How odd!

[Tilly2]

How odd!
Recently, I have been looking at properties, in North Staffordshire, through Rightmove and Zoopla. Now, when I am on this site, the adverts for the self same properties are appearing next to the best answer section. I find that quite spooky and odd. How is that happening?

[VHG]

It is not odd at all and happens all the time.

Basically web sites keep track of when you visited, what you search for, how long you were on the site, what pages you visited and so on.

So they gradually build up a profile picture of you, so if you search a lot for say digital cameras they may surmise you want to buy a digital camera and are intertested in photography.

So your adverts will be targetted to digital cameras and so on.

One way they do this is to create a "cookie" on your PC when you visit a site and use the cookie to store information. Some of these cookies are known as "tracking cookies" because they track your web habits.

Cookies are also used to store things like your userid and password so you dont need to logon each time you visit a web site (like this one).

You can read a little about cookies here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/.../guides/about-cookies

[Old_Geezer]

They snoop on you, note where you have been, and the ad companies offer you more of the same at the new sites you visit. Beware the nosey cookies.

[VHG]

I should add that it is probably not the Answerbank site that does the tracking so they are probably not responsible for placing the adverts on their site.

The companies who DO the tracking, like say Google, may well provide the adverts to place on the site.

Answerbank just provide the "spaces" on their web site and someone else, like say Google, will fill them with the appropriate adverts.

[Old_Geezer]

You can get applications that search for the nosey cookies and delete them. It depends on whether you are offended or delighted at this behaviour as to whether you want to install and run them.

[Tilly2]

Thank you both for your answers both here and in the 'family' section. Well explained and helpful.