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I am constantly amused by the useless sorts of advertisements that Google Adsense slaps on my blog.
I put the little advertising bar along the side of my pages hoping to earn a few pennies for all the hours and hours of every night, lovingly hand-weaving these little words out of only the finest, most pure electrons I can find. And pennies they have been, mostly because Google, like many of my human readers, can’t figure out what the hell I’m usually writing about.
When I once wrote a humorous little piece about how I could “set fire to my desk” and suffer no consequences at the hands of my boss, Google Adsense plastered my blog with advertisements for “fireproof filing cabinets.”
And when I recently wrote a piece about my company’s wacky vacation process entitled “Logic Takes A Holiday” my blog was covered with ads for memory enhancers and brain boosting pills.
Oh, and recently I’ve started getting ads in Chinese.
Yes, Chinese.
Okay, maybe Japanese.
Or Korean.
I really don’t know. I don’t speak or read or write in any of those languages. I do know that I don’t know what on earth these advertisements are for. They could be advertising bootleg DVDs or a case of rice noodles or monkey brain snack bars for all I know.
And while I’m sure these are all valid products (”New Monkey Brain Snack Bars! The high-protein energy bar made from real simians! Now with less fur!”), I’m not really sure if most of my readers are interested in them.
Most of my readers are interested in beer, games to play at work when the boss isn’t watching and scantily-clad women. Incidentally, that pretty much describes the interests of 99.9% of all web surfers.
If Google really wanted to make some serious cash they’d build an advertising system that only gives you results for those things, no matter what you’re reading about…
For example, if you’re reading a page about plumbing on the Internet then all the ads would be for beer because, let’s face it, beer is more interesting than plumbing. And, really, the more beer you drink, the more you’re going to need that plumbing.
If you are reading about spreadsheets on the Internet, then Google would show you nothing but ads for games you’re interested in playing because Google knows everything about you and Google definitely knows what kind of games you like. Yes, even the naughty ones.
And of course, if you’re surfing the web and reading about the Pope, you’d get ads for scantily-clad women because no one but a Kind and Really Cool God could create something so wonderful as the string bikini and the women to wear them.
You should start to worry when Google starts showing you ads for funeral directors and coffins. See, Google even knows when you’re going to die.
If Google stops showing you any ads at all then you should begin crying immediately because you’re not going to make it home alive.
So what kind of bizarre ads will Google create for this blog entry? Will it promote links to beer games you can play at the office? Will it advertise database software to help with your plumbing? Or will it list sites where you can find photos of nuns in bikinis? All these things exist on the Internet, of course. Go ahead, use Google to find them.
Or will Google, in it’s infinite wisdom, cover my blog with ads that are even more bizarre and nonsensical?
Only Google knows…
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3 Responses to “Google Adsense Nonsense”
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Trace M. says:
It’s Chinese. Japanese is a mix of those complicated symbols and lesser complicated, alphabetical symbols which look like small pieces of the complicated ones. Korean will be a mix of those complicated symbols and an alphabet which includes a circle in most of the letters. Korean is probably the easiest to differentiate because it is the only of the three which includes circles in its written language.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:00 am -
Agnes Mildew says:
This makes me laugh - I am sad enough to have a qualification in Google Adwords and have always told my clients NEVER advertise using the Content Network as it sucks - and your blog is proof of this. In our blog, for some odd reason, we keep getting ads compelling people to enlist their angels for Cute Kids competitions. I feel a blog letting off steam about hexing your ex is the antithesis of Cute Kids - unless they caused the split in the first place!
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bob e says:
Interesting observations… I clicked on the top ad (Humor
Written by Tom Coffee. It’s supposed to be funny. Laugh. ) which turns out to be an ad for your own site. I think I just cost you money when I was looking to make you some.