It’s a topic I’ve (obliquely) blogged on before, but it continues to astonish me that quite respectable websites can allow key-word-led advertising to become a kind of macabre, ironical commentary on their content.

Take the website of the Daily Mail—a responsible and respectable national newspaper with hundreds of thousands of users. Now, type in a couple of words to perform a search for any one of the habitual horrors that pass through the news: “dead horses,” perhaps, for the Mail’s excellent coverage of the hundreds of neglected animals recently found on a farm in Amersham; or “child killed” for the latest on still worse events. You’ll be presented with a comprehensive list of results, at the very top of which will be a prominent selection of “Sponsored links.” In the examples just given, these read:

1. Dead Horse at Amazon
Low prices on new & used music. Qualified orders over £15 ship free

2 The Horse is Dead
Fantastic low prices on CDs. Feed your passion on eBay

3 Dead Horse Point Poster
Find any dead horse point poster here. Huge poster selection.

and:

1 Accident Claims: Claim 100% Compensation
100% Compensation for Personal Injury. Enquire on …

2 Child Dead
Compare Prices before you buy.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with advertising on websites, or with using word recognition, or with sponsoring searches. But there is something disconcerting about a serious website regaling you with automated drivel of the most clunking, consumerist sort while you’re trying to find out what they have to say about the killing of innocent children or animals.