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Ball Screws, Dog Poo and Google...
The simple fun of Google Ads24 July 2007
by Huw Collingbourne
As a developer of a Ruby On Rails IDE, I necessarily spend a lot of my time reading Blogs about Rails . For the uninitiated, I should explain that Ruby is an object oriented language and Rails is the name of a web development framework. It has, as far as I am aware, no obvious connection with ball screws (whatever they are - I almost dread to ask...) so why did I only this morning see the following advertisement on a Rails Blog....?
all screws for all applications. Nuts, Bearings, Guides...
Aha, I think I’ve spotted the reason....
...and Rails.
Google Ads strike again!
Google adverts try to provide ‘relevant’ content to the subject of the Blog in which they appear. Often they do a good job. But not always! Rails (and Ruby) blogs can throw up some particularly inappropriate examples. However, there are even funnier possibilities. A couple of years ago, I wrote most of a column about Google Ads. My favourites were the ones that offered ”Dog Poo for sale. Check out the deals now!” and “Great deals on Body Odor. Shop on eBay and Save!”
I haven’t noticed anything quite that good in recent times. Has Google sharpened up its Ad-guessing technology to avoid the really gross stuff? Or am I just looking in the wrong places these days...? If you spot any classics, please let me know.