We have asked management to remove Google ads from view by subscribing members of the SDMB.
We’ll let you know if/when this has been granted, though you’ll probably know when we do. 
In the meantime, we really do need people looking at the ads for content to see if we’re getting a more appropriate match of ads to threads. Please report back to us with what you see.
Thanks.
TubaDiva
Thank you.
Once Google has had a chance to crawl a given thread, the ads seem to be more or less relevant most of the time. Every once in a while I’ll see default ads in a thread where I saw better ads before, but we’ll call that a quirk in the system–maybe there’s some kind of timeout for determining better ads.
I gotta wonder about something, though. Most threads seem to have a pretty short lifetime and it may or may not be long enough for Google to do the indexing. Is that impacting the effectiveness of the ads?
They’re appropriate alright.
In a thread by Maastricht [the poster] is a google ad advertising city tours of Maastricht [the city]
Also, One of the Dutch’s favorite sites - second-hand stuff, you know, we, Dutch, are thrifty 
- :marktplaats.nl is visible to me.
It’s cool.
Actually, the content ads have become a source of some amusement for me. I might really miss them.
I was not one of the ones bitching about the ads. I agreed with the original description of them as unobtrusive. Once they started attempting relevance, they became a source of amusement for me, too. [thread=336504]This[/thread] thread produced several ads for live goats! So, it’s been fun to see what they come up with. If TPTB decide to remove them for paying members, that would be good, given the strong feelings of some toward them.
Given that this is the only way I, and probably many other paying members, are going to remain paying members, this is a very good move.
It should have been done from day one, but hindsight is 20/20.
Now that I’ve desnarked, this has all kinds of benefits:
[ul]
[li]Retention of paying members. See above.[/li][li]Reminder to guests that this is a pay service. Seeing ads until you subscribe is very common on Web fora of all kinds. This move could increase the number of paying members.[/li][li]Google searches for all. To ad-ify the SDMB Google must index it, and that seems to mean Google will let people search the SDMB as well. This will take strain off the board’s servers and reduce the number of guests asking members to search the boards for them.[/li][li]The ad revenue still comes in. Possibly, anyway. Ads might work for the SDMB despite what the Administration has said in months past.[/li][/ul]The only group that will be discomfited are the Members and Charter Members who like Google ads in their SDMB. They can see the ads by logging out and viewing threads that way, even though they obviously can’t post in that condition. It’s a hassle, but I think the above points make it worth it.
Perhaps the display of the ads could be a user configuration option. You can only untick it if you are a member/charter member.
I know some people accept the presence of Google Ads becasue they are seen as being the most ethical way of generating ad revenue. I believe there’s even a Firefox plugin that puts Google Ads in pages for you if they don’t already have them.
Nope. The google ads spider is different from the search engine’s spider. Jerry originally let both of them in, but recently blocked the search engine one and had google delete all it’s SDMB content.
Thank you.
Seeing as I was one of the ones who was bitching about the ads, I felt it only right to be one of the first to say thanks.
Woot!
Does a happy dance
Please note that such decision will not be made for a while. The READER and tech gods need time to see how the whole ad set-up is going, before they address this issue. So, please, be patient.
Well, then, assuming that this decision does go through, I must echo the points made by Derleth above. After all, the SDMB appears to have a lot more lurkers than members, so ad revenue should not be too badly impacted.
This would be good - the ads don’t bother me, but it is clear that others feel otherwise.
Is it not true that it is only clickthroughs that earn the Reader any money? If this is so, shouldn’t we all be clicking on them as often as possible?
Grim
No, not surprisingly, Google takes a dim view of people doing that and would likely kick the SDMB out of the Adwords service. Only click on them if you are genuinely interested in what they are advertising.
So here be the discussion of ads because paid memberships aren’t cutting it.
Yeah, ads, yick.
The ad for this thread? Help Hurricane victims.
How about ads instead of paying for membership?
As far as I can tell most of the ads are “relevant”, I put it in quotes because sometimes the ad is based on a single word in the thread which is actually completely unrelated to the thread topic itself. A good example is the ads for rotweiller dogs in the thread of Q.E.D.'s about a website plagarising SD articles.
You may also be interested to know that I sometimes see Australia specific advertising. E.g., all of the mailing list ads that I see are Australian ones.
I find myself amused by the ads, and I’m a little wistful about the idea of not seeing them anymore.
If they are removed for subscribing members, any chance of making it optional for those of us who don’t mind (and are now amused by) the ads?