About This Blog: Advertising

As some of my regular readers may have noticed, I recently added Google ads to the sidebar on the right. I've been fascinated by the way they change depending on the content of my posts. While reviewing yogurts, all the ads were about yogurt and weight loss. When I write about bird watching, all the ads are about bird feeders, attracting birds, and, ironically, about warding off annoying bird incursions (always a sensitive topic around here; just yesterday I had lunch at the Tides restaurant in Bodega Bay, scene of carnage in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds). When I write about wine, the ads change to wine, wine glasses, and wine storage equipment. When I write about movies, Netflix appears. I get a lot of ads for luxury cars and cell phones--not sure exactly why (are my topics generally upscale?). When I write about plants, nursery stock is the pitch of the day. Always something new. Interestingly, when I write about books or art, the ads don't seem to react much--or maybe those help feed the car and cell phone ads? Who knows? No one seems to click on them. They certainly haven't generated any revenue--not that I had high expectations.

Today I got Tylenol sinus medicine ads. I hope that doesn't mean my writing is getting stuffy....

[Update: I killed the Google ads not long after I wrote this, but it was interesting to watch at the time.]