Most companies would not consider placing contextually-targeted ads on their commercial sites. An obvious reason is that these ads may make their sites look less professional and somehow diminish their online credibility. A more important reason, however, is that the ads that will be appearing on their sites will be for competing products and services.

Due to the rising costs of pay-per-click advertising, revenues from ads can help offset advertising costs. Plus, people who find your site by clicking on an ad are more likely to click on ads on your site.

As for displaying ads for competitors, I think people are inclined to do comparison shopping any way. So why not make a few bucks from their habit? If you have confidence about the product or service you’re selling, then there’s really no reason to fear.

Personally I have no qualms about placing contextual advertising on a commercial site. I don’t mind ads offering competing services. If you’re worried about your direct competitors’ ads appearing on your site, you could go into your Adsense account and filter them out so that only products and services that are complimentary to yours appear.

A lot of site owners are complaining that making less and less from Adsense nowadays. No matter how they play around with their ad size, position, color schemes, etc., they still see their revenues declining.

I think part of this is that people are learning to habitually ignore contextual ads. Sure these ads are relevant to the material they’re viewing, but they also know that they’re, well, advertisements by companies going after their pocketbooks.

When contextual ads first came out, I liked to click on them thinking that I’d find useful (and free) information on the landing pages. But once I had found out often enough that these sites are mostly trying sell me something, I learned to avoid them.

I’d figure that everyone else is probably the same way. Most people get on the internet to look for FREE things. They don’t necessary like sites where they’d have to pay.

So what’s next? What could be more effective than context ads?