I realise that Google is one of the best and that the search function for the board is free but look for postings on divorce and you get the following adverts

Ads by Google

{ads removed so they aren't on the PB. Suffice to say they weren't nice}

__________________
Eoghan
member,Thurso Baptist Church
Scotland

specialist subject: Creationist Genetics (Bottleneck effect of the Ark)
interests: holiness (practical theology)
member of Biblical Creation Society (available as a guest speaker in the far north of Scotland)

There is a good reason why we use the site search. Google invests $millions in technology to index and search sites to provide relevant content for certain keywords. The results relevant to the board are easiest found there. If you want to avoid seeing the Sponsored Links (that we have no control over) then use Advanced Search. You won't get very relevant results but, if you're distracted by the Sponsored Links, you won't have to see them.

__________________
Rich
PCA, Northern VA
Student, New Geneva Theological Seminary

WebsiteMaven - Web Hosting Reviews, Guides, and Advice to build and promote your web site.
SoliDeoGloria.com - A Community for Reformed Thought and Discussion

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

This is in the suggestion box, but you haven't made a suggestion. As for the advertisements, if they're posing as a temptation to you, or stumbling block, you can use the "Advanced Search" function, which is the internal board search engine. I'm certain that google has little to no intentions of removing the divorce ads.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
Facebook - The Calvinist Vent
Board Rules - Signature Rules - Suggestion Box

It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

Rich, you beat me to it. You're always makin' me look sooooooooo superfluous!

Try also:

VivÃ*simo, Inc - Enterprise Search, Federated Search and Clustering

AlltheWeb.com

__________________
Richard
CofE
UK

Does puritanboard have Google AdSense?

If so, doesn't that allow you to control the types of ads that come up?

If not, why not?

__________________
Larry Bray
Elder - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/
Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net
-----------------------------------------------------
Christian ritual costs nothing and is worth nothing. True Christian religion costs all that we have and is worth everything.

AdSense is not Google Search. They are two different products. One feeds the other but they are not the same.

As to why I don't spend a lot of time messing with the Sponsored Ads:

1. A wife.
2. Four children.
3. A Church.
4. A full time job.
5. Fun answering suggestions on the PuritanBoard.
6. Sleep.

I would also add that I seriously doubt that AdSense will be meticulous enough to exclude the divorce ads, seeing as how the term "divorce" will be used in many different ways on the board.

It may not be meticulous, but sometimes something is better than nothing.

I would be more than happy to look into it and see what i can do with it for y'all if you would like.

Larry,

I should apologize for sounding flippant. It's actually not because I don't understand it. If you check out WebsiteMaven | Web Hosting Reviews, Guides, & Advice, I have actually spent a lot of time (in the past) understanding search engines. My knowledge is a couple of years dated but it's not completely antiquated yet. Adsense works by sensing the type of content that a site has. We actually don't use ad sense here to push ads.

Google Search, on the other hand, will drive ads based on keyword(s) that the user searches for. Since we don't really have a lot of keywords on this site that will cause objectionable ads to be included with the search results it's mostly a non-issue (the proverbial "Tempest in a Teapot"). I can assure you that if you searched for the top 100 keywords that people use for this site then they wouldn't produce any Ads because nobody creates a keyword ad for "Calvin killed Servetus".

I know there's a way to block the .01% case but I just would prefer to tell the user: "If you're really worried about it and think that your search term might produce a Sponsored Ad that will bug you then use the Advanced Search feature." As I said, you're likely to not find what you're looking for but at least you won't have to see what might happen if you type "divorce" and find ads for a divorce attorney.