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March 18, 2006
Sometimes Adsense is Nonsense
Sometimes Google's Adsense service delivers complete nonsense. The O'Reilly Radar site is a group blog with Nat, Tim, Rael, and others opining on techology, data, Web 2.0, etc. Its use of the word "radar" is part pun and part metaphor, but the number of articles on the site actually about radio detection and ranging (radar) is pretty much zip -- which is why the the screen shot at right of the Adsense ads on the site earlier today is so amusing.The upshot: Google search works fine, but ad targetting is still hit and miss.
Sphere It
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Digg it
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Bookmark it
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Stumble it
Where are the geo targetted ads already. Google could be making 3 times as much if they would just learn from the dating sites.
Google search works fine
What? how often do you find the answer to what you have queried G* for on the first search result? Not to target G* specifically, there is no search engine is great. We are a looooooooooooooong way from any search engine "working fine".
The same problem extends to Google Adwords. It has a keyword tool that recommends keywords by "analysing the site".
It seems to come up with some possibly relevant keywords and others which are completely out of context.
Here is a sample of keywords for radar.oreilly.com
radar
o reilly radar
rael
reilly family
reilly history
weblog
weblog templates
mmorpg
pugs
web 20
psp hacking
movable type
blog
blogs
blogging
blog tools
blog archives
blogging for dummies
blog software
blogger software
agree totally - to the point that as a web investor it isa waste of space on our site. I wrote about it a few weeks back.
Our golf website gets filled with useless text click dribble for crappy businesses.
Google gets all this free branding - smart for now.