I have nothing against the principle of FH selling ad space on this site.
Indeed, it’s refreshing to see one banner ad (on the home page) showing me the latest, trendiest, dresses …. and the forum to have a banner ad diecting me to where I can find just the right shoes ….
I suppose I’ll have to go to the Cosmo forum if I want to find links to things like job boxes and the latest in building materials and tools.
Replies
>>>I suppose I'll have to go
>>>I suppose I'll have to go to the Cosmo forum
Hahaha....
I have a theory. Do you happen to have a female wife/partner that shares the computer with you? From what I understand, Google ads investigate cookies that other sites have written to your computer and use this info to decide what ads to present. (BTW, this is entirely beyond the control of the Taunton people.) So if your DW has been cruising female-oriented stuff you might see it popping up here.
If this bugs you a lot, just clear out all cookies and cache stuff once in a while, but be advised that you'll need to manually log into any sites that you have told the browser to save passwords for.
On the advice of someone here I installed "Flashblock", and about 80% of the ads (including all the annoying animated ones that take so long to load) were eliminated.
After days of seeing banner ads for Newport News and Naturalizer .... amazingly enough, they just changed to 'find construction firms' and - at the top of this page - a banner for Zipwall.
I do have modest security on this computer, but the influence of SWMBO's surfing activities could possibly be a factor.
Silly me ... for thinking that "Fine Homebuilding" had some control over what appears on THEIR site.
I usually find the ads somehow related to the subject of the posts. You mentioned Zipwall, eg, and -- Viola gopher count! -- a Zipwall ad popped up just below your post.
They must also be using some sort of IP address geolocator. I regularly see ads for a university closeby here, which I'm sure none of you guys see.
Certainly Google knows where you live. Google some topic (eg, "Plumbers") and it'll bring up a bunch near you.