Haha. Google is so funny sometimes

I love the words they latch onto

[xmetal]

So I am building a new site and adding content, and on one particular page I was talking about electronic gadgets in general. There are multiple paragraphs about this, as well as links.

However, in one sentence I mentioned something to the affect of "sometimes wanting the latest gadget is worse than being addicted to crack."

And what does google serve up? Ads for Drug counselors, Cocaine addiction, etc. Heh.

Even with hundreds of other words about the real topic, and even using the "weight=ignore" flags, it still had to put up at least one ad for the drug thing.

In the end I had to nix that sentence.

So I guess the lesson here is that you need to be careful with your words and check your ads for relevancy!

[pldaniels]

What I find interesting is that some pages of mine show what I consider to be a 'perfect' selection of adverts and yet the very next page ( in the same site ) with identical headers, links etc comes up with absolutely nothing relevant.

I've started to move a lot of my site to a broad-tree layout using directories and long-worded-html-page-names.html to try and help google understand more :-\

[rden17]

I had a page on Breast Cancer and had some ads showing for 'Death Records & Obituaries'.
Not real inspiring for someone with BC.

[websoccermom]

I have a site on a youth sports activity for boys and girls and it picks up girls for "want to meet girls" type ads. I have to filter those out quickly.

[EdisonCarter]

That is not necessarily bad. If someone puts in 'crack addiction' in a Google search, then your page could possibly come up (given the matching logic that put the ad there).

Then if someone clicked through to your page, they would not get what they wanted, but the ads would be targeted to them. A much more likely clicker.

Just my $0.02.

[annej]

My favorite was compost toilets for log cabins on a page about log cabin quilts.

[david_uk]

yet the very next page ( in the same site ) with identical headers, links etc comes up with absolutely nothing relevant.

That's because Google mainly uses the text of the page content to target ads - not headers etc.

[blairsp]

so we have adverts which are drug related but no alcohol or gambling allowed. We live in a stange world

[europeforvisitors]

so we have adverts which are drug related but no alcohol or gambling allowed.

Google's Webmaster guidelines warn about artificial linking schemes, but on a contact page where I state specifically that I don't do link exchanges or participate in recipricol-linking schemes, I'm seeing ads for link farms.

[Gusgsm]

A page with technical details about Adobe Illustrator (drawing software). The first ads were about exporting oranges because I mentioned the colour "orange" in the phrase preceding the ad.

I had to reword and reword it till all I got were... ads against alopecy and sound for mobile phones :(

[celgins]

I've learned that mentioning the word "teenager" is very tricky. Mentioning "teenage girls" almost always generates PSA's for my site.

I have a few articles about teens and sports, teens and how they relate to their parents, etc., and that term probably has negative connotations with Google's algorithm.

However, I did see a few ads for "Teen Counseling" and "Teen Help With Drug Addiction" when I first posted the articles.

[nonni]

so we have adverts which are drug related but no alcohol or gambling allowed. We live in a stange world

Your missing the point. Google doesn't want their ads on pages that promote alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. Ads for drug rehab, quit smoking products, or recovery from alcoholism go on pages that discuss (but do not promote) those substances. Same for gambling.

[edited by: nonni at 2:55 pm (utc) on May 2, 2006]

[europeforvisitors]

Yesterday I published an article on a dog cemetery in the suburbs of Paris, and today I'm seeing ads for cemetery and funeral-home software.

I guess it could be worse: Google could be showing ads for rendering plants ("We pay cash for dead dogs").

[bears5122]

I don't think this is as much poor targeting as it is trying to make a few extra bucks by running ads that aren't quite related. When you broaden the filters and start showing ads that have been described, it is just another example of how bad content network can be for some advertisers.

[Troutnut]

Even more amusing are the advertisers like eBay who use some kind of automated ad generation based on various keywords. My site is about the aquatic insects people imitate for fly fishing, and most of the ads are for flies, but eBay pops in with an ad for: "New & used caddis larvae." If you don't know what a caddis larva is that may not be funny, but it's pretty much like this: "New & used caterpillars!" Anybody want a used caterpillar?

[Leva]

Ebay was offering "new and used Buffy" on a page that mentioned Sarah Michelle Gellar ... this generated a thread from the users that I had to kill entirely because it got x-rated and eventually caused PSAs!

Leva

[Alioc]

New and used Buffy

That really made me laugh Leva. I'd prefer PSA for a used Buffy. lol

Google must put a logical limit to this widely-broad-match. New and used <anything>. What?

[FourDegreez]

I have a page with the word "gender" on it once, and the ad block is filled with chinese gender selection ads (huh?). Wouldn't it be nice if you could help out Google a bit, like if maybe there were some way to specify the main keywords [w3.org] of the page...?

[MikeNoLastName]

Um, there ARE a couple ways. The big guys have what's called "adsense-hint" parameters and a couple other methods. But for the rest of us it's called "google_ad_section_start (weight=ignore)". It's in the Adsense Help section under "section targeting". Read it, Learn it, Use the heck out of it! Note it can take a little time to be respidered by Adsense.

[dhiggerdhigger]

I have this on a medical imaging site:

Find X-Ray Equipment. Plus great Mother's day gifts!

Dear Mother, as a token of my love for you I've bought you an x-ray machine. You probably shouldn't use it too often.
Lots of love

etc

[m0thman]

Ebay was offering "new and used Buffy" on a page that mentioned Sarah Michelle Gellar ... this generated a thread from the users that I had to kill entirely because it got x-rated and eventually caused PSAs!

Interesting... the fly in the ointment effect. I too have user generated content on my pages that I need to monitor. I already scan for profanities, but I hadn't considered the potential negative effect of specific keywords.

Maybe we should have a database or list of dodgy words to avoid... that could go with the list of MFA sites!