On more than one occassion I’ve checked the google adds on the bottom of the page after being directed there by some comment regarding the content. I’ve found that the adds I see bear no resemblance to what other posters claim to see. Are the google adds sensitive to the geographic location of posters?
I think they’re just somewhat random. Google will create a list of ads that are relevant to the discussion, or at least that it thinks are relevant, and will display some of those. So they’ll change from person to person.
It does?
But Yahoo! does factorials.
They seem to be. I often see lots of UK-specific stuff.
I’ve seen ones that are specific to my state of residence. I have also seen different ads upon returning to a thread at a later time.
My question is: If I click on the Google Ad, does that just encourage them? I have seen some that are just too tempting to avoid. Not that I have ever bought anything from them, but sometimes they are too interesting or bizarre to be ignored.
The company that places the ad chooses which keywords will display the ad. Several ads can be set-up to randomly rotate for the same keywords. When the ad is clicked, the company that placed the ad pays Google a pre-set amount, around $0.20 to $0.60 per click. The more you pay per click, the better position you get on the page.
So by clicking, I am making Google rich(er)? Can I make the SDMB richer?
Yes and yes.
TubaDiva
I have to add that the ads aren’t germane to this discussion at all. Being Caribou? I’ll probably click on that out of sheer curiosity.
As it happens, this thread right now has a Montana-specific ad, as I’m seeing it (I’ve also seen this before on other threads). Given that I doubt anyone would pay for a worldwide ad campaign if they’re trying to just target Montana, I strongly suspect that there’s at least some localization.
The other three are about hunting, one of them in Alaska, but that might be triggered by Hung Mung’s mention of the Being Caribou ad (which is one of the ones I’m seeing). Which just leaves the question of why Hung saw that one in the first place…
Chronos, about the Montana ads, I would assume that they are being served to you because of your location listing which appears when you post (Bozeman MT) – or do you see Montana ads in threads you have not yet posted in? If the latter is the case, how goes Google know where you are? That’s a small bit of creepy, to me.
The ads I see now are for
Bozeman Car Rentals
Missoula Montana Motels
and
Kalispell Real Estate
I’m in New Jersey
Definitely localized. I often get two out of three ads specific to New Zealand. This includes threads to which I haven’t posted. It probably gets the location from the IP address of the computer doing the request.
In this thread, I seem to be getting ads for Canadian Bear Hunting :dubious: :dubious: :dubious:. But this is an exception rather than the rule.
My four ads (not adds!) are all related to Bozeman, and I’m in San Diego. Given that I often get San Diego ads regardless of whether I’ve posted or not, and that I don’t get baseball ads in non-sporting threads (my location is a baseball reference), I’d say it doesn’t mine locations too hard and it cares a lot more about where you’re logging in from.
A lot are definitely keyed off the IP address - even on sites that use Google Ads where I don’t have any sort of log in at all, the ads will frequently be based off a combination of the pages’ contents and my location - if I’m visiting a web hosting site, it will show me ads for hosts in SA, or if it’s a food site, for gourmet shops in the area, etc.
I’ve got bears, Canada, and the Being Caribou, and I live in the UK.
All four google ads currently have “Montana” in their title for me. I’m in Queens, NY.
Hm, do all of you folks normally get Montana ads? I’m thinking that I may, perhaps, have skewed the results with my previous post. Of course, now all the folks saying “I’m getting Montana ads too” are just reînforcing it. Poor confused Google, probably thinks we’re planning a hunting or skiing trip in this thread, now.
Maybe we can get it out of my backyard, if we start talking about fetus’ home of San Diego, or MannyL’s New Jersey.
And fetus, I wouldn’t expect it to pick up “baseball” from your location. Yes, it’s a baseball reference, but the only real indicator of that is “NL”, which could of course stand for many other things.