When AdWords Gets Sex Wrong

Via Marketing Shift, Don’t Be Evil (Or A Dyke, Or Trans) at SFGate.com from Violet Blue shows how AdSense ads can totally go against the message of the sex content you may have published and covers concerns that Google may be banning some sexual orientation terms as offensive, even though those using them may think […]

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Via Marketing Shift, Don’t Be Evil (Or A Dyke, Or Trans) at SFGate.com from Violet Blue shows how AdSense ads can totally go against the message of the sex content you may have published and covers concerns that Google may be banning some sexual orientation terms as offensive, even though those using them may think they’re fine.


Violet explains how Google ads on some of her pages might say “porn addiction — get help” when the message of those pages is the opposite, that porn is good.

Her story also explains that Google won’t allow some terms to be used, considering them offensive, even through many in the gay, lesbian and transgender community may disagree. Meanwhile, it may disallow use of some terms the community does use:

Bay Area transgender, sex-positive queer-porn site Red Handed Porn (redhandedporn.com) signed up as a client of the AdWords service, only to discover that finding AdWords-approved words to describe their brand (and potential clients’ brand identity) meant choosing terminology deeply offensive to most transgender individuals. At the same time, they found that terms chosen as respectful self-labels by the trans culture were rejected by AdWords as — shockingly — “teen porn concepts.” What’s more, Red Handed found that even the term “dyke” is considered a four-letter word by the service, while terms that deeply offend trans women are accepted.

The story concludes with frustration over getting Google to discuss changes to some of the issues.


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About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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