How should buyers plan mixed topic websites, section by section?
Part of Contextual targeting
The short answer
A mixed topic website is judged section by section, not as one domain. Sample recent articles from each section that could fit the brief, count the matches, and record sample size and dates. Keep only sections that clear the advertiser's own threshold, buy them by URL path where the platform allows, and state the partial fit in the plan.
Key takeaways
- A general interest or lifestyle domain is several publications under one name, so the unit of judgment is the section, not the site.
- The share of matching articles is a planning method the team discloses, with its sample size, dates and rules, not an industry standard.
- Small samples give wide ranges: three matches out of five articles is consistent with anything from about a quarter to about nine tenths.
- A partial fit belongs in the plan in plain words: which sections are in, which are out, and how the buy is limited to them.
Should a mixed topic site be targeted by section?
When the platform allows it, yes. Buying the whole domain when only one section fits sends budget to pages the plan never meant to buy. Section targeting depends on URL structure. If travel stories live under /travel/ and food stories under /food/, the sections can be bought separately. If every article sits at the root of the domain, the planner has to choose between the whole domain and leaving it out.
Platform rules set how deep a URL can go. Google's Display & Video 360 help on website targeting (opens in a new tab) says the platform "supports two levels of subdirectory targeting" and that "URL paths that end in a specific filename are not truncated and are targeted as an individual page." Write down the exact paths and test that each still points to the intended section after truncation.
Five steps to split a mixed topic site into sections
- Map the sections from the site's own navigation. List each section name with its URL path, and note sections that share a path or have none.
- Mark which sections could fit the brief. Use the brief's topics, not the section titles alone, since a section called Life may carry travel, health and relationships.
- Sample recent articles from each candidate section. Take them from the section's own listing pages across several weeks, not from the homepage.
- Count matches and record the rules. Write down what counted as a match, what did not, and which articles raised a suitability question.
- Check that each kept path is buyable. Confirm the path survives the platform's truncation rules and that it still leads to the same section.
How do mixed topic sites affect suitability review?
Suitability has to follow the same section split. A city lifestyle site can carry family friendly restaurant guides under one path and crime or court coverage under another, and a domain level label hides that spread. Google's digital content label help for Display & Video 360 (opens in a new tab) says "a site may have different URLs with different labels" and that its classification "is updated monthly". A single domain level call goes stale.
Record suitability per kept section, next to the relevance count. Display & Video 360's brand suitability settings (opens in a new tab) let advertisers "opt-in or opt-out of traffic that some advertisers find acceptable while others don't", with theme exclusions such as News (sensitive), Politics and Religion. Those settings run on top of the list; they do not replace a reviewer noting that a kept travel section also runs airline accident stories.
Suitability notes to record for each kept section
- The section path and the dates of the articles sampled for suitability.
- How many sampled articles raised a concern under the client's own categories.
- Which platform suitability settings will run on top of the list for this campaign.
- The date the section should be sampled again, given that labels and stories change.
What does section planning look like on a real brief?
Fictional example
A luggage brand and an Alberta lifestyle site
An unnamed maker of carry on luggage and packing cubes wants display ads in English across Alberta, beside trip planning, packing advice and weekend getaway stories. Its planner finds a Calgary and Edmonton lifestyle site with sections for travel, food, home, money, arts and local news.
Travel sits under its own path; food and home share one; local news has another. A first sample of five recent articles per section marks travel as a likely fit, food and home as unlikely, and money as unclear because it carries some travel budgeting stories. The planner reads twenty five more travel articles across six weeks and ten more money articles. Travel holds up; money stays below the client's cutoff, since its travel pieces turn out to be credit card offers.
Suitability is checked on the same samples. Travel carries an occasional flight disruption story, which the client accepts. The site enters the plan as one travel path, not as a domain.
- Kept: the travel path, 30 articles reviewed over six weeks.
- Left out: food, home, money and local news, each with its reason.
How should the plan explain a partial fit?
Write the partial fit as a scope statement, not a score. The client wants to know which parts of the domain are in, why the rest is out, and how the buy is held to the parts that are in. A line such as "travel section only, 30 articles reviewed between two dates, bought by URL path" answers all three and can be checked against delivery reports.
| Approach | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|
| Buy the kept section by URL path | Holds spend to the pages that were reviewed; easy to explain | Depends on a clean URL structure and the platform's path depth |
| Buy the whole domain with exclusions | Simple to set up; keeps reach if most sections fit | Sections added later are bought without review |
| Ask the publisher for a section deal | The seller can limit delivery to the section on its side | Takes negotiation and depends on what the publisher offers |
| Leave the domain out | No risk of spend on unreviewed sections | Loses a strong section when the site cannot be split |
Check the setup after launch. Display & Video 360 offers a Download composite list (opens in a new tab) option for selected channels and URLs, a dated record of what the line item was set to buy. Any served URL outside the kept paths is a setup problem to fix.
How does PlacementGraph judge a site with many subjects?
Frequently asked questions
Does the IAB Content Taxonomy help classify sections of a mixed site?
It gives a shared vocabulary. IAB Tech Lab names contextual targeting and brand safety as typical uses of its Content Taxonomy, and OpenRTB lets a publisher send section categories in sectioncat. A label still needs checking against sampled articles, since one broad category may cover a whole section.
What if a mixed topic site has no section paths in its URLs?
Then URL targeting cannot separate its sections. The choices are to buy the whole domain with the gap stated in the plan, to ask the publisher whether a deal can be limited to one section on its side, or to leave the site out, with the reason recorded.
Should a mixed topic site count once or once per section on a site list?
Count it once as a publisher, so one owner does not crowd the list, and list the kept sections under it. Counting each section as a separate site makes the list look broader than it is and hides how much of the plan rests on one seller.
How long does a section level judgment stay valid?
Until the section changes. Editors move beats, add sponsored series and rename paths, and Google's Display & Video 360 help says pages are reclassified as content changes. Resample a kept section before each new flight, or sooner if served URLs fall outside the kept paths.
Sources
- OpenRTB 2.6 specification (Site object: cat, sectioncat, pagecat) (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- IAB Tech Lab Taxonomies repository (Content Taxonomy) (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- App, channel, and website targeting (opens in a new tab)Google, Display & Video 360 Help
- Digital content labels in Display & Video 360 (opens in a new tab)Google, Display & Video 360 Help
- Brand suitability (opens in a new tab)Google, Display & Video 360 Help
- Category targeting (opens in a new tab)Google, Display & Video 360 Help
- Contextual targeting (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- Engineering Statistics Handbook, 7.2.4.1 Confidence intervals (opens in a new tab)NIST
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.