[BobJam]

Now, Mike, don't take this as a bash.

But . . .

I see some ads on this site for things like Registry Cleaners. For example, right now as I post I'm looking at an ad that says:

Recommended Download - A Free Registry Scan to Repair . . . 5 Star Awarded . . .

The link leads to Uniblue, which sells "Spyeraser". The Castlecops site has listed this "Spyeraser" software as "dubious", and a PC Mag review gave it a basic thumbs down BECAUSE it will "detect" spyware that actually isn't on your system (false positives) and then prompt you to BUY their registered version to remove it. A marketing ploy at best, but a scam IMHO. (Indeed, a guy I know actually DID download this Uniblue stuff - NOT from your site - and suffered the results that PC Mag spoke of).

Now I know you guys have to get the revenue from ads, and I know this site runs on a tight budget anyway, so I'm certainly not suggesting that you get rid of ads.

But Registry Cleaners . . . ?? Especially ironic when most on this site (myself included) preach AGAINST the use of Registry Cleaners. And a lot of the ads say "we recommend", implying to a novice that TechSupportGuy sponsors the use of the software (which I DON'T think is the case).

But, there's probably no way to "filter" ads, so I guess we'll just have to live with it.

Just a friendly comment, not meant to be abrasive . . . you run a VERY GOOD site!!!

[TechGuy]

You're right -- Unfortunately, Google doesn't give us the ability to filter out ads based on such content. In general, I think that Google's ads are of a high quality (compared to the old flashing and moving banners we once had to include), but I wish we could drop those "recommended" links as well as the the links to sites that are clearly warez or illegal music downloads. What you can do, however, is click on the little "Google" logo next to such ads. When you do so, you'll be given a small link at the bottom of the page that displays that allows you to give Google feedback on the ad you just saw. If they get enough complaints, maybe they'll do something. Thanks!

[BobJam]

I did in fact click on the Google link next to the ad to give feedback, but all I got was a "preprinted" choice to say that the ad was not relevant and something else (that I forget now). In any case, I did not get an email form, which I expected, so I went to the Google "AdSense" forum and made a post on my complaint.

If that was the wrong place to make this type of "complaint", I asked the folks there to please direct me to the right place . . .

We'll see . . . I'll let you know if I get a reply from Google, even if it's a standard form letter reply. And I'm anxious to see if there are any other posts in reply to mine on that Google forum.

Incidentally, one other comment I have on the ads here. Every now and then an errant click will call up the link to the ad (which I of course close right away). But it seems like the ad area is kind of expanded because I never click on the link itself. I see the "hand" symbol, indicating a link, right before my browser goes to the site. But, as I just said, that "hand" symbol is never over the link itself.

It doesn't happen very often, and is more of a bother to me than anything else, but if a novice does that and ends up at the site, they may think that TechSupportGuy did it.

So, is there anything you can do to decrease the size of the "clickable" area, or is that just part of the ad code??

[TechGuy]

Nope, anything within Google's box is controlled by them, including how much of that box is clickable.

When you go to report an ad, under where it asks how relevant it is, click the link that says " Also Report a Violation?". I think that will give you what you're looking for.

[AcaCandy]

Well, just DON'T go to the Hillary for President thread in Civilzed Debate

Those ads are about to drive me batty

[Davec]

Originally Posted by AcaCandy

Those ads are about to drive me batty

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................................

[AcaCandy]

*SMACK*

[BobJam]

Mike,

No . . . I tried that "Report a Violation" thing, and all it did was expand the "preprinted" choices. That's why I went to the forum.

They don't have email notifications of a reply like this board and most other boards do, so I'll have to visit the forum and see if there were any replies yet. Haven't done that so far. Plus, I haven't heard anything from Google yet (and I'm not sure I will).

Oh . . . and my compliments again . . . you run an excellent troubleshooting site. Certainly seems like a lot of people (especially novices) solve their problems here.

[BobJam]

Well . . . I did get a reply to my Google AdSense Basics Forum post, but it's slightly cryptic and I don't quite understand the whole thing:

"I have seen this ad on one site that I used to go but not anymore. It
was the site of one of the forum member - a very visible forum member.
I had posted about this issue here to draw his attention to it. He was
surprised that I was seeing this popup. He claimed no knowledge about
the popup, he only had adsense ads at the time. A couple of others
also had posted that they had seen this popup in that particular site.
No one knew where the popup was coming from. Now that you have
evidence that it was due to adsense ads, that really solves this issue
in a way. I hope that Google does not promote any mal software through
any adwords campaign, and screen out advertisers of such software."

I didn't say anything about a "popup", so I don't know where that came from. Maybe the poster just meant the appearance of the ad alone, not really a "popup". I did mention the Uniblue stuff, so maybe that's what they were referring to.

[MMJ]

Originally Posted by BobJam

Recommended Download - A Free Registry Scan to Repair . . . 5 Star Awarded . . .

The other day I saw a similar ad on a Vista box. It said "Your an unknown operating system has 1 update".

Seems like they didn't add vista to their database yet... Nor do they know english.