Google AdWords Search Network Gotcha
We use Google AdWords from time to time. I noticed something interesting this morning. People were searching for an email address on a non-Google site, a search partner, finding my ad and clicking through. Here’s a screen shot of their results:
Now, what you’ll notice is that Comcast claims there are 6 results. In fact, all six of these are ads. There are no search results supporting these ads, just the ads. Another hit that came through was from AOL’s search site. They return sponsored links and shopping results but no actual results.
If you do this search on Google’s site, you won’t see any ads and you’ll get a message saying there are no results. This behavior makes sense. If the user isn’t getting results for whatever they’re searching for, they shouldn’t see any ads either.
I don’t see any value in displaying the ads to either the user or the advertiser–just to the site operator. The site operator wants to maybe capture some small portion of revenue from a user confused about the difference between real results and paid results. So they show the ads. And Google, who also makes money, let’s them.
I would like to see Google’s behavior required on their search partners’ sites as well and I’ve sent Google a note telling them so.
Oh, and I’ve turned off “webmaster”, the keyword that started this whole thing in the first place.