Sunday, October 23, 2005

Hurricanes in America's Midwest?

AdSense places perplexing ad

This writer is not one to bite the hand that feeds her. (Well, I'm not sure this particular hand "feeds" me yet, but I digress.) An interesting Google ad appeared on this page Sunday morning. The ad read:

"Missouri Hurricanes. Don't Be a Victim of the Next Big Storm. Protect Your Home and Family!"

I live in St. Louis, Missouri. Our fair city sits in the Midwest. You can even say we're in the central plains, nowhere near any oceans or gulfs. The last I heard, this was not hurricane territory. Did I miss something?? Should I gas up the car and prepare for evacuation?

A dear blogger friend of mine has warned me several times not to click on my own Google ads. The company has hard fast rules against that, he says. He whispers that the company is "evil" when it comes to inappropriate clicking, so I make sure I follow the rules. But the curiosity is killing me! This inquiring mind really wants to know where the link takes you.

6 comments:

Rose said...

It takes you absolutely nowhere. I clicked the question mark and all it did was enlarge it. Hurricanes in Missouri? I think not, our fear is the great earthquake.We sit on the Madrid Fault. I believe that's the one. I'll check to make sure.

Deb Sistrunk Nelson said...

Yes, Rose. We in St. Louis live along the New Madrid fault. Scientists have been predicting the "big quake" for over 20 years. Of course, we cannot predict when the quake occurs, if it ever does. But hopefully our crisis management plan is up-to-date, in case we ever need to implement it.

S A J Shirazi said...

Google sometime may misdirect the ads, many times some new ad may appears that may not be related with the contents any way, or what I have observed is that when ever the google adsense can’t sense the keywords, it places ad about blogging or blogs. BTW, the CTR of blogging related ads seems to be the lowest ;-) And that is what I seem to be having on my site all the time even if I write about Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Who (other than ProBlogger) cares about keywords while writing? Nice post.

Deb Sistrunk Nelson said...

Excellent explanation, Shirazi. Thank you.
To my readers: If you'd like to learn more about ProBlogger, go to http://www.problogger.net/
In you're serious about perfecting the art of blogging, it's a great resource.

Dr. Deb said...

I clikced on the ad above this post and it lead me to an aol newspage about the flooding from the hurricanes. Interesting that its advised not to clikc on your ads. I guess they want a true "hit list".

~Deb

Deb Sistrunk Nelson said...

Dr. Deb, thanks for the info.