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philm · Feb 8, 2006, 08:17 AM

So I want to buy a new garden shed. Such is the excitement of near-middle-age. Found this site. Oddly, it has a bunch of Google Ads down the right side for other, competing, online shed companies.

OK, back to the shed shopping...

rickey939 · Feb 8, 2006, 08:39 AM

Whodathunkit.®

Mithras · Feb 8, 2006, 09:57 AM

You just have to appreciate a site called www.leisurebuildings.com . "Erection service available." Heh.

turtle777 · Feb 8, 2006, 10:16 AM

I don't get it. What's the news about this ?
Doesn't that ALWAYS happen with Google ads ?

philm · Feb 8, 2006, 11:59 AM

Well, I think that Google Ads are not usually run on commercial sites. They are usually on forums, blogs, news sties, that sort of thing. Aren't they? This site is running ads for its competitors thanks to Google's intelligent-contextual-advertisting method. Just seemed odd that's all. They are creaming in a few cents (well, pence, presumably) from Google and losing dollars (pounds) advertising their competition.

turtle777 · Feb 8, 2006, 12:05 PM

Well, yeah, the point is: they are dumb. Ok.
I have seen dumb stuff all over the intarweb, so I'm not surprised...

residentEvil · Feb 8, 2006, 04:26 PM

I thought google ads were only for US sites?

CMYKid · Feb 8, 2006, 04:46 PM

one of our former designers thought he'd be brilliant and use embedded Google searches on some of our companies various sites for people to use when searching for specific products. after a year someone finally nnoticed that the results page very nicely listed all of our competitors sponsored links at the top.

philm · Feb 8, 2006, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by residentEvil

I thought google ads were only for US sites?

This is not the case. Certainly they are used widely here. Country of vendor and country of web site are probably just other variables in their Adsense algorithm. I would presume that in places where Google has a TLD (.uk, .ca, .au etc. etc.) their ads are used, and probably lots of other places too.

turtle777 · Feb 8, 2006, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by CMYKid

one of our former designers thought he'd be brilliant and use embedded Google searches on some of our companies various sites for people to use when searching for specific products. after a year someone finally nnoticed that the results page very nicely listed all of our competitors sponsored links at the top.

PWNED by Google

Goldfinger · Feb 8, 2006, 05:31 PM

Aah, the joys of add-blocking !

RGB · Feb 9, 2006, 12:32 AM

Has no one else noticed the competing ads filter in Google Adsense that allows you to prohibit ads linking to competing domains from showing up on their site?

robinantill · Aug 21, 2006, 05:36 PM

Hi,
I run Metal, Steel & Timber Garden Sheds, Sectional Buildings, Storage Sheds, Timber Garages & Summer Houses. UK & Great Britain GB and we make money from the Google Ads.

The logic behind it is because our web site is on the 1st page of Google and nearly always top we receive about 13,000 page views per day (at the moment). About 75% are from USA and other countries outside of Great Britain.

We only deliver in Great Britain so 75% of our visitors we are unable to sell to. Having the Google ads means that these visitors can find alternative suppliers directly on our site and we make a small amount for each click on the Google ads and when you have 10,000 pages being looked at who we can't help this makes for a a lot of clicks.

We are able to filter out sites in the UK which we don't want to appear so we don't damage our potential sales this way either.

So all in all it makes good business sense to us and we provide a service to visitors we can't help - so we are not quite that dumb !!

Kerrigan · Aug 21, 2006, 06:32 PM

lol

philm · Aug 21, 2006, 07:15 PM

So my thread ends in beautiful symmetry. Gotta love the Internet.

Person Man · Aug 21, 2006, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by robinantill

Hi,
I run Metal, Steel & Timber Garden Sheds, Sectional Buildings, Storage Sheds, Timber Garages & Summer Houses. UK & Great Britain GB and we make money from the Google Ads.

Hi. I'm a spammer! I'm quite dumb.

esXXI · Aug 21, 2006, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by Person Man

Hi. I'm a spammer! I'm quite dumb.

Paradox. Is it spam if they've been linked to twice previously in the thread? I presume they noticed the traffic and that it was coming from a forum and decided to reply.

Hrm.