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Discussion: What is with the ads?Reported This is a featured thread

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Posted Anonymously
What is with the ads?
Jan 12 2009, 5:08 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 12 2009, 5:08 PM EST
It is distasteful to host ads to chiroparactors and back pain relief websites on a wiki supposedly dedicated to TMS. Is this truly an educational resource for TMS, or just a way for you to generate income? Do you find this valuable?    
Keyword tags: Adsense ads Offensive Ads
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
1. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 12 2009, 9:13 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 12 2009, 9:13 PM EST
Hi, anon,
I'm sorry that you were offended by the ads. I think that you bring up some important points, that I should have been clearer about from the beginning.
1.) I don't make a cent off of this. The ad revenues go to the company that provides the wiki to us for free: wetpaint.com. See http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/page/Ads
2.) We will be getting rid of the ads completely in the next couple of days. I will actually have to *pay* to do this, but right now it seems like the right thing to do. (See http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/page/Wetpaint+Premium+Sites )
3.) For people who see this post after the ads have been removed, you should know that the ads are fairly innocuous. There are some Google ads near the left and a banner ad at the bottom. The google ads are all text, so I personally find them very easy to ignore. Also, the banner ads at the bottom don't move, so they aren't quite as distracting as some other ads. Further, the banner ads at the bottom only link to other wikis and are fairly tasteful. Regardless, they will all be gone soon. (I can't guarantee that they will be gone forever because it will get quite expensive, and it's not like I'm making any money off of this anyway.)

ForestForTrees Do you find this valuable?    
pandamonium09
pandamonium09
2. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 5:15 AM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 5:15 AM EST
Hey Forest,

is there not a more elegant solution which wouldn't involve you being out of pocket? I'm no computer-wizz but I imagine google is using key words to select what it thinks are revelant advertisements? Do you enter these words manually or does it choose them from the wiki?

If it's manual perhaps we could substitute "back" and "pain" for "mind "and "body" and fool it into getting adverts more relevant to TMS?
Or could we choose words not to be included in the search? For example if you were searching on google for a new handbag but didn't want to buy off ebay you'd type "handbag -ebay" and it would exclude those results from ebay. Maybe we could exclude some words like chiropractic and osteopathy?

Just a thought. Do you find this valuable?    
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
3. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 10:24 AM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 10:24 AM EST
Hi, Pandamonium, those are some clever ideas, and they make me a litte skeptical of your claim that you aren't a computer-wizz. :-)

I've looked into it, though, and I suspect that we may be out of luck. Google makes it's money from advertisers who bid on certain keywords, like "Sarno" and "Back pain." Because many many advertisers want to bid on "back pain," the "price" for an ad about "back pain" will be very high. When a website allows Adsense ads on their site, the Google "Mediabot" reads the text of their site and certain html keywords and looks for the highest paying keywords on their site. In our case, that keyword would be back pain. Then, it displays ads from advertisers who are willing to pay the most for ads based on the keyword back pain.

It is fun exercise to do, but to see who is bidding on various key words from Google, you just type a phrase into Google and look at the ads. For example, if you type in "back pain," their are 842 advertisers who would like their ads to be displayed based on that phrase (you can see this by clicking on the "more sponsored links" at the bottom of the column of ads). For the phrase, "Sarno TMS," there is only one. (Guess who? Hint: he is a notorious TMS marketer). Google essentially auctions off the right to place ads for certain keywords, so you can bet that they get a lot more for "back pain" than they get for "Sarno" or "TMS." Hence, we get ads for chiropractors.

I suspect that Kim Ruby at Tarpit Yoga has exactly the same problem. See
http://www.tarpityoga.com/tms.html
and look on the right.

ForestForTrees Do you find this valuable?    
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
4. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 10:46 AM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 10:46 AM EST
... I just realized that I didn't really answer your question. The Google Mediabot looks both at the text of the page and at certain HTML keywords. Since the "back pain" phrase is probably so valuable, we would probably have to remove it from the wiki entirely. Even the word "back" would be dangerous. Certainly, advertisers would probaby pay a lot for most of the medical terms that we use to describe our previous diagnoses, so in the long term, if the wiki is to live up to it's potential, I don't think that we can avoid terms like "sciatica" or "carpal tunnel," so I signed up to have the ads removed last night.

I really don't mind paying for this right now. In the long term, we may want to reevaluate this strategy, but for right now, the amount of money involved feels quite minor.

Oh, by the way, Google does have a program where website owners can turn off specific ads:
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/12/introducing-ad-review-center.html
However, I because Wetpaint is the one who controls the ads, I don't have access to the Ad Review Center. Further, Wetpaint probably just has one ad with Google, so to turn off chiropractic ads for our wiki, they would probably have to turn them off for all wikis, and I don't know if they'd be willing to do that.

I have asked them about it, though:
http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/thread/2262523/Offensive+Google+ads

fft Do you find this valuable?    
pandamonium09
pandamonium09
5. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 4:32 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 4:32 PM EST
OK, thanks for clearing that up :) Do you find this valuable?    
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
6. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 5:02 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 5:02 PM EST
Sorry for my longwinded answers.... :-( Do you find this valuable?    
HilaryN123
HilaryN123
7. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 5:44 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 5:44 PM EST
I don't think your answers are long-winded, I think they are very clear and have the right level of detail. Do you find this valuable?    
pandamonium09
pandamonium09
8. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 6:09 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 6:09 PM EST
LOL don't worry that all made perfect sense and I am glad you took the time to respond, esp since you have your hands full at the mo :) Do you find this valuable?    
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
9. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 13 2009, 6:24 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 13 2009, 6:24 PM EST
Thanks! Do you find this valuable?    
wilberfan
wilberfan
10. RE: What is with the ads?
Jan 22 2009, 4:54 PM EST | Post edited: Jan 22 2009, 4:54 PM EST
If you use Firefox as your web browser, there are "add-ons" that will filter out ads. (I didn't even know there WERE ads on these pages!) Adblocker Plus and NoScript are particularly recommended. Do you find this valuable?    
HilaryN123
HilaryN123
11. RE: What is with the ads?
Feb 6 2009, 5:53 PM EST | Post edited: Feb 6 2009, 5:53 PM EST
There aren't any ads any more. There were initially, but Forest paid to have them removed. (He has to pay a monthly fee for that.)

I must check out those add-ons some time. Do you find this valuable?    
ForestForTreesTMS
ForestForTreesTMS
12. RE: What is with the ads?
Feb 23 2009, 3:33 PM EST | Post edited: Feb 23 2009, 3:33 PM EST
"I must check out those add-ons some time."
I've definitely heard great things about Adblocker and NoScript. A lot of people really like them (though NoScript, especially, is probably only for real computer gurus).

I'm definitely happy to continue paying the hosting fees. I do agree that the original ads were distasteful. They don't represent the wiki the way that I would like it to be represented, so I'm glad to have them gone.

Unfortunately, I didn't bother to read any of the ads until I got an email about them and saw this post. It's as if I have my own version of Adblocker built into my brain. I just don't notice ads on a webpage unless they have a lot of movement. The ads that we had were text only, so they were especially easy to ignore. Do you find this valuable?