The new Google ads

I will say this is the kind of feedback we are looking for. I'm sure T will investigate it and get those petstore cage ads removed.

By the way, here's an example so maybe you can find out what's triggering this type.

The ads on my screen are for..

Guinea pig ringtones
Dwarf Guinea Pigs
Indiana Pig Food
Small Animal Pet supplies from Petco.

Thats some random stuff! Didn't even know there are guinea pig ringtones.

That would be the perfect alarm clock tone, wouldn't it.

The ads I've noticed are geared to what appears in the threads and what location you are in. I think there are triggers but T knows a lot more about that than I do as she was the one that set them up. Maybe she can fine tune them.

It already is an alarm clock in my house! When they see daylight, they think its time for veggies and start yelling for me to wake up and feed them.

Yeah, just noticed this. This is one of the sites linked:

(broken link removed)

Right now, I have ads for Guinea Pig ringtones, Guinea Pig Cage Prices and Guinea Pig at ask.com.

I must be lucky or something because I have no ads.

Here's the deal. If someone clicks on a cage ad after seeing this site and being on this forum, then decides to buy one, well, then that's what they are going to do. Quite frankly, the cages are all cages that they have probably already seen in a pet store. If they decide they can't be bothered with a proper C&C cage and go with a bigger commercial one than they may have purchased in a pet store, well, it's a slight improvement.

In the meantime, from an advertising point of view, the advertisers of pet store and commercial cages are supporting my site. I also BUY google ad space on other guinea pig-related sites. I KNOW I am pulling traffic away from a few places that would prefer I didn't.

I have to be careful about what I say about google advertising because I do not want to violate their terms of service.

I am waiting for a release of some software to come out and I will move to more Search Engine Friendly links of the forum posts. After I get that installed and google has time to reindex my site, I expect the ad content to get more relevent to the threads and therefore provide more real value to the readership/membership.

There aren't THAT many guinea pig advertisers, so I don't want to block a ton of ads. I feel this site and forum can and does stand up to the competition.

I must be lucky or something because I have no ads.

I think I blocked them for paying contributors.

The ads are awful but I don't know if T has a choice about what ads are there. I'm sure she could get an ad free host IF she was willing to pay more. She already dishes out a lot every month. Between the sites and the rescue her money must be running out fast.

VoodooJoint said:

The ads are awful but I don't know if T has a choice about what ads are there. I'm sure she could get an ad free host IF she was willing to pay more. She already dishes out a lot every month. Between the sites and the rescue her money must be running out fast.

Click to expand...

I absolutely do have a choice. I have an ad-free host. But I really need the additional income to offset the huge financial investment I've made over time and continue to make. I'm trying to be sensitive to readers and members, yet still drive some additional revenue to support the site and the rescue.

I was under the impression that you paid Google to place your ads on other peoples' sites, but maybe I'm thinking of another service. If so, where does the revenue come from?

Also, I assume it helps pay for the rescue, not the website, since webspace is so cheap anymore...

And they're not deactivated for paying members apparently... BG and I are the same level.

Ahhh, silly me, I know better. For some reason the ad placement income totally slipped out of my head.

How does that work?

There are two components to Google Ads. It takes two sides to make the model work.

Google Ad Words: Advertizers sign up to PAY for their ad. There are a variety of options and you can specify any budget you'd like.

Here is my ad that I pay for:

Awesome Guinea Pig Cages
Buy or Build--Cages, Toys & More!
Nice, Big, Easy-to-Clean & Low-Cost
(broken link removed)

Then there is Google Ad Sense where you place ads on your website and based on Google's rules, advertizers pay you for results of placing their ads on your website. Google decides, based on the content of your page, which ads to put at random on your page.

If you want more info, please read about it on Google.

And they're not deactivated for paying members apparently... BG and I are the same level.

I believe some are and some aren't. I'm not going to change anything until I get that new software installed. Then, I'll tweak it some.

Wow, there are some strange adds. Apparently I can Buy a guinea pig with free delivery at Tesco!