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Avatar Went Hot: December 18, 2007 - 6:18 pm
Posted By: mvandemar 262 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com)
Category: Google AdWords
Matt Cutts defends why AdWords results should be viewed as an actual part of the search experience, and some screenshots showing counter examples. :)
10 Comments     

Comments

from earlpearl 262 days ago #
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Ugh.  Someone at Google needs to do a little screening on those automated ads.  They are brutal!!!!!!!!!!

from AndyBeard 262 days ago #
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Not using a negative keyword list must bring a lot of targetted traffic for Ebay, Amazon and Target

from reubenyau 262 days ago #
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Thank goodness you can't buy black people on ebay anymore:

http://www.reubenyau.com/black-people-on-ebay-again/

from wheel 261 days ago #
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Paid ads are a type of search just like paid blog posts are a type of blog post.

Everyone here knows that the average consumer clicking on the ads above the serps thinks they're clicking on some sort of benign authority site not a paid ad.  And surely Google knows this too.  Trying to justify it publicly isn't the brightest PR move I've seen

from SlightlyShadySEO 261 days ago #
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I love you for posting this.
Gotta love the catch-all ads :-)

from SlightlyShadySEO 261 days ago #
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The only difference is their ads make THEM money, and don't break *THEIR* precious algo.

from MattCutts 261 days ago #
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We think of ads as able to fulfill users' information needs, so we try to make them as relevant as possible. No algorithm is going to be perfect, but we do try to detect/remove bad ads like these. Thanks for pointing them out; I'll pass the feedback on.

from mvandemar 261 days ago #
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Matt, did you happen to read the followup post I did...?

http://sphinn.com/story/19490

I don't think it's going to matter how you mark them, as long as you promote ads to the top of the listings there will still be the majority of non-tech savvy audience who think those are "specially endorsed" listings, and have no clue that they are paid.

from MattCutts 260 days ago #
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Michael, I thought martinibuster said it pretty well in the Sphinn comments. We mark ads as sponsored and we try to make sure that they're useful. I take your feedback that we need to continue to improve both ads and search quality though. I wouldn't say that we're 100% perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

P.S. Thanks for replying over at http://sphinn.com/story/19249 . I passed the requested wording on.  

from mvandemar 259 days ago #
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Actually Matt, moving the phrase "Sponsored Links" from the right hand corner to the left and bolding the text would probably clear up the confusion for 90% of the people who don't know the difference. I wasn't implying that you needed to improve ad quality, I was trying to highlight the fact that ads are in fact paid endorsements, influenced primarily by money, and as such really should be clearly separated from the serps.

What's more, making them more easily distinguishable, and clearing up any confusion that might lead people to believe that they are merely 'special' listings Google wants to highlight, would actually help make Google seem to be more socially conscious and concerned that their audience be clear on what is and what is not paid advertisements. Very similar to what you are asking webmasters to do with nofollow, except human readable instead of machine readable.

Don't you agree?


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