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Google AdSense: valuable content, or jarring ads

Google’s belief in the revolutionary power of the text ads it places throughout the Internet via AdWords and AdSense advertising is as strong as its belief in the revolutionary power of its mission to “organize all the world’s information.
Written by Donna Bogatin, Contributor
At the Search Engine Strategies Conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt cited co-founder Larry Page’s belief that Google “ads have value in and of themselves.”

Google’s belief in the revolutionary power of the text ads it places throughout the Internet via AdWords and AdSense advertising is as strong as its belief in the revolutionary power of its mission to “organize all the world’s information.”

Google’s corporate overview states:

Google generates revenue by providing…advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page. This makes the advertising useful to you as well as to the advertiser placing it… thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.

Google’s pitch to prospective AdSense publishers touts what it perceives to be the appeal of Google text ads:

Earn more revenue from your website, while providing visitors with a more rewarding online experience. Google AdSense automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

Google AdSense Tour says:

AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content.

Google grasps the meaning of your content. AdSense can deliver relevant ads because Google understands the meaning of a web page….words can have several different meanings, depending on context. Google technology grasps these distinctions, so you get more targeted ads.

Contextual “relevancy” and "precise targeting,” however, are not products of an exact science as Google suggests, and are difficult to achieve, particularly at Websites featuring evolving, nuanced material, such as the Jeff Jarvis blog: BuzzMachine.

Jarvis' August 2 post, “A blogger behind bars”:

The New York Times reports today what may be the first case of a blogger jailed by a US federal court for not handing over sources or source materials for a story - a case that will raise no end of questions about the rights, responsibilities, and protections of citizens acting as journalists.

Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger and freelancer, had shot video of a San Francisco protest over the 2005 meeting of the G8 in Scotland. Violence ensued, a police officer’s skull was fractured, and authorities say a smoke bomb or firework was put under a police car. Wolf sold some of his video to local TV stations and put more up on his blog. Prosecutors demanded that Wolf testify before a grand jury and hand over everything he shot. Wolf refused and, yesterday, a federal judge found him in contempt and sent him to prison, where he could stay until the grand jury’s term expires next summer.

Along side the post, “Ads by Goooooogle”:

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While the BuzzMachine is influential, it is unlikely that Jarvis’ readers interested in the analysis of “shield law” status will be swayed to click over to Monster for advice on a law enforcement job.

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