Smart adds are sometimes dumb

Astronuc

You know those smart ads on some websites, where you search on a key word, go to the page, and the advertisements are somehow related to the keyword.

I was searching for some articles on the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft which is flying by Mars to get a gravity assist on its way to Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko.

I went to an article on CNN, and I found the following ads on the sidebar of the page:

mars lodging
Know before you go. Read reviews from real travelers.

Homes In Mars
Find Homes In Mars on Trulia. Browse property listings, photos, and interactive...

residence champs de mars
Find deals, read reviews from real people. Get the truth. Then go.

Mars Motel Six

slugcountry

they're just ahead of their time =P

russ_watters

I don't see the problem. If you're going to fly to Mars, unless you know someone, you'll need a hotel....

This one looks pretty good: http://www.hotelmars.net/home.htm

If you're on a budget, you can try this one: http://www.nextag.com/SUPER-8-MOTEL-...6AB1B9B353D3AB

And after your conference, the night life is pretty good: http://www.marsbarsf.com/

By the way, ever been to California...? http://www.google.com/maps?q=Califor...i=map&ct=title
...Lebanon...? http://www.google.com/maps?q=Lebanon...i=map&ct=title
Yeah, we got it all in PA.

Oh....and "adds"?

edward

Google has tons of those key word ads. Whatever object you search for you can end up with a sidebar full of sellers. I have a nephew who made a lot of money during his college years using google ad words. I think he was selling cover letters.

They charge the advertiser everytime someone clicks on the sidebar ad. Now all kinds of web sites are using them.

A company called Bizrate has a side bar ad for just about every object imaginable. Shopping Yahoo does the same thing.

I just googled 'horses" Yahoo Shopping has them.

Moonbear

My favorite was that somehow I got an ad come up for bull balls trailer hitch ornaments (which I recently read some lawmaker with too much time on his hands is trying to outlaw). I actually had to click on that one...it was too tempting to ignore. I had issues with their placement...they didn't seem hung quite right.

Ivan Seeking

I wonder what the ads were when we discussed electro-ejaculators for rhinos.

Moonbear

That's the downside to not seeing the ads. Sometimes they're pretty amusing. Maybe I should sign out and see what shows up now.

Edit: Aww, shucks, nothing fun.

GeorginaS

Bold and italics in Moonbear's quote mine.

Is that what those are. There's a truck that parks behind a building across the back alley from my place, and I saw those things hanging from his trailer hitch with some asinine wording over top of it (them?). I thought the truck owner in question had them custom-made as I haven't seen anyone else with sufficient weirdness genes to sport them on the back of their trucks. But, there they are in all of their mass-produced glory.

A little research has led me to their official names of either Truck Nuts or Bumper Nuts.

Not for people with decent taste.

Sorry if I wandered too far off topic.

Good heavens. I wonder what sort of ads this post will generate. (Edited to add: nope, the ads here remain pretty faithful to the words "homework" and "physics".)

SynapticSelf

My computer was recently infected with "Seekmo", a spyware program reminiscent of Gator (Weatherbug scandal). It opens the pop ups in a seperate window, the content of which is based on your current surfing.

So I went to google to find out which areas of my registry were effected by this thing, and imediately two windows popped up: One for a professional registry cleaner, and one for Anti-SpyWare programs!!

Curious3141

No ads for Rekall, Inc?