AdSense & Advertising DisclaimerHow Ads Keep AfriWidget Free

1. Why There Are Ads At All

Running a website costs money. Servers, a domain name, security certificates, and the many hours spent building and updating tools all add up. AfriWidget has no subscription, no premium plan, and no paywall. It never will. So we need another way to cover those costs, and advertising is the one we chose.

We chose it deliberately over the alternatives. A subscription would exclude the students, parents, and small business owners who need these tools most. Selling user data would betray the trust people put in a site that promises in-browser calculation. A donation model would work only if enough people felt moved to give, and it would be unreliable from month to month. Advertising, done carefully, lets the site stay free for everyone, forever, without any of those compromises.

That said, we know ads can be annoying. We have tried to keep them out of the way. They sit in fixed positions on the page, never between you and your result, never popping up as you type, and never disguised as part of a tool. If you ever see an ad that feels like it is doing any of those things, please tell us and we will look into it.

2. What Google AdSense Actually Does

Google AdSense is the advertising programme we use. It is run by Google and used by hundreds of thousands of websites around the world. Here is how it works in plain terms.

When a page loads on AfriWidget, we tell Google that a slot is available. Google looks at the page — its topic, its language, the general category — and picks an ad from its pool of advertisers. Google then places that ad into the slot. We do not see the ad before you do, and we do not choose the advertiser.

Google may also use signals beyond the page itself, if you have advertising cookies enabled. Those signals can include your general location (country level, based on IP), the type of device you are using, and information Google already has about your browsing across other sites that use Google services. All of that is Google's system. We do not see any of it and we do not control any of it.

Because Google controls the ad selection, if you see an ad that feels out of place, the fastest fix is often to report it directly to Google using the small icon on the ad itself. We also welcome a note through our contact page, because it helps us fine-tune the categories we exclude.

3. What We Share, and What We Never Share

We want to be very clear about this section, so we have split it into two lists.

What we share with Google AdSense

We share only the standard, anonymous information that any website running AdSense shares:

• The fact that a page has loaded and an ad slot is available.
• The general topic of the page (for example, "health calculator" or "finance calculator").
• The country you are connecting from, at a broad level, as determined by your IP address.
• The type of device and browser you are using (mobile, desktop, Chrome, Safari, and so on).

None of this identifies you as an individual. Google cannot tell that "person X in Accra opened the BMI calculator at 3pm." It sees patterns and categories, not people.

What we never share with Google AdSense or any advertiser

• Your calculator inputs. Not your weight, not your loan amount, not your exam grades, not anything you type into any tool.
• Your name, email address, phone number, or any other identifier. We do not collect these on the calculator pages.
• Your full IP address. We have IP anonymisation switched on for Analytics, and we do not forward IP-level data to advertisers ourselves.
• Any information from a private message you send us through the contact page.

This is not a marketing promise. It is a description of how the site is actually built. The calculators run in your browser, so there is no technical mechanism by which your inputs could leave your device, even if we wanted them to. You can verify this yourself by watching your browser's network activity while using a tool.

4. Personalised Ads and How to Turn Them Off

Some ads are contextual, meaning they match the topic of the page. Others are personalised, meaning they reflect interests Google has inferred from your browsing across other websites. You have full control over whether you see personalised ads on AfriWidget and elsewhere.

Here are the ways to turn personalised advertising off:

• Through our cookie banner. When you first visit, click Decline instead of Accept. This prevents the advertising cookies from loading at all.
• Through Google Ads Settings. Visit adssettings.google.com and turn off personalised advertising for your Google account. This affects every site that uses Google Ads, not just ours.
• Through your browser. Set your browser to block third-party cookies. This prevents most advertising cookies from being set on any website.
• Through industry opt-out tools. Visit aboutads.info or optout.networkadvertising.org to opt out of interest-based advertising from many companies at once.
• Through browser extensions. Tools such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Ghostery can block advertising scripts across the web. AfriWidget works perfectly with all of them.

If you turn personalised ads off, you will still see ads on AfriWidget, but they will be generic rather than targeted. Every tool works exactly the same either way.

5. Ads and Your Calculator Inputs

This is the question we get most often, so we want to answer it directly.

No advertiser has access to anything you type into an AfriWidget calculator. Not the loan amount, not the body weight, not the exam grades, not the salary figures. None of it.

The reason is architectural, not just policy. Every calculator on the site runs inside your own browser. When you type a number and press Calculate, the maths happens on your device. There is no round trip to a server, no API call, no message sent anywhere. The result appears on your screen and disappears when you close the tab.

Advertisers see the page you are on — for example, "BMI Calculator" — because that information is part of the page itself. They do not see the number you entered. If you calculated a BMI of 23.4, Google has no idea. It only knows that someone in your country visited a BMI calculator page.

6. What We Do Not Allow

Google AdSense lets publishers set category filters, and we have used them. We do not allow advertisements for the following kinds of products or services on AfriWidget:

• Predatory loans, payday lenders, or any financial product designed to trap people in debt.
• Unverified health products making medical claims that no regulator has approved.
• Gambling and betting services, including online casinos and sports betting apps.
• Adult content or anything inappropriate for a general audience, including minors.
• Get-rich-quick schemes, investment opportunities with guaranteed returns, or anything that sounds too good to be true.
• Cryptocurrency speculation products that treat investing like a lottery.
• Political advertising of any kind.

Google's filtering is not perfect. If an ad slips through that falls into one of these categories, please tell us. We can add the advertiser to our block list and, in most cases, the problem is fixed within a day.

7. Report a Bad Ad

If you see an advertisement on AfriWidget that you believe is misleading, offensive, or falls into one of the categories above, there are two ways to report it.

First, you can click the small information icon (an "i" or a small "x") that appears in the corner of most Google ads. That opens a menu that lets you report the ad directly to Google and even block it from appearing on your device again.

Second, you can send us a note through our contact page. Please include a short description of the ad, which page you saw it on, and, if possible, a screenshot. We cannot block a specific ad we cannot identify, so the screenshot really helps.

We read every report and treat them seriously. A well-functioning ad setup is in everyone's interest — it keeps the site free and it keeps the experience respectful.

8. Advertising on AfriWidget Directly

At the moment, all ads on AfriWidget are served through Google AdSense. We do not currently accept direct advertising from third parties. That may change in the future, and if it does, we will update this page to say so clearly.

If you are a business interested in reaching AfriWidget's audience and want to discuss a possible arrangement, you are welcome to send a message through the contact page using the "Advertising" subject option. We will read it and reply honestly about whether a fit exists.

One thing we will never do, whatever arrangement is proposed: we will not sell user data, we will not embed tracking scripts that observe calculator inputs, and we will not accept advertising that conflicts with the categories listed above. Those are not negotiable.

9. Changes to This Page

If we add a new advertising partner, change how ads are delivered, or change the way advertising cookies are handled, we will update this page and change the "Last Updated" date at the top. If the change is significant, we will also mention it on the homepage so regular visitors do not miss it.

Small wording tweaks do not trigger a homepage notice, but every change appears here first.

10. How to Reach Us

If you have any question about advertising on AfriWidget, or if you want to report an ad, or if you simply want to understand the setup better, please get in touch. A real person reads every message.

Final Note

Thank you for reading this disclosure. Most people never look at a page like this, and the fact that you have means you care about how the sites you use are funded. That is a good instinct, and we respect it.

If anything on this page was unclear, or if you think something could be said more simply, please tell us. The best version of a disclosure is one a first-time visitor can read in two minutes and walk away understanding. That is the version we keep working toward.

— The AfriWidget Team