The ShadowMusic Web Community

The purpose of advertising is to sell goods or services to make money.

The small print of this site says, "Ads by Google. These advertisements are selected and placed by Google to assist with the cost of site maintenance." (my emphasis)

Are many Shadows enthusiasts in search of single Muslim women? Mr. Google (or his algorithm) obviously thinks so, since an ad for single Muslim women keeps popping up when I select this site. I tried to think of a few gags based around the titles of Shadows tunes that might have a connection but some people are very touchy about that sort of thing so I had second thoughts, but if anyone's brave enough . . . . . . . ?

Having written the message above, I happened to notice the 'Who is online?' feature.

Apart from myself, only BOTS were online

They were:
Google [Bot]
Google Adsense [Bot]
Bing [Bot]

BOTS are little programs sent out by the search engines to cruise the internet and peep and pry. Within seconds of my message going online, the BOTS were after me!

Ooo-er!

I visit the site regularly but had never noticed the ads!

They're at the bottom of my screen and are probably personalised so we're all seeing different ones.

Yes, they tend to target peoples individual interests. Mine are always about gear and guitars as well as the odd Volvo ad, because I bought a couple for me and my missus last year. No muslim women on mine . . . .

Do these ads actually generate a cash figure worth talking about ? I always wondered.....

Please can 'Site Admin' join this thread? Bob, are these ads individually targeted?

In other words, if I log in, do you give Google the power to check (using their bot) and say to themselves "RayL has come on line. Looking at the profile we have for him, we think he might be interested in muslim women"? (I'm not).

The ads appear as part of the Shadowmusic site (they are not in a separate area of the screen). Is the site set up so each person who logs in receives an individual version with ads targeted at them, and them alone?
Ray

Without these ads Shadowmusic could not exist since there are no donations any more. They pay for the lion's share but not all of the site costs.

The bots read the threads to select ads based on the contents of the threads. These are used to propagate the search engines. Of course this relies on the advertisers setting sensible keywords.

Google will read cookies which may be set by other sites and select ads accordingly. For example if you go into the VW website and VW are advertising with Google then a VW ad will likely appear on this site.

Google also reads the threads in order to provide ads relevant to the thread contents.

Bob

the ones on mine always seem to link to something either on eBay i've been looking at or classic car insurance etc. I have had random ones on other sites though about Russian Women etc.

Hi Guys
I have my browser set to delete all cookies when I exit except for sites where info is needed for signing in (such as this one). That way I don't get plagued by too many random ads. I also use "adblock plus " again with some exceptions which also helps to reduce annoying ads.
Hope this helps.
Cheers Ben

pinktwanger wrote:Hi Guys
I have my browser set to delete all cookies when I exit except for sites where info is needed for signing in (such as this one). That way I don't get plagued by too many random ads. I also use "adblock plus " again with some exceptions which also helps to reduce annoying ads.
Hope this helps.
Cheers Ben

i use adblock plus and it does work well. peter