Okay. Someone has to pay for all the work done on WordPress. I understand the need for advertising but… why on earth would you put an ad for packaged bread on a blog post about home made bread? and one that has been up for about 2 weeks and gets about 5 hits a day?
“Note: To support the service (and keep free features free), we also sometimes run advertisements. We’ve tested a lot of different ad providers and currently use Google AdSense and Skimlinks. We try hard to make the ads discreet and effective and only run them in limited places. If you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade.”
“Discreet and effective” yet, I kid you not…
there’s a Google Ad on my Bread Making post advertising a brand name whole wheat bread – and a link to said brand’s Facebook page. Seems like Adsense – or whomever – has not read the post properly or completely as right there in the middle of it I write:
“There’s no pre-sliced bread from a brand-imprinted
plastic bag in my home!”
So why on earth would they use that post for an ad for a brand name packaged bread? It makes no sense even if it is Adsense! Not even if you approach it from the perspective of iCrossing’s cheeky Anne Summers’ campaign where in:
Election 2010 – bid on election related keywords with ad creative saying ‘Visit Ann Summers & find out why we believe in a well hung parliament’ and ‘We specialist (sic) in long, hard elections!”
Which is much funnier and much more effective than slapping a packaged bread ad on a home made bread post! I think whomever is responsible for WordPress ads could have found a much better and more blogger sensitive product to promote – or does AdSense know something I don’t? Probably. But I’m not the first WordPress blogger to be stunned by Adsense’s insensitivity.
This from poppy8sd in the forums:
Explanation Please: Why is WP using my (old) post about a cardinal thug –the “priest” who enabled, protected, then paid off the sub-human pedophile who raped over 400 children –as the page to put ads?
How is it Possible –that post –suitable for advertising?
WHY: does WP WANT to make money off that content?
WHAT is the thinking –that went into WP Admin thinking that people, who searched/found the post, would click on any ad seen there???
Realistically, What could Possibly be advertised -anyone would want, with that as the subject?
Granted a post about baking bread is fertile AdSense territory, and one about pedophiles isn’t – but I repeat: an ad for packaged bread on a post about home made bread?
I guess even though I clearly state in the post that I use Dove baking products, Dove doesn’t want to advertise on the blog for their own reasons or doesn’t do Google ads or something.
But there are so many other advertising possibilities!
I mention honey, black strap molasses, oil – those are all products that need advertising. Rolled oats – and I don’t mention a brand.
WordPress, AdSense – whomever- are you paying attention? Go find an organic rolled oats company. It must be large oats, not those processed, quick-cooking things that taste like spiced sawdust soaked in water.
Other products they could advertise: mixing bowls, bake ware – utensils, measuring cups, bread pans – there’s a good product: “Turn out a perfect loaf of bread every time with XXXXXXXXX loaf pans.”
They could advertise cookers renowned for their excellence with baked goods.
I also talk about New Brunswick, Canada so they could get some New Brunswick tourism ads going.
I talk about organic – so they could get a Google ad for the organic soil association, but that’s probably a social ad, so maybe not. And why isn’t the Organic Soil Association a choice in the social ads?
But the best ad they could put on my post about baking bread? The smartest ad? A BREAD MAKING MACHINE!
The post conjures the desire for some honest-to-goodness, down-home, home made bread which many readers are never going to attempt making. But making it in a bread making machine? Now that’s easy. A bread-making machine would be a pretty easy click to go for. That’s AdSense! At least to my not-trained-in-advertising brain, a bread-making machine would be the thing to advertise on a post about bread baking. Or maybe that’s too obvious?
Now about getting paid…if WordPress wants to get paid for making it possible for me to have a blog, well – I don’t hold it against them. I’d like to get paid, too!
I’m out of a job right now, so that means I really would like to get paid. I’m looking for work. And it sure would be nice to get paid for doing something I clearly enjoy as much as my Blog, even if I’m not a geek genius – I can write. And yes, I do enjoy writing. I enjoy writing about all sorts of things. Even things other people suggest or ask me to write about.
It sure would be nice to get paid for writing again. Then maybe I would even go out and buy one of those new-fangled bread making machines which I used when I was staying at my friend’s house and thought: Wow, how easy is that! Turns out a perfect loaf every time.
But then I wouldn’t get to do all that kneading.
Alison Amazed 
I actually picked up a package of brand name bread today, pre-sliced in its plastic bag. It bore the brand of the one advertised on my bread baking post. And I thought: “Hah – they planted the seed in my mind. Made me – if even no one else pay attention to their blasted, pre-sliced, plastic wrapped bread. ” I quickly dropped it back onto the shelf, muttering to myself: “I want nothing to do with it.” The man standing next next me, pondering his own purchase, was baffled.