I have tried to keep an open mind on the merits or otherwise of having Google Adsense ads on a business blog. The idea of being able to cover some hosting and other costs with a trickle of payments from the Google people is attractive, but I ‘ve wondered for some time about the downside of having ads appear for companies in my business space. The downside as I see it is twofold: some of them might be competitors and some of them might be shonks, so what does that say to people who have clicked through from my site - especially if they don’t actually know that it’s an Adsense ad or what that means anyway.
So recently, looking at the report of a few dollars revenue, I took the link off. Today I thought I’d give it another go. Then I checked to see the effect. What I see is a graphic of a young woman, lightly clad and with impossibly long legs. It’s advertising an online, real time dating site. So how did that get there?
Here’s what Google says about Google Adsense:
Earn more revenue from your website, while providing visitors with a more rewarding online experience. Google AdSense™ automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful. And when you add Google WebSearch to your site, AdSense delivers targeted ads to your search results pages too. With AdSense you earn more ad revenue with minimal effort—and no additional cost.
“…ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content”? Really?
Looking over recent posts, the best I can figure out is that the Google computers might have found a link to social networking, about which I write and which is the field in which the book I co-authored with Bill Vick and about which I’ve posted recently, Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting, plays.
I have no problem with dating sites: they no doubt bring happiness to many people and I know people who’ve met online and are indeed very happy. But that’s not what this site is about. So I could understand a visitor to my blog getting a false impression of what this blog is about: I have to wonder is that worth the few bucks I earn from Google?
When I looked just now, the dating site ad has gone and has been replaced with a public service notice by Google about Gulf hurricane relief. That’s fine, but what about when that ad changes - I have no idea what is going to come up or what it might implictly say about my site.
I may not give up on Google Adsense, or not just yet anyway, but I won’t be using the skyscraper ads any more.
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I had a similar experience, Des — an ad was posted to my site by Google that promoted the rental of censored DVD’s in the name of “promoting family values.” The last thing I want on my site (which includes movie reviews) is an ad promoting artisitic censorship. While it’s possible to filter Google ads, the fact is that different ads may be served depending on the geographic location, and that’s an impossibility. Unfortunately, such concerns may become moot as we move more towards RSS feeds and the ability of different feed readers to present physical versions of blog entries that may be totally different from what was intended by the original author.
Great blog, great design! I like your colors. how can you find such a good combination?
Tomas Hellix
mp3 blog
Tomashellix@yahoo.com
Thanks Thomas
The design is via my BlogHarbor account, one of many they provide.
Dennis is right of course. Google does provide an option to filter ads from specific advertisers, or more correctly from specific URLs. Problem is catching them: i.e. you have to be looking at your blog when an ad appears from one of your competitors or for a product or service you don’t want to promote even tacitly, be quick enough to get the url and then manually insert that in your Adsense account setup. It comes under the ‘Competitive Ad Filter’ tab in the Adsense Setup section.