UK Skeptics & Advertising Irony?

[ajrmoore]

Hi all

I'm somewhat new to the UK Skeptics site (though I've been making a concerted effort to contribute to threads).

Logging on not 10 minutes ago I caught sight of the Google Ads banner ubiquitous throughout online blogs and sites. Now, as wel all know, these ads are relevant to any specific site and generally optimised or customised through key words and phrases discussed on the site (correct me if I'm wrong).

The reason I was surprised is, well, they all seem to be Google-sponsoured links to alternative therapy sites (yes, I've included Chiropractory in that comment).

Does this not represent a double-standard, or am I tempting many a jibe from fellow skeptics for missing a very obvious ironic humour here?

[Admin]

We can't control the content of the ads so it's inevitable that some are going to be advertising things we argue against.

The UKS website gets very good Google rankings and a lot of hits so the ads have turned out to be our biggest source of income.

We can look at it another way however; every time someone clicks on an advertising link for some dubious product or service, we make a bit of money. So your chiropractors etc. are helping to fund UK-Skeptics!

If we're going to go on to do some bigger and better things we're going to need the money to finance it.

[lost thought]

They get a dose of reality and some critical thinking lessons before going to see the wizards of woo.

[Nukapai]

We can't control the content of the ads so it's inevitable that some are going to be advertising things we argue against.

The UKS website gets very good Google rankings and a lot of hits so the ads have turned out to be our biggest source of income.

We can look at it another way however; every time someone clicks on an advertising link for some dubious product or service, we make a bit of money. So your chiropractors etc. are helping to fund UK-Skeptics!

If we're going to go on to do some bigger and better things we're going to need the money to finance it.

Wrong. Yes you can.

I use Google ads on my website and I've specifically excluded certain words/brand names from appearing.

[Admin]

Wrong. Yes you can.

Wrong, no you can't.

Whilst you can block an individual website's adverts, I can't see a way of filtering out words or search terms.

The adverts are produced dynamically by Google and what is displayed depends on the content that's on the page (they match the adverts to the page content) and who is paying to advertise at any given time. This makes controlling what appears virtually impossible.

[Mulder]

It would be interesting to know how many 'believers', to whom these ads are usually aimed, actually visitthis site and why. Do they want to know what the 'opposition' is up to or do they think skeptics can be 'converted' if only they knew the 'facts'.

[Trinoc]

It would be interesting to know how many 'believers', to whom these ads are usually aimed, actually visitthis site and why. Do they want to know what the 'opposition' is up to or do they think skeptics can be 'converted' if only they knew the 'facts'.

There don't have to be many. Web advertising seems based on a model of catching one eye in a million at best.

I don't seriously believe that a few woo adverts on this site will be making any significant contribution to the "opposition". They might make a few sales for a few companies, and they definitely help finance the forum, so let them stand, I say.

Perhaps we should slip a few keywords for other areas into messages (Viagra, Uzi sub-machine gun, garden jacuzzi) and see whether related adverts appear.

[ajrmoore]

Ha ha, well I'm glad to see that my comment wasn't completely irrelevant and at least produced a discussion.

We can't control the content of the ads so it's inevitable that some are going to be advertising things we argue against.

The UKS website gets very good Google rankings and a lot of hits so the ads have turned out to be our biggest source of income.

We can look at it another way however; every time someone clicks on an advertising link for some dubious product or service, we make a bit of money. So your chiropractors etc. are helping to fund UK-Skeptics!

If we're going to go on to do some bigger and better things we're going to need the money to finance it.

Thanks JJ. That's actually most useful to know for future reference. For the record I don't have any issue with all that... and indeed there is some small ironic victory to be had by shaving off commission from clicks going through to "CAM" websites.

[Nukapai]

Wrong, no you can't.

Whilst you can block an individual website's adverts, I can't see a way of filtering out words or search terms.

The adverts are produced dynamically by Google and what is displayed depends on the content that's on the page (they match the adverts to the page content) and who is paying to advertise at any given time. This makes controlling what appears virtually impossible.

Okay, the word-specific feature is not yet available (though they have talked about it). The category-filtering feature is in Beta (rather than available to all just yet). Sorry I stand corrected.

So currently I'd recommend building a list of known woo-sites and taking those off (and perhaps monitoring the ads that do appear and adding banned sites as you go along). You should be able to avoid a lot of woo-ads using these current features:

What is the Ad Review Center?

Print
The Ad Review Center is a tool within your account that enables you to review placement-targeted ads that may appear on your pages. If you're interested in more transparency and control over placement-targeted ads appearing on your sites, it may be a good fit for you. You can allow or block individual ad groups and advertisers, as well as filter ads by type: text or image.
If you choose to block ads in the Ad Review Center, you'll need to provide your reason for blocking the ad group or advertiser. This feedback, which we provide to advertisers, gives the advertisers more insight on how to adjust their ad quality, content, and relevance in order to appear on more sites.
Learn more about opting in to the Ad Review Center, the ad review options available to you, and how decisions you make in the Ad Review Center can have a revenue impact for you.

The Competitive Ad Filter enables you to block specific ads, such as competitors' ads, from appearing on your pages. Entering a more general URL will block a wider range of ads; entering a more specific URL will block a smaller range of ads. For example, by entering a top level domain such as "example.com", you'll also block all ads that link to any sub-directories of that domain, like "forums.example.com". Review the examples below to learn how you can create filters that will block only the range of ads you want.

https://www.google.com/adsense/filter-online

[lost thought]

You should take the ad money and have a paragraph or two giving a brief non libel description.

“Homeopathy is a process where an active ingredient is watered down to one part per millions so that no active ingredient is left and the resultant almost pure water is added to a sugar tablet then allowed to evaporate. So essentially you are paying for a sugar tablet.”

Something like this for all the types of woo medicine and so called services.

[ajrmoore]

Okay, the word-specific feature is not yet available (though they have talked about it). The category-filtering feature is in Beta (rather than available to all just yet). Sorry I stand corrected.

So currently I'd recommend building a list of known woo-sites and taking those off (and perhaps monitoring the ads that do appear and adding banned sites as you go along). You should be able to avoid a lot of woo-ads using these current features:

Very interesting Nukapai. If category filtering is in the Beta stage now it's reasonable to assume they'll have it working compatibly on the web within the next 6 months. Having said that I think it remains UKS' perogative as to whether they filter out woo-sites or not. Unfortunately there aren't many products or services that would feed off web optimisation and key words related to skepticism, at least not nearly in the scope that CAM sites and services do. i.e. it's far likely to be far more profitable for UKS to to keep things as they are, and I'm absolutely fine with that, primarily because they're profiting as a by-product of the situation, not directly because of. (Hell, hope I made sense there. Shout at me if I didn't)

You should take the ad money and have a paragraph or two giving a brief non libel description.

“Homeopathy is a process where an active ingredient is watered down to one part per millions so that no active ingredient is left and the resultant almost pure water is added to a sugar tablet then allowed to evaporate. So essentially you are paying for a sugar tablet.”

Something like this for all the types of woo medicine and so called services.

Whilst I'm not sure if that's really feasible for UKS, wouldn't it be wonderful if it was applied to all forms of homeopathic remedies.

[Floppit]

I might be wrong, not a net expert and all that, but if we all stopped talking about woo and discussed other stuff the ads would dwindle wouldn't they? I 70% sure they are triggered by words used frequently on the forum.

If we talked about really interesting stuff we might even like the ads 8) .

[ZERO]

??? I don't see any ads at all?? Never have here either?

[bindeweede]

??? I don't see any ads at all?? Never have here either?

Very odd, because on this page alone, there are 4 adverts. Perhaps you have powerful filters, or your computer's energy has been elevated to a higher vibration by your very own etheric powers.

AH! When I login to post, the ads disappear! Please don't tell me I am slow.......I know that already..........

[ZERO]

Very odd, because on this page alone, there are 4 adverts. Perhaps you have powerful filters, or your computer's energy has been elevated to a higher vibration by your very own etheric powers.

AH! When I login to post, the ads disappear! Please don't tell me I am slow.......I know that already..........

I just logged out and still there were no ads.
AFAIK I just use firefox adblock thingie.