Skip to main content

Blog ads

I currently host Google ads on this blog, and I've really mixed feelings about it. I have Google ads deployed across most of my websites without any particular issue. On my Popular Science book review site, for example, when I just took a look, the home page ads were for things like BBC Focus magazine and New Scientist. Which seems entirely reasonable and not in any way a problem.

But the trouble is, Google's magic algorithm for determining what to display insists on displaying self-publishing adverts here. Now some of these are, without doubt, respectable - but there is a certain type of "we'll publish your book" advertiser that is, how can I put it, lacking in morals. On the other hand, I certainly can't say the specific ads that come up on a particular day are bad. And sometimes they can be quite amusing. A few days ago, one ad was for a literary agent, the second said "you don't need a literary agent."

For the moment I'll leave them there... but they're under consideration.

Comments

  1. I would have thought that your readers would be sufficiently discerning to recognise the less-than-useful ads. And click through anyway just to give themselves a laugh and you an extra couple of pennies.

    Thanks to AdBlock, I don't see any ads, so sorry. I'll have to buy you a beer instead.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would hope they would be so discerning, yes, Bob. There's just the concern that someone might think that because an ad appears here, I might be endorsing it.

    And do feel free to click through, anyone who can see them - every click does indeed earn me some pennies. Actually I've just seen one I might take a look at myself - 'an innovative new way to put your blog, and more, online, apparently. Sadly I don't get paid anything when I take a look at the ads!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think those ads are there because you wrote a post on the topic the other day, Brian. Write about some other things and you'll see other ads appear. This happens to me quite a bit in Gmail (where you can't "not have the ads" - the ads are what Google text miner thinks are relevant to what your message is about.)
    Ad blockers can have unfortunate side effects, incidentally, such as rendering commenting or bookmarking via bookmarklets impossible. That Google toolbar is lethal from that point of view - I uninstalled it after a day.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, Maxine, I suspect you are right (though it may also pick up on the keywords in the blog's subtitle etc.)

    Agree absolutely about ad blockers - at best they disrupt the look of web pages... and Google toolbar is a pain.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope