google “breast cancer”
google “breast cancer” and look at the first entry in the sponsored links to the right of the screen.
What’s your response?
oh my goodness. I’m shocked, speechless and saddened Phoebe.
What a crazy world we live in.
Belinda.xx
Dreadful Thanks for that (I think) - I’ve e mailed the moderator to see if BCC can get this removed as I have no idea how to go about this - I do know it is not OK.
Sick… Hope someone can find out how to get this, vile sick thing removed, further more how the hell did it get on there in the first place???
karen
I have just reported it to Google Given the thousands of business messages they deal with daily, it may take a while to get shifted.
thank you… …jpoet,
not too hot with this computer business so wouldn’t of known where to start with reporting complaint.
karen
Bad google ad Husband of Lupin says:
This is a Google problem, the BCC people are no better placed to fix this than anyone else.
Anyone can have a “sponsered ad” on google, through the AdWords program. Once you have created a advert and had it approved, you are then allowed to set keywords and/or keyphrases which when entered by a searcher cause that ad to be displayed.
In this case an advertiser has put a keyword of “breast” for his advert, and since the phrase “breast cancer” includes the word “breast” then the advert is eligible to be displayed. What the advertiser should have done is to set an exclude filter on the word “cancer” so searchers for “breast” would get the ad but “breast cancer” would not.
The other part of the equation is why his ad is right at the top: When you set up an advert you specify how much you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on the advert. He who bids highest goes to the top.
At the bottom of every Google page is a link to report that you were disatisfied with the search results, and I have submitted a note to google. I dont know how long it takes for anything to happen, or indeed if anything will happen.
I’ve also written to an email address on the porn site suggesting they change their ad rules.
It’s unfortunate that offense has been caused, but I dont believe you were targetted, its just that the word “breast” can be used in several contexts and the advertiser was not specific enough about what contex his ad should be displayed in.
Sensible action lupin Anyone else upset by this should e-mail google…its nothing to do with Breast Cancer Care.
I don’t like porn whereever it appears but can’t say this specially upsets me.
Jane
Doesn’t do it for me I tried putting “breast cancer”, breast+cancer and just breast cancer into Google search and the only things that appeared in the sponsored links - although I didn’t click on it - should I have done? were what you would expect to see and looked kosher to me.
It’s gone. You’re right LindaAnn the porn link has vanished, do they rotate links or is google incredibly on the ball?
Belinda.xx
BCC Reply Thank you husband of lupin for identifying that BCC unfortunately do not have the power to have adverts removed from Google or any other search engines, that may appear offensive or inappropriateto some forum users. Thank you for taking the time to explain how adverts are placed on sites such as google.
Best wishes
BCC Host
Husband of Lupin I also tried sending an e-mail to the advertisers, but it bounced back as “address unknown”. Did this happen to you, too?
Bouncing email and google It appears that either the advert has pulled itself (ie the advertisers budget limit has been reached), the company pulled it (because it wasn’t generating enough income probably because it was poorly targetted, which is how we got here) or Google have pulled at as a response to feedback. The ad has gone altogether; if the company had fixed the ad then it would have been better targetted, not gone. Note that it doesnt mean its gone forever…
Firstly, the ad was only ever visible from google.co.uk, if you use google.com then the ad never appeared, it was targeted through the UK targetted version of google.
Secondly, yes, email to the website owners bounced, so I wrote to their ISP asking them to pass an email on as their contact information was invalid. Detective work was a bit of fun, the comapny is registered in Cyprus, and the web server in Amsterdam.
Anyway, lets hope thats the end of this incident.
David, a/k/a Husband of Lupin.
It’s back Sorry, David. Was just going to check through the forums on getting home, and guess what - it’s back!
Not on my Computer still not on my google at either co.uk or .com!
— I don’t see it either.
(nice logo they have today - braille)
— Just being nosey? — It doesn’t come up on my google. I presume it was a pornographic site which came up, but how did they justify the word ‘cancer’ in their posting? That worries me…
Joy xxx
Not on mine, either Maybe I have some kind of filter I wasn’t aware of - if so, I’m very thankful!
Reply from Google Other members here may be interested to see the text of an e-mail which I received yesterday from Google:
" Thank you for your email regarding the appearance of pornographic ads on Google. I sincerely apologize for any unexpected inappropriate content. I have reviewed this ad and taken the appropriate action.
AdWords Specialists review all of the ads that appear on Google.com and the Google Network. Ads are categorized as ‘Family Safe,’ ‘Non-Family Safe,’ or ‘Adult,’ depending on the content of the ad and website. The type of ad displayed depends on the other content on the results page as well as user Safe-Search settings.
We only show ads containing adult content when the query appears to be adult oriented. This helps advertisers better target their intended audience and to maintain the relevance of Google ad quality and advertisements for our users.
In addition, Google doesn’t permit ads that are classified as ‘Non-Family Safe’ or ‘Adult’ to appear for users who have activated their Safe-Search filter. To ensure that only ‘Family Safe’ ads appear, we suggest that you change your preferences.
To edit your Google Safe-Search filter preference, please follow the steps
below:
- Go to www.google.com
- Click ‘Preferences’ to the right of the Search Box.
- Scroll down to ‘Safe Search Filtering.’ Make sure you have selected the option labeled ‘Use strict filtering (Filter both explicit text and explicit images)’
- Click the ‘Save Preferences’ button below when you’re finished making changes.
The Safe-Search filter is not yet available for all search languages, so you may not see this option.
We are confident that these safeguards will ensure that users will see only the most relevant and appropriate search results and ads. We appreciate your comments on this issue, which will help inform our future policy discussions. Thank you for taking the time to write us. "