About
Contextual ads are advertisements on web pages that are displayed based on the content of the page. So, for example, if you were reading an article about digital cameras, a contextual ad system would pull certain keywords out of the text ad serve up ads based on those keywords and an ad for a digital camera would be displayed. It’s considered to be a pretty good method of serving ads, as the reader of a particular article is more likely to be interested in a product or service related to the content of that article. Contextual ads are ubiquitous and probably the most common method of internet advertising currently in use.
This site, however, showcases what happens when contextual ad systems work as they were programmed, but not how they were intended to. When an ad for a discount cruise shows up in a news article about a cruise ship disaster, we’re there, with the Print Screen key in one hand and Photoshop in the other.
And before you ask, yes, we take submissions. Please email your screen caps in JPEG or PNG format to submit at notwhatyoumeant dot com
