Advertising = Tacky? Photo by the Killer Biscuit.

Glaukôpis has been wrestling with the problem of whether she should put advertising on her site. Inkycircus has declared Google Ads the new black. I removed them from most of my site because I was not happy with them.

Glaukôpis asks if putting ads on her site is selling out. Yes says one of her commenters. I think this is probably a non-problem, unless you’re snobbish – and some people are. Originally Classics or most academic research was what someone did if they had a private income. It’s fairly recently that being paid to research has been a possibility to the masses and with top-up fees and student loans that may be drawing to a close soon in the UK. There’s a distaste for commerciality because it’s not what the previous generation did. Glaukôpis asks if it’s selling out and if you change what you write to get better adverts then yes it is.

My own experience is that Google Ads wasn’t usually a suitable solution. Sometimes I write about artefacts and the adverts that came up were for unprovenanced antiquities. Not all of this would have been purchased by dealers from criminals. For example a More >