Revealed: Google Banning AdWords Like 'Gun-Grips, Scopes and Sights'

I'm not surprised as Google is the parent company of YouTube.

As long as these companies don't get hit hard on the bottom line they'll continue to do stuff like this.

Google has become so big it can now throw its weight around .

There isnt much to go up against it currently.

This is exactly why I hate when folks state they won't boycott x or y because if they did blah blah...

Money talks. Hit them where it hurts while you can .

I think Bing and Yahoo are just as -or more- anti rights than Google. Young people don't seem to understand this is the modern age version of piles of burning books.

Wahoo, I have a scope sitting on my work bench about three feet away.

I never thought my Tektronix scope would be so dangerous.

If Google Adwords (the advertising portion of Google search) won't allow certain words, does that mean normal searches won't show those same words?

For small businesses, I think Adwords is a money sucking waste of budget and time. I've seen just as good results being in a normal Google search for small companies, which costs no Adwords fees.

I'm not sure how beneficial Adwords is for bigger companies such as Brownells, Midway USA, etc.

I just did some searches on Google (I've been using Bing for a while now, so I'm out of touch with Google).

What I noticed is gun oriented items didn't show up as Google Ads, but those items did show up in regular Google search.

So for now, the only loser is Google* since this ought to save gun related sellers a lot of money by not having to pay for views and clicks via Google Adwords.

*Not counting feel good public relations for those that care.

It is because of the outright censorship we face every where else that I appreciate THR so much. If I am doing any sort of research or just have a question I post here rather than search the web. When I come here I feel that we share ideas and information as accurately as possible. I don't get fed what google wants me to consume. So thank you THR members for being such a great resource. And to he11 with google.

It really baffles me, that with all this going on people don’t care about net neutrality. ISPs should not be allowed to slow down certain web sites. I worry what could happen if antis start financially pressuring ISPs.

We’ve been so accustomed to a free and open internet, we forget that you must protect that right or it will slip away.

Kaybee said:

It really baffles me, that with all this going on people don’t care about net neutrality. ISPs should not be allowed to slow down certain web sites. I worry what could happen if antis start financially pressuring ISPs.

We’ve been so accustomed to a free and open internet, we forget that you must protect that right or it will slip away.

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"Net neutrality" would not prevent this and is a wholly different subject.

Aim1 said:

Yeah, but how do you really hit Google and YouTube where it hurts?


They are really have a monopoly in their fields.

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use https://duckduckgo.com as a search engine. but not sure yet for youtube

We have one very effective weapon against the anti-gun crowd. That is our right to vote. You must be diligent and find out where the people running for office that you can vote for stand on gun issues , and make sure you vote for the pro-gun people.

Jack B. said:

We have one very effective weapon against the anti-gun crowd. That is our right to vote. You must be diligent and find out where the people running for office that you can vote for stand on gun issues , and make sure you vote for the pro-gun people.

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The problem with this though is that the ways to find out are the biased mainstream media, and web searches which are hugely biased as well. Its gotten out of hand. There is nothing left for us to even remotely trust.

WestKentucky said:

The problem with this though is that the ways to find out are the biased mainstream media, and web searches which are hugely biased as well. Its gotten out of hand. There is nothing left for us to even remotely trust.

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Many candidates have their own web site. Plus you have to get out to meet them and ask questions. Most of them attend their party committee meetings. You have to go do the work or loose your freedoms. Freedom is not free.

Sorry getting off subject. I'll stop.

Silver lining: Given that ad-words are paid-for advertisement that literally push the algoritmically-derived search results further down the page, this may not end up being a terrible thing for either consumers or retailers. Online retailers whose pages organically come up high in the search results often feel compelled to spend money to also stay at or near the top of the stack of ad-words results. As long as Google doesn't change their search function on this stuff, this may help consumers get to the real "best answer" faster, and save the sellers the expense of having to pay for ad-word hits.

Get a good Ad Blocker.... Dont matter what they ban or allow you wont see it.

Agree about the ad blocker. I added one to my computers, and it's blocked hundreds of thousands of ads in a couple of years. They just don't show up, or show up as blank spaces on some sites.
You can block the ads on YouTube videos as well.

Nanook said:

Agree about the ad blocker. I added one to my computers, and it's blocked hundreds of thousands of ads in a couple of years. They just don't show up, or show up as blank spaces on some sites.
You can block the ads on YouTube videos as well.

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Tha adblocker is not the answer. I have them and I use them religiously, BUT if you want to support gun sites then they will run ads and you will need to turn off your ad blockers for these sites. The new rules are that you may start getting Dicks or LLBean or Yeti ads instead of Sig, Leupold, Ruger, Savage, Federal, Hornady, etc ads. Because Dicks, LLBean and Yeti have broken with the NRA.

Sure, if you turn off the ads you will hurt Dicks, LLBean or yeti but you will also hurt the sites trying to survive like THR.

BTW, this is a very different argument that what is proposed here in that sites like THR will never see ads regarding Rifle Scopes or Gun Stocks. That hurts the mfgs of thse items because It separates them from a willing audience. It remains to be seen how much sites like THR will be hurt as the ads will likely get replaced by ads for clothing, boots, knives and headgear, camping gear, etc.

+1 recommendation for DuckDuckGo. Been using it as my primary search engine for a few months now and it does a very good job.

Tommygunn said:

"Net neutrality" would not prevent this and is a wholly different subject.

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On the subject how all gun related information is intentionally being blocked across various forms of media, it certainly is on topic. Net neutrality wouldn’t have prevented AdWords but it does show how big companies respond to financial pressure, which antis have a lot of. ISPs are companies.

Before it would be illegal for an isp to block access to the high road on California. Now it is legal. Those are the kind of rights that are drip drip dripping away. If you really think it’s far fetched that gun information web sites can be blocked you better wake up and look around at the world.

As another poster noted, this is modern day book burning