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Friday, May 9, 2008

Mail Order Brides?!

The wonderful Maeve of Struck by Lightning mentioned that she saw an ad for mail order brides in my sidebar. Ugh! Exactly the kind of thing I was worried about when I put ads up. If anyone is going to trick sex addicts into clicking on anything, it's going to be me, pretending that a link Sex Addicts Anonymous is leading to porn! (Go ahead, they've got some hot stuff there. Tee hee!)

I will take the ads down entirely, if I have to do so to feel safe and comfortable. But I'd like to try other options first, since we are on shaky financial ground and those ads pay for a few weeks of groceries a year at this point (and growing). Stay-at-home mama is going to take that if she can. (Ah, the balance between money and morals. I only want to sell out a little, not all the way!)

I'm going to play with the ads a bit to see if I can get them to stop trying to sell you all mail order brides. I've made a few changes already, but don't know if they will help. I can block specific URLs, but not general types of ads. And since I haven't seen any offensive ads myself, I don't know what site(s) the ads are coming from.

If you see an offensive ad, and it lists a URL for a website, let me know the URL. If not, let me know where you saw the ad. If they are only showing up on the sidebar (or in one specific area of the sidebar), I can pull that ad block instead of all the ads.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, and my apologies if you've seen anything triggering or objectionable.
Posted by at 3:30 AM
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11 comments:

  1. I, personally, do not care one ounce about what ads are listed on any site so long as it's not physically graphic. I understand that ads are ads and editorial content is just that ... then again, I have a journalism background and these differences are very big to me. Of course, I'm not going to click on mail order brides ... not even to help you pay groceries. : )
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  2. Danielle Says HelloMay 9, 2008 09:53 AM
    I totally agree with Shawn. Many individuals realize the ads are not generated by you and are out of your control to a certain degree and therefore they are just ads and not a reflection of you ;)
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  3. My own response to ads is to use Firefox with AdBlock Plus. Poof, no ads.

    I figure avoiding looking at stuff I don't want to see is at least partly my responsibility. Unfortunately, that doesn't always help; I didn't want to see the bottom of third in tonight's Yankees game but I saw it anyway {shudder}.
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  4. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 9, 2008 11:11 AM
    As I said, I'm ok with most of the ads, even for products I don't agree with or endorse. (We all know I'm not supporting Ron Paul in 2008, but I do have readers who may be interested.)

    But ads for sex, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, drug paraphernalia and the like are totally unwelcome here.

    I want this to be a safe place for me and for my visitors in recovery. Ads for sex or sex related services can be triggering and deeply hurtful to sex addicts and their partners.

    The ad money is a wonderful side benefit of writing that I truly love for an audience I really care about. This is my room. And it's important to me to create an environment where I know I'm not going to be triggered or upset, where my husband and my recovery readers will feel safe visiting from any computer.

    The good news is that I've tracked down the offending ad units and think I've fixed the problem.
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  5. Never heard of arranged marrages? At least with a mail order spouse you stand a small chance of getting what you ordered. Why I even hear they did it in this country and *gasp* some work out just fine. Some even fell in love, who would have ever thunk it. Given the current rate of divorce I don't think you'd do any worse. At least you have a goal in mind to work on, most stop after they sign the marrige papers.

    Ad's you display? Good luck with that one, I doubt you'll have much control unless you get your own domain and even then I'm not 100% sure.

    postpaleo
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  6. I use firefox too, but still get the ads. I have only seen ads for treatment of addictions here.
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  7. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 10, 2008 01:17 AM
    postpaleo, I don't have anything against arranged marriage per se. I do have an issue with the way it is marketed and sold, through the ads and sites I have seen as, in a culture where it is not the norm, as being akin to prostitution (buy sex with beautiful women who will do whatever you want). And it is a trade with a potential to, like prostitution, exploit women.

    I think I've gotten a handle on how the ads wound up here and have found a way to remove the ones that offend me.
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  8. Hmm, now that you mentioned it, I do notice you have ads now. Didn't actually notice them before so I think that means your site is designed well.
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  9. I've had a few mail order brides in my ESL classes, and I can tell you that they had almost nothing nice to say about their husbands when their husbands weren't around to hear.
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  10. Doc's GirlMay 10, 2008 08:04 AM
    I took my ads off a few months ago only because I knew I never clicked on any of them...and most people probably don't either. Also, one of my ads mentioned the city that I lived in and that TOTALLY freaked me out because I never posted it anywhere. Blah. :)
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  11. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 10, 2008 08:35 AM
    Doc's Girl, I used to ignore ads as well, but now that I know that other bloggers get their revenue from ads, I make a point of paying attention to them and clicking if they are interesting. I've found some cool stuff, including great earrings for my mom's birthday. (Thanks, Mantra's ads!)

    I've also see ads targeted toward the region in which I live, which was creepy. But I was reading on Adsense Help yesterday (trying to remove the offensive ads) that they target ads individually to geographical locations based on where the one is reading from. So you may have seen your town, but someone else visiting would see products in China if they were visiting the blog from Shanghai. Whew!
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