Like may weblog authors, I decided to try Google's AdSense program. We independent content producers can always use some additional revenue to help with the web hosting bills, the Internet access bills, etc.
Good news - Google AdWords work. They are in fact reasonably unobtrusive, they are contextual (likely you won't see ads for sports memorabilia here), and when clicked they provide the reader with more information on a product or service of interest to them.
Bad news - (After some consideration, much hard-won knowledge about how AdWords work was suppressed; I probably would have revealed more than Google wants made public.) Bottom line is that I don't have the ability to "filter" the AdWords that appear at the right to be topical to Broadband Wireless Internet Access. The only tools that Google offers are severely limited for that purpose, and when I tried to use them, I found that I was spending way too much time trying to micromanage the AdWords to be at least somewhat relevant to BWIA. That time is much better spent on improving the content of the BWIA Weblog.
So... from this point forward, the Google AdWords that appear on the BWIA Weblog won't necessarily be specifically relevant to Broadband Wireless Internet Access.
That said... I sincerely hope that Google will improve both the automatic AdWords targeting, and tools that let hosts target AdWords a bit more closely to the preferred subject matter of the host site.
Steve Stroh
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