Post
by aTm » Tue Nov 19, 2013 6:09 pm
The ads are driven by Google. Basically there several types that get displayed. Some ads are in the list to get displayed anywhere and everywhere and just show up as random ads. An advertiser could request that his ads get put on our pages (not likely). Or Google could look at a cached version of our pages and generate suitable ads based on keyword it finds. If you allow them to (just by doing normal things and having normal security settings and behavior), google will also generate ads tailored to your history. It looks at your cookies, it may see one from a particular bank website and display an ad for that bank. It also remembers what you've searched for in Google's search engines as well and can pull that up. I suspect that it also knows when you visit other sites that have google ads and therefore knows you've been there and also shows contextual ads based on keywords for those sites.
I'm in the middle of doing some home improvement stuff and so my ads on here are usually for things like Lumber Liquidators flooring, or Overstock.com. Its pretty sophisticated, it actually shows me ads for Lumber Liquidators that actually have pictures and names for quarter round and T-molding for my floor that I actually bought. Somehow it remembers me looking at those products when I was pricing them.
Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I am king.