Sunday, March 4, 2007

Google Thinks I am Bulimic

Dear Google, Host of My Blog,

I’m writing to inquire why you think I’m bulimic. Judging by the ads you are running (to the right of my blog posts), you clearly think I am bulimic and/or anorexic. Every day there is a steady stream of eating disorder related advertising on my blog.

I never thought I would make any actual money off this blog but I did want to get people to read it so I signed up with your Google Adsense and Adwords and all that. I thought I understood it: you key in words you think your blog is all about and then Google places it on websites, which in turn gets content-appropriate ads placed on Crabmommy’s site. But how do you guys get from me to an eating disorder? If I were you and I were trying to target things to some momhood-related blog, surely weight loss clinics would be more appropriate than weight gain ones? And a few ab-toner ads. I am quite sure that would get me more clicks from my readership. My seven readers are mostly new moms, and as a group I think it is safe to say we aren’t stinting ourselves foodwise.

In fact, right this very minute I am eating banana bread and I promise you I will not be barfing it up.

Google-people, I am starting to think this ad campaign you run for me isn’t going to change my financial future, notwithstanding the $2.38 I have made in the month since this has been up. And I am blaming you. Since your team is in charge of placing said ads on the site -- and I assume you are all clever and hot like the people in your training videos for Google Reader and whatnot -- how come you are so far off target? How do you match content and ads? I did read that answer in the FAQ, that apparently you do something called “crawling” my site, that your crawler reads what I have to say and then synchs the crawl-report up with advertisers. But where in my past posts have I mentioned denying myself any sort of foodstuff?

Yes indeedy, the ads you’re matching with me are weird. When not advertising anorexia or bulimia, you at Google have me pegged for one suffering from mental problems, or perhaps you think that my audience is likely to suffer from mental problems, because well, who else would read my blog? I am grasping here, but how else am I to understand why bipolarhappens.com is the second-most blog-appropriate ad you can run on my site – after all the eating-disorder-related stuff? Do I seem bipolar to you? What are the signs in my posts? Where do I veer from one pole to another? I thought I was consistently whiny on here. Show me the happy, jiggy parts, the big tonal shifts. Or maybe the magic word here is “disorder”? Has Google crawled my site and divined that I have some sort of disorder and then you just sort of guess from there? If this is so, then your crawling engine must be very sophisticated. Maybe you can pitch your crawler as a sort of cyber-shrink: it reads a person’s blog and then divines the tone of it and makes a diagnosis as to the nature of the writer. In my case, treatment of some sort is evidently in order for me and/or my readers, according to you. But even if that were true, I can't take it from you. I mean, you put Mandarin characters into my navbar (to help me, I assume?) -- so I think it's fair to say you haven't entirely got my number.

Before I sign off, I also want to mention Denver since you mention it so often on my site. Indeed, when not advertising the various disorders you find appropriate to Crabmommy, you fill the ad space with things that have to do with Denver. Is this because I live in Wyoming? Is Wyoming considered sort of the same as Colorado in your book? If so, thanks! I am flattered – on behalf of Wyoming. Seriously. And actually I have to admit, you are not in fact so far from the truth when you advertise the denverschoolofdriving.com. I am just creeped out that you KNOW what a bad driver I am. Apparently you (and some others around here) think I should sign up for some sort of fancy winterized driving maneuvers. But HOW DID YOU KNOW? How can your crawler divine my crap driving? I haven't said anything about it on here.

So anyway, I know you will likely be crawling this VERY post for ad-relevant content. And on your FAQ it says that segues can confuse the crawler so I mustn’t switch subjects a whole lot. Okay. I can do that if it helps. I can stay on subject. Sort of. Um. What was I saying? Something about banana bread. Banana condoms. Yes. Did you see the banana bunker in my Feb archive, Google ad-team? I want you to get that guy who designed the banana Tupperware thing to advertise on my site. I would get so many clicks – he would get so many – that maybe I could quit Crabmommy’s day job, which, when not with Crabtot, is presently comprised of teaching a punctuation class to the high school, a grammar class called Dude Where’s My Comma? -- a gig that pays me only slightly more than the $2.38 I have made through your Google Ads since I started running them.

Anyway I hope you G-peeps can help me figure out how to find Crabmommy's place in the market. I hope at the very least to see more Stokke high chairs and banana bunkers on here in the next days, products I can really get behind and which I have written about extensively in the brief life of my blog. Possibly it will help if I do the following: Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke Stokke banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker banana bunker.

Did that help with the crawling? I do hope so. Let’s get these banners relevant!!!

Best regards,
Crabmommy. (seriously, anyone know what the heck is up with those ads, man? Techmommies, what am i doing wrong?)

13 comments:

info@thebabymarketplace.com said...

Hey CrabMommy,

You need some Meta Tags (keywords and description and title) in the code of your page, so that the Google people know what your site is about (and the search engines etc.)

You could look here:

http://www.orblogs.com/get_meta-blogger.asp

If you go to most websites and go view (on tool bar) and then choose source you can see the code of the website. You can see after the original HEAD tag there are some META tags ... you need these!

HTH

If it makes you feel any better, google I have noticed thinks Dooce.com is off her rocker too! Then again they may think because that is one of your only incoming links that you are too!

MommyKnows (really I do!)

RachaelP said...

CrabMommy, you rock! I am loving your blog, and completely excited to have found so many moms who feel just like i do. I am fairly new to the blog community myself, been quietly observing for a while, and since I am anything but quiet, i decided i would put myself out there just like you. Not so much in the prostitute way I just implied, but more like we could be friends in another life. I have a link to your page on mine, hope you do not mind. Check me out, rachaelpancic.typepad.com

Keep up the great posts!

Crabmommy said...

mommyknows, thanks for showing me the way. I will follow your excellent advice forthwith. Thank you and rachaelp too for being my blogpeeps and linking to me and all that. you ladies is very smart. I must say, I am badly in need of some blog-school. maybe after, i will learn all these ssayy linking maneuvers and meta-tags and such. For now, all I know about is meta-syrup (cf. the cure for whining).

Crabmommy said...

and lord that is a cute moppet on your profile, mommyknows.

Crabmommy said...

ok, so I went to the ORblogsite you mentioned, Mommyknows, and I got sort of halfway...except that my blogger page where i was meant to cut and paste the copied tags didn't look like they said it woud. So I got nervous that the blog would disappear altogether and then chickened out of the paste. Tries searching meta-tags on google but they act like they have never heard of it. I think maybe the prob is that I am using the new blogger, not the old. And I think google doesn't want meta-tags created by the user or something. So I am stuck with anorexia it seems. Argh!

info@thebabymarketplace.com said...

I have a secret weapon for coding and help with my websites.

www.webproworld.com

I have asked them for help as i am not familiar with blogger (use word press).

I posted the question here: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=354625#354625

You can follow the thread and see if anyone offers any help.

The worst thing that can happen is they will read your blog :)

Undomestic said...

Oh, do tell about your high school class. I'd love to hear how that is going!

Crabmommy said...

Mommyknows, you are swell. Thanks a lot for all your excellent techie-advice. Will follow up. Must go off and finish up "Dude Where's My Comma" grammar course...been neglecting my work in favor of blog. Stay tuned, though, as of course the Crabmommy has more, much more, in store, in the days to come...

Karen Stead Baigrie said...

I was wondering about all those eating disorder ads, now thanks to your post those genius crawlers have nothign but anorexia help for those of us trying to control the post-baby, gym-less-life flab.

txmama3 said...

i am betting all this bulimic biz stems from the claim you would shove an entire bag of gummy bears in your mouth?

Crabmommy said...

Lianne! You nailed it. The gummi bears and the bulimia. That must have been it -- the connection Google made that started this all... Alas I have bigger probs on my hands than bulimic advertisents. Computer about to die. I think finally and forever...don't know when i will next be up here. Rgh I am so untechie. NBot good for a blogmom.

Homemom3 said...

Crabbymommy- first I found your site through a google ad on my site, while I didn't click through I put it in the search engine. I imagine you must be making more than $2.00 at this time. Am I right? Would love to know your experience with google ads for your site on others too. homemom3@gmail.com Thank you.

Mental P Mama said...

Too funny! When you find out, please let me know. Mine are all about mental illness and depression. I am a little wacky and a little old, but geez, Google, cut me some slack.

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