I noticed the ads by goooogle up top.

not much (we seem to be an ad-resistent bunch), and it's all going straight to our host, cerebraltech, for the otherwise free space.

disclaimer: this is not an encouragement to click indiscriminately on ads, because that would get us kicked out of google's program.

Isn't that the point of web advertisement: To get people to indiscriminately click on ads?

I'd like to help, but I don't want my own X-Cart mods (whatever the sam hell those are) and I wouldn't visit the new AOL if you pulled a gun on me.

[adbot hint]Where are the ads for under-priced classic guitars in old ladies' attics?[/adbot hint]

Google tracks conversion rates, and knows when people indiscriminantly click on ads to fluff traffic rates. Goes beyond just not working, gets obner booted from the program.

The ads are pretty badly placed if you just noticed them for the first time now, but I guess I'm glad they're not intrusive.

I see. So they can figure out how much they should pay to advertise or whether they should advertise at all.

They walk the advertising tightrope. They want click-throughs, but c/t is a gamble. That's what killed the first wave of dot-com's. "We're getting over 1 million hits a day." Stock price soars. How much money have you made, though? "Well, none yet." *crash.* Google wants people to click through to the advertisers' sites, but if they do, and then immeditely leave the landing page every time, then it's a sham, and they (rightly) stop paying the place that the clicker originated from (obner in this case).