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Bigger Penis Ads? What’s Up With Trulia?

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 9th, 2009 in Trulia. Comments

And you thought a big house would surprise her.

trulia-ad-penis

This post by Norm Werner on the Trulia blog entitled “Sick of the ads” caught my eye.  Norm says Trulia is sponsoring ads from the “make your thingee bigger”companies.  (Well, Norm, Trulia’s American Nightmare survey says 92% of homeowners are not moving, so who else is gonna buy an ad?)

And Norm is a little peeved about Trulia’s censorship of his disapproval.  He writes:

How ironic! I tried to post a blog entry compalining about the ads that Trulia and other run on their home pages about adding inches to your “you know what”. But when I used the “you know what” term, the Trulia system blocked the post and said “No Profanity Please.” How hypocritical can you get? You used the “you know what term” first – right on your home page, in your big ad that takes up 1/3 of the screen; but if I put it in a blog post it gets blocked. Get real Trulia and find some other sponsors.

When a Trulian tried to call Norm a little misinformed, Norm was ready with his proof.

trulia-comments-blog

Truli a mistake by Pete and the green folks?  Perhaps, it’s just another glitch in the matrix.  Or maybe the new ad rockstar is to blame.

trulia-aqd-rockstar

h/t Twitter tweets.

Update:

What’s possibly more profane than a penis enlargement ad on a real estate portal site, are the sponsored ads Trulia serves up next to individual listings.  Imagine you have a client’s home for sale listed on Trulia, someone clicks over to see it and gets a dose of these ads to try to pull them away from your listing.  What’s more, Trulia only displays larger  ads here, NOT the smaller agents spotlight ads.  At least  penis ads don’t really compete with property listings or agent spotlight ads.  See Trulia Pro: Pros and Cons.

trulia-sponsored-ads

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  • Hyprocritical? Trulia? Why never. The company that used black hat techniques to raise SERP. The company that blamed a hacked blog for their getting temporarily de-indexed. The company that blamed bad PR for shamming agents out of backlinks. The company that has dwindling resources and little revenue... No, this company would never stoop so low to pick up penis ads then chastise a commenter for using profanity.

    So, here's my love letter to Trulia:

    Dear Trulia,
    Your awesomeness never ends, please trill me with more of your Internet escapades.
    Hugs, kisses, a sharp needle full of whatever they zap jailed retards in Texas with,
    Mary McKnight, your biggest fan
  • LOL
  • Tom Royce
    Since this happened to me with one of my computers, I can probably explain what happened. The guy who saw this ad has a virus on his computer. The virus replaces the ad blocks with their own ads, in this case the penis ad.

    Trulia is not serving the ad, it is being served by a third party who has hijacked the computer of the reader.
  • Whose pen is writing these ads?
  • Rudy
    Here is my comment Norm's post on Trulia:

    Hi Norm!

    Emily, our most excellent community moderator, is correct. We do not, nor would we ever have ads like this on our site. We have some of the strictest standards for online advertising around. So to be clear, we have confirmed with Doubleclick that is neither an issue on their side nor ours.

    It seems like what you are experiencing on your end is some form of malware or virus such as Vimax strain. These viruses can alter banner ads you see on some sites. You may want to clear your cache or even have your computer checked for viruses.

    Good luck.

    Rudy
    Social Media Guru at Trulia

    Back to work.......
  • Malware huh? Let me check for myself...
  • A penis enlargement ad will not really compete with a real estate listing or an agent spotlight ad BUT the Trulia sponsored ads for foreclosures WILL compete to take the viewer away from the listing-- and these sponsored ads appear on the individual listing pages, to the exclusion of agent spotlight ads. Now, that's a profanity.
  • I'm on Trulia quite frequently and have not seen the enlargement ads. After consulting my team, we agree that a virus/trojan probably did this.

    I agree that the foreclosure ads are a turnoff. We hear negative comments about them from prospects.
  • That seems to be the logical explanation.

    Yes, the foreclosure ads are a distraction and designed to draw visitors off
    site-- & these ARE Trulia approved. Not only do these ads make it onto the
    individual listings pages, they do so to the exclusion of agent spotlight
    ads.
  • All I can say is that from the expression on her face whatever product the ad is hyping must be really, really good! :-) I may have to order some.
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