MicrostockGroup

I may just be out of touch, but I didn't know that DT was running google ads when you aren't logged in.

Imagine how happy I was (!) to see an ad for Gential Crabs breakthrough on an image of mine - of a hammock:


I took a screenshot as these ads change around randomly (click to see the full page). I have no idea what type of screening DT is doing, but I'm not thrilled to see an ad for a sexually transmitted disease treatment on the page with my hammock.

CanStock had run google ads a while back, but dropped it after there were too many competitors or other undesirable ads that they couldn't screen out.

I've send something to DT support about this. When did this start? Doesn't this sort of thing merit an e-mail to contributors?

As long as they're text ads, I don't mind too much. Though the Google ads will take the visitors away from the image, which means that the image is less likely to sell. But Dreamstime should really use referral links since they're more exact in what they show. A genital crab breakthrough has nothing to do with a hammock. And we should get a cut in the Google ad revenue.

Not sure what the big deal is... Visitor who is not logged in is likely just browsing having no intention to buy images and often not even realizing where he is - surfed, saw some picture, saw it's watermarked, shrugged disappointedly and clicked away. Let him drop a penny while clicking. Real customer searching for an image to buy won't see ads, thus no danger of him getting distracted... which is not real danger even if he does see an ad anyway. I mean, if he came in to find a photo and saw an ad and clicked and never returned - his attention span is one of a moth, he would have forgotten to click Confirm or Submit or whatever they click as last step

You can choose which ads you want to show on which not if you use google ads.

The good news is that crabs aren't really crabs - they're lice that have adapted to living in pubic hair. The bad news is they feed on blood.

I got a reply from DT support this morning, apologizing and saying they'd work to get the filters adjusted so this doesn't happen in the future.

A search still produced that ad this morning - not only on my hammock picture, but a number of others including one of fotosmurf's gorgeous Brazilian woman reading and a young boy drinking from a water bottle.

I guess fixes aren't instant...

I'll keep monitoring to make sure this goes away and stays away.

Very disappointing to hear about these google ads.

I wonder if they hurt when they bite? Like sandflies or something.

If they do, it is probably a good idea to advertise because it could be causing someone inconvenience. I just read about them on wikipedia. They spread to humans from gorillas 70,000 years ago.

So now I am thinking, man ... gorilla, together? Or unless they shared the same towels. I heard they can spread that way as well.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I have to say that I am not a fan of Google ads either, but that's my personal subjective opinion. We are running a commercial business so any flow of revenue that will help us to keep royalties high to the photographers will not be ignored.

The fact that we are selling commercial products doesn't mean the site should be ad free. Unprofessional? Why? Because we care about your royalties too?

We see a very large amount of traffic and some of it isn't targeted enough. That traffic would be otherwise lost, wasting hardware resources. Redirecting a part of it through an ad system ensures that it brings something useful to the community, more than just load to our servers.

The way they were integrated so far ensures that sales are not affected at all. This is a primary concern, as well as the content/censorship of the ads.

Dreamstime is an independent business and one that was profitable from the very beginning. We have profits, but we don't waste budgets nor ignore commercial opportunities, no matter how small they may seem. Each sale we bring to our photographers requires budget in marketing, staff, software and hardware. We enjoy lots of sales but we also have a small margin of profit to work with compared to our competitors. Instead of lowering commissions we try to find alternate ways of bringing revenue.

I personally believe that it is part of my duty to make all efforts required to keep royalties high instead of hiding behind false pride of keeping the site ad free. While I admit that the site would be better free of any ads, I must confess that I disagree with your vehemence towards them. Don't you think magazines would prefer to have no ads at all?

Aside of this, there was a very unhappy incident with that ad, for which I apologize. The filters were supposed to remove such ad. Discussing about ads as an additional revenue flow is one thing, while content-issues are a whole different one.

We have notified Google yesterday, immediately after we received Jo Ann's email. It seems they fixed it. The filters are not our own creation. I apologize for this and I assure you that if  this situation will dally we will completely remove them. If you ever come accross such ad again, do drop us an email, so we know about it.

Achilles,

Thanks for the update.

Unfortunately, there is still a problem. Crabs has been replaced by Herpes, again, on some of the children images in my portfolio. This really isn't acceptable. I don't have a problem with the ads, it is a business after all, but those filters should really be worked out before the system is made live. Having sensitive subjects appear next to children, or anyone for that matter, is definitely not a good thing.

This is a rather odd thing for DT to do...  I thought they were in the image game, not the advertising game?

And I just have to laugh jsnover...  "Gentlemen's site...."    It might be for the ladies as well !!

It seems DT is actively trying to fix their filters.  The ones that were a problem earlier today are gone and I haven't seen any inappropriate ads in any other images, at least in my own portfolio.

Things have certainly changed today - no herpes ads, although the "Gentlemen Search engine" is still there.

On one of fotosmurf's images there were two ads for inappropriate "dating" services - housewivesmatchonline.com and japancupid.com. The image was #172381, a lovely portrait of a woman drinking a mug of coffee. (I saved a screen shot)

It's time-consuming to keep checking these, but clearly things are still not right.