads on them. they issued a disclaimer, “We do not condone killing insects” above every ad.