Life on the Road

I’m always a little disappointed when I see an ad for something that goes against the values a site is espousing.

Although Google and other “ad-words” providers typically do allow you to block ads that you see on your site and don’t like, from what I’ve been able to determine there is no way to filter, block, or select what will show up beforehand. 

They claim it’s going to work out well because the ads selected are based on your content…  But a WAHM frined mentioned the scary story about the ads that started popping up on her site after posting an article about the debate surrounding infant circumcision.  Yikes!

If I had a ragingly popular site that could generate some ad revenue, I think I’d go the safe way.  Selling the spots on the page leaves me in absolute control of who shows up there, and is thereby associated with me in readers’ minds.

I recently saw a link in the Google Ads box on a WAHM business blog that sounded fishy.  Being me, I clicked on it to check it out.  Sure enough, it was one of the many types of schemes that seem to be everywhere these days:

• Pay for my (book/system/website/whatever) and you’ll make tons of money with no effort what-so-ever
• Complete these offers from our sponsors to access this cool stuff
• Sign up all your friends to do this and you’ll get rich
• Drive traffic to your website by joining our site and clicking on other members’ links

And so on, and so on…

I guess the people who put those ads on their site figure that “everyone KNOWS those are just the Google Ads, and nothing really related to me.”  It’s just like the people with blogs on free sites have to put up with the ads placed on their pages, right?

I don’t know, but I’m not buying into it.  Why should I let them spew stuff onto my page that I have no control over (unless I HAPPEN to notice something offensive, then I can remove it after the fact!)? 

I went to all the trouble to get a domain, host my blog myself, and all this other stuff - why?  Precisely so that I could be in control of everything. 

As much as I’d like to think I might earn some extra money, I’m not selling out.  It’s like I’ve heard in sermons more than once:

Go through your house, and clean it up as if Jesus was coming over for a visit.  Do you have magazines or movies you wouldn’t want Him to see?  Guess what - He sees them now, so you shouldn’t have them! 

So if Jesus decides to take a few minutes out to surf the web and runs across my blog, I hope He is pleased with His servant’s work.