One of Hannah’s criticisms of ProBlogger is that it contains ads with titles like “Easiest Money Ever”. In fact, that is true — that particular ad is for TextLinkAds.com, a link-selling service.

When Hannah visited this blog, she noted that there were “adult links” in the header. Since I don’t explicitly accept or link to “adult” themed web sites, I can only assume that this is something that slipped through the net with Google AdSense, should the accusation in fact be true.

The fact is, choosing to carry nearly any type of advertising on a web site is a risky business. If you use contextual links, there’s a chance it’ll throw up something undesirable to you or your readers. If you accept paid advertising for banner or other graphical ads, but do so through a third-party agency, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get exactly the sort of content you or your readers find acceptable. Even large media organisations have been caught out on this one, when they’ve pushed out the placement of adverts to external agencies.

Even if you do deals with individuals on a case-by-case basis, you have no guarantee that their products, services, or sites are always going to sit comfortably with you or your audience.

The fact is, if you generate revenue through most kinds of advertising, you will at times have products, services, images, headlines, deals and promises sitting right next to your content that you might not agree with. Worse still, it’s very hard to catch what contextual ads will be shown, because they do vary based on advertising stock, day, geographical location of the visitor, and so on.

Unfortunately, some visitors to your web site will believe that, because something is advertised on your site, you in some way agree with it, or the messages that advertising portrays have exactly the same ethics as you.

I wonder if they do the same when they look at adverts in newspapers, magazines and on TV, or listen to radio commercials?

Of course, you can take steps to safeguard your content from completely opposing advertising, though there’s still no guarantee, by choosing to approve ads (where that option is available), blocking competitors and other sites you don’t want to link to, and keeping an eye on paid links to ensure they still lead to the site that they did when you first accepted them.

The only way to guarantee complete control over what appears on, and gets linked from, your site, is not to accept any types of advertising. Some would argue that this is what blogging was originally about, and that things are far too commercial now, but that’s a different debate.

Ultimately, perhaps formally through a disclaimer, or (hopefully) through how your character shines through the content you write, visitors will be able to differentiate between your own values and viewpoints, and the occasional ad which doesn’t quite match.

Seeing an option to “Remind me the next time I log in. (You must accept the above Terms and Conditions by 25 May 2008, or you will no longer be able to login to AdSense and make changes to your Account.)” I plump for that so I can check some stats before going to bed.

Cycles back to the log in screen and then reloads the Terms and Conditions.

Well, I’m not going to click on “No, I do not accept the above Terms and Conditions.” just in case I’m frozen out.

So I take a cursory look at the T&Cs, hoping that Google isn’t going to do something nasty because I haven’t read all the small print, and submit again.

Still locked in a loop.

Maybe because AdSense tends to log me in automatically, there’s some part of the acceptance process that’s not being completed. Whatever the problem, I can’t get past the Terms and Conditions page.

Hopefully it’ll get fixed soon enough.

Update: Oh well, that was quick!

It seems that UK-based “The Perfume Shop” has taken great offence at these humorous ads, to the point that they’re lodging an official complaint to determine whether the BBC’s guidelines have been broken. Oh, and they’ve written to the BBC’s DG, Mark Thompson.

Jeremy Seigal, Managing Director of The Perfume Shop, said, ““The BBC should not be trying to influence what people buy at Christmas solely to promote and protect its own broadcasting future. Their message that aftershave is not a ‘goodÂ’ present is wrong. Each Christmas we sell over one million bottles of aftershave but sadly, our advertising budgets will never be able to match the massive impact of the thousands of ‘freeÂ’ adverts so far run by the BBC.”

Oh, look, the Fragrance Foundation aren’t happy either.

John Ayres, Chairman of The Fragrance Foundation UK said, “This is irresponsible advertising by the BBC. With all the economic forecasters pointing to a poor Christmas and this holiday season being the most important trading time for retailers and fragrances in particular, the BBC should be promoting their own services rather than attempting to deprive other companies of Christmas sales. If the BBC was a more commercial operation and accepted advertising on its stations, it might be a little more careful whom it chose to offend!”

To all you smelly companies, I say, “Please get a life”.

While I don’t agree with masking truly and grossly offensive content in humour, this is supposed to be a gentle poke at the stereotypical “bad present”, which is now fully ingrained in British folklore.

It’s not the first time the BBC has been criticised for covert advertising, but I think that’s a slightly different issue. Buying a DAB radio will allow people to listen to both BBC and commercial radio stations. Perhaps perfumeries would consider taking out cost-effective advertising on the IBA network?

The BBC encourage people to buy “cheaper” DAB radios. Surely there’s enough room in someone’s budget to give other presents too? If that includes aftershave, socks, and bad jumpers then so be it.

Quite honestly, I think the whole argument is petty, and by making such a fuss you’ve actually discouraged me from buying any of your products.

Take a look in the mirror at your phrase, and make it work for you:

“If the [Perfume Shop] must advertise, then possibly it should stick to promoting its own [products] rather than [sending out] negative messages about [national broadcasters]?””

After all, by sending out this press release and making a fuss, you’re presumably trying to get some free publicity. Yes? Just a shame it makes you look stupid.

I was intrigued and perplexed as to why inKline Global were taking out targeted banner advertisements for their PC Booster software, and yet not filtering out Mac users. I’ve seen a number of banners stating that “my Mac has poor performance”, and when I was intrigued enough to click on one, I was offered a PC-only piece of software, even though the sales page on the web site still referred to my Mac!

I emailed them, from interest only, just to see if they were aware that they were wasting money on poorly targeted ads:

Why do you advertise to Mac owners?

Your FAQ says categorically:

“Does PC Booster run on Macintosh?

PC Booster does not run on Macintosh.”

So why do you run loads of stupid banner ads saying “Your Mac may need a tune up”?

It’s wasted advertising and it’s annoying! If you only make PC software, you should abandon contextual advertising to anyone NOT on a PC!

Now I don’t care what this company does with their money – but I enjoy sending pesky letters from time to time, just for the fun of it.

Here’s the response I received this morning, via email, from the lovely Trisha:

Dear Andy,

Currently PC Booster is not compatible with Macintosh. Once we have a compatible Mac- product, we will notify you through our newsletter.

Have a nice day.

Oh I will have a nice day, safe in the knowledge that I haven’t wasted money with a company that doesn’t bother to read their support emails properly. Had she done this, she would have seen me reference the very answer stating that they don’t make the software for Macs!

Oh, and you had better not notify me through your newsletter, as I’ve never signed up for it. I do hope you haven’t subscribed me to it.

Come on, companies, sort it out.

Then it was Smooth FM.

Then (I think) it went back to Jazz FM. Though I might be wrong.

Now, it’s Smooth Radio.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is the frequency: 102.2FM.

I presume since they tend to play less jazz now, that “Jazz FM” could’ve been done under the Trade Description Act.

Take the following banner ad I found on a site the other day:

It reads: “There is 1 update available for your computer: Your Mac may need a tune up. Click ‘Start’ to recommend improvements”

After clicking the ad, and enduring some tacky progress bar animation that simply puts another barrier between the advertiser and a potential customer, I’m greeted with a screen that again confirms to me that I’m using a Mac with Netscape Navigator version 5. (Well, one out of two’s not bad)

I’m then offered: “Tune Up and Accelerate Your PC Speed in 2 Minutes”

Hang on, I thought you said I had a Mac?

Yes, apparently, PC Booster will give ‘more speed and stability out of your Windows computer’.

Great.

This is targeting gone wrong. If I’ve got a Mac, then I don’t need no stinkin’ PC optimisation software, do I?

C’mon inKline, that’s a real waste of your advertising dollar.