Update – Hubby was kind enough to print up a few examples of what is going on. See one below. When he put them to pdf, the second column normally on the right of my screen slid down to a separate page, so it looks a little different. However these were taken today July 12th, and so are still on my website. When the viewing with the right hand column in place, the text of my blog is a little smaller and ads are even larger. Google appears to be placing ads on the basis of some kind of text tagging. Thus baby formula was inserted on a blog about kittens, that was intended to be a counterpoint to death in the Gulf. A shoe ad was attached to the recent Oakland disturbance after the conviction where shoes were stolen. Imagine if I blog about a few politicians what might happen!!
Update – Perhaps many of you already know about these ads, but I have been on WP since 2008 and never saw one of these ads before. Find a comment HERE from Matt, clear back in 2006, discussing the ads and how we won’t see them. It’s anyone’s guess what our sites have supported. At the very least, should we decide to forgo the ad blocks, we ought to be able to see what they are. Matt says in his blog that they got very little feedback when they began the ads. How can we provide feedback to WP if we can’t see the ads?
Update – Bobbie informs me that the cost to keep the ads off my blog is $29.95 a year, not a month.
Update -I just logged out and still did not see the ads on MY computer, so I am pretty peeved right now.
Today I happened to be look at my blog site in my husband’s computer. I was stunned to see Google ads at the bottom my page. I had no idea my puny blog was worthy of that kind of consideration.
I immediately went in search of answers and found this one (Let me know if this link drops. I have a pdf.) from Bobbie Newman.
Bobbie thought that being signed out of WP makes the Google ad visible. Since Hubby doesn’t have a WordPress account, he isn’t signed in, so this might be true. However, I have been signed out before and failed to notice the ads, so I don’t know for sure if this is the case. I wonder though, how many of us WP bloggers have them and don’t even see each others, because we have a WP account.
I OBJECT to these ads, because:
1) To turn them off requires that we pay WP $29.95 a month.
2) I have no control over the ads that display on my page.
3) I am unable to see them from my computer.
4) The formating is terrible and is bigger than almost anything else on my page.
Honestly, I would have considered the $30 bucks a month, but I don’t like the way this has been handled, so now instead, I will have to consider whether I will continue a blog here. The political ads are coming. I have already seen a Google ad denigrating Barbara Boxer on a web site I would not expect. I hated the way Sodahead and Newsmax banner ads were utilized during the election. It appears Google (And WordPress.) will do the same.
Grab and Keel 
i have not seen any adds on your blog .
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Thanks Boogie, do you use WordPress? They were just on there an hour ago.
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The ads don’t show up on every post, they seem to be few and far between.
Also its $29.95 a year, not a month.
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Thanks, Bobbie that helps a little, but still don’t like how this has been handled. I had read about the ads and thought I would make a decision when they arrived.
However, since I never saw them on my site I could never make a decision to block them. They aren’t formated like those in your example.
They were huge, like someone got the HTML wrong. Perhaps they show differently for the various WP themes, or maybe it’s got something to do with an individual’s page. Whatever it is, it’s ugly.
How will I ever even know if they have been removed? The whole point was to present what I wanted.
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As I understand it, regular readers don’t see the ads. (see this WP post from 2008 that refers to something started in 2006). If they are there, I’ve never seen them in the 2 years I’ve been blogging at WP, nor have I had any reader tell me they’ve seen them. I’ve gone to the internet on computers other than my own and not seen any ads on my blog.
At this point I can’t worry about it. If they are there, and ads show up for people I don’t like, and a reader remarks about it, I can always pull the defense that any other blogger that uses Ad-Sense does “I don’t control the content of the ads. They are triggered by key words in posts.” – That’s what’s going on.
I get to blog for free, and unlike Blogger, WordPress has never screwed with me.
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[…] I object to this form of advertising. I further object to the ad placement being labeled as “discreet”. I prefer the word hidden. A blogger should be able to see on their own site, what the […]
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