Truck and Barter: Selling Out

June 10, 2004

Selling Out

By Kevin

You might have notice the color-matching Google Ads in the rightmost sidebar. I won't tell you to click on them, because you won't even if I plead.

I have not added them because I need the money. I have added them to capture funds from all those people who find T&B by searching for Truck or Barter or automobile insurance companies that covers a mobile unit truck in iowa or difference between s&p and moody's credit rating.

T&B's usual content is only tangential to these searches, leading people to go elsewhere quickly. And I'd like to profit off their exit. Regular readers won't even look at the ads unless they're funny--which they're not, since Google perceives T&B to be about credit and investing.

Posted at June 10, 2004 10:49 AM

Comments

Also, I'll remove them if they're just taking up space.

Comment by Kevin Brancato at June 10, 2004 10:59 AM | Permalink

Good idea. I was thinking about suggesting that the other day.

One question though. Should we be worried that a lot of the ads are for Stress Disorders, psychologists, schools for troubled teens and depression issues?

Comment by Ian at June 10, 2004 11:08 AM | Permalink

Are you seriously suggesting that you're not getting ads about credit reports and investing?

Comment by Kevin Brancato at June 10, 2004 11:14 AM | Permalink

Not at this end.

Lots of stuff from "www.behaviortherapy.info". Do those things run according to stuff it finds on the target computer? (My cache would have stuff on behavioral drugs since I was researching it recently.)

Comment by Ian at June 10, 2004 11:44 AM | Permalink

I guess they do target individual computers, but also target content to the website; yesterday, I was doing research on Kiplinger's personal finance and on Greenspan's latest speech.

I'll see what options they give for modifying ad content.

Comment by Kevin Brancato at June 10, 2004 11:51 AM | Permalink

All the ads I see are for credit rating. AdSense analyzes your pages to figure out what ads to display. I dont think it has anything to do with the user's computer.

Comment by Michael at June 10, 2004 12:44 PM | Permalink

oh, and if your site is like mine, the vast majority (more like all) of the isitors from search engines hit an individual archive page. I'd suggest putting the ads there instead, or as well. Then you'll also be able to seehow the ads differ based on the content.

Comment by Michael at June 10, 2004 12:46 PM | Permalink

Now I'm getting cognitive therapy and residential treatment ads!

Comment by Kevin Brancato at June 10, 2004 02:58 PM | Permalink

The initial news report about Saddam's capture, with a description of his spider hole, had google ads for ventilation equipment. The shopnav "search assistant" which was hijacking my browser was even stupider.

Comment by triticale at June 13, 2004 07:56 PM | Permalink

Kevin,

Why don't you put ads at the bottom of the archives pages?

From my experience, "random" users rarely visit the front page of a blog.. They get to the entry through the search engine and do not continue browsing the whole blog.

For example:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=iraqi+dinar
get you to
http://truckandbarter.com/mt/archives/000098.html

Now you "lose" exit traffic as they do not have google ads to click on.

Dan

Comment by Dan at July 22, 2004 08:12 AM | Permalink