Today I canceled my Google Adsense account. The ads performed poorly and were more obtrusive than useful — despite the promise of minimalism. Worse, the facade of automated targeting tainted the whole premise of my weblog, that of honest, human opinion. In the end I just couldn’t endorse crap that I wouldn’t use myself.

The ads were not well targeted to weblog audiences, only matching the site content on the surface. An opinion piece on a technology blindly returned hits for products matching words on the page, even when the article was unrelated (or opposed) to the product’s theme. And that was a problem, as the ads interfered with the integrity of the site.

When I have an opinion on something, I can’t have the ads discolour it. It makes me look bad. It takes away from my point of view. It makes me a liar, or at least a greedy bastard. I think weblogs should be better than that, and that’s why I like reading them.

Now having the hosting paid for is A Good Thing, but I’ve found a more palatable approach. I recommend my webhost to people. It’s something that reinforces weblogging too: I really like my webhost, so I tell other people about them. In return it pays the bills. It’s honest and useful, which is more than I can say for that Google nonsense.