fyi- Some APUG Advertising Changes..

[jnanian]

sean -

seems like there are ads we might not want to have here via google ..
i just saw 5 ads for chatrooms. some were for teens, others were to find a "date" ... and i would rather not say what the others were for ...
if the membership seems to get all in a huff about nudes posted in
the gallery, they might get equally in a huff when they see porn or adult rated chatrooms advertised at the bottom of the page ...

is there a way to block those ads from appearing here, or is it part of the deal?

just wonderin'
john

[Sean]

sean -

seems like there are ads we might not want to have here via google ..
i just saw 5 ads for chatrooms. some were for teens, others were to find a "date" ... and i would rather not say what the others were for ...
if the membership seems to get all in a huff about nudes posted in
the gallery, they might get equally in a huff when they see porn or adult rated chatrooms advertised at the bottom of the page ...

is there a way to block those ads from appearing here, or is it part of the deal?

just wonderin'
john

You must be talking about the who's in the chatroom pages, i'll remove them from there..

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

Most of the google ads so far on the index page, for me, have been for digital products. At last check there was a site for 16 and 35mm cine film, one for a guide on buying digital cameras, one for a black and white photoshop plugin, and one that professes to be for black and white film, but is selling books on photoshop plugins...
Outsourced advertising to google does seem like it'd compromise the analogue-only stance of APUG though - there's just a lot more websites for photoshop filters out there than there are for darkroom techniques. One of the main reasons APUG's ads work is because they are so focused, and why I don't just ignore or block them. But whatever will keep the balance of relevance and profit while improving things I'm all for.

[Sean]

I've seen quite a mix and will pull them if it doesn't get better but I plan to give it a few weeks. For one it takes a while for special bots to index the site for better ad relevance. Also, if no one clicks the digital ads it sends the message no digital ads work here and stops sending them. Also, if we can get a few people signing up for the ads their ads will show the most. I am also investigating ways to replace key words that might trigger a digital ad, for example the word "digital" can be replaced with an image of the word digital that looks the same but being an image does not trigger the ad agents. That's all in the works..

[Sean]

I have removed the google ads from the chatroom pages, gallery pages, 'My APUG', search pages, biz directory and homepage. The ad relevance on those pages was WAY off. The ad relevance overall still needs some work but should improve over the next week or two. Also, google is apparently close to releasing keyword blocking which would be ideal, then I could for example ban any ad containing the word "digital"..

[David A. Goldfarb]

This is amusing. When I go to my Private Messages page, I get google ads for a private school for troubled teens, a private villa in Costa del Sol, another private school for children with learning difficulties, and a villa in Taormina with a private swimming pool.

[Sean]

Thanks for the heads up, I've removed them from the private message area..

[copake_ham]

Sean,

Looking good now.

Your "refinements" seem to be working.

While writing this post the page bottom has four Google ads - three of which were film-related (including one for "school photo supplies" that was for film and paper and two for buying film on-line). The only "odd ball" was for B&W copiers - which is not an unreasonable "hit".

[David A. Goldfarb]

The Google ads in the classifieds section also seem not to be appropriate--mostly ads for other classified ad venues. Maybe that's another spot where they could be eliminated.

[jstraw]

Sean, I just noticed that unlike all other off-site links, the links in google ads do not target a separate browser window and obliterate APUG when I click on them. Should they be behaving this way?