The Day Out with the Kids website received six million hits last July 2007, most of these no doubt from parents wishing to find an innovative way to entertain their kids outside home. But on August, parents were shocked to see explicit ads for girl escorts right next to the website’s wholesome offers.
The website endorses attractions such as The New MetroLand, NewCastle’s Discovery Museum, and Sunderland Stadium of Light tours. Kids are expected to visit the website as well to gather more information about these places.
The owner of the website and iEscorts, the company featured in the Adsense ads, were both upset when the Sunday Sun reported the matter to them. Both also pointed to Google Adsense as the culprit.
A Google spokesman reiterated that “Google Adsense works by serving advertisements which are relevant to the content on publishers’ webpages” but conceded their error in the case of the kids’ website. He also declared to concerned parties that the ads would be immediately taken out.
In recent news, Google Adsense had just clinched a deal with CNN.Com to become its official and exclusive auction-based text advertisement provider.
This is the problem with AdSense's ad approval system. And also one that many webmasters are complaining. Sure, the earnings may be great for this high-traffic sites. But what about those visitors of those sites? The bad ads they get exposed to can turn off many of them who would just want to access quality content.
I hope that the AdSense team gets more vigilant when it comes to approving ads. That is if they want to continue getting the businesses of large content provider networks such CNN and family-oriented sites such Day Out with the Kids.
Comment Preview