Comments on: The Google Reality

By: And you thought Google is not Evil! | Devils Workshop

And you thought Google is not Evil! | Devils Workshop — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:45:11 +0000

[...] Links: Seo Book | WPMU [...]

By: mikemick

mikemick — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:06:34 +0000

@Otto – Agreed. If I am looking for information on something, I usually want a highly credited source. The fact of the matter is, if they are paying for adspace, they most likely fit that bill (not always, but often). Also, Google visually separates Ads from organic by either putting them in a different background color or by bumping them to the right sidebar. No problems with this whatsoever.

@mkjones – Agree with you as well. This isn’t a “Google Maps Promotion”. This is a way to find local businesses online, instead of digging through a phonebook. Just because they tie it into their de facto standard maps web app, doesn’t mean that it is terrible self-promotion. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of these small businesses don’t have a website (and therefore won’t show up in the organic), but I can find them easily using Google Local Business section. I just found a local carpet cleaner for example using this method last week.

The bottom line is, organic search isn’t the only search anymore. People want to search more things, including premium spots, local businesses, and more. Take a look at what Bing is doing. They have all sorts of things tacked onto their search, because this is how people find things these days.

Also, this was a “baited” test. You picked a large city, and an expensive and competitive profession, and did a google search for it. I just did a Google search for “does google have too many ads”. I only got one sponsored link in the right sidebar and that was it.

By: mkjones

mkjones — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:03:59 +0000

Sorry but this is bull.

The orange ads area has been expanded using a “show more” option to make it appear more intrusive and listing on Google Maps is free for any business who chooses to sign up so they shouldn’t be labelled ads.

By: James

James — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:54:31 +0000

Lol, that is a good point, although relevance is increasingly determined by how much you can pay huh!

By: Otto Peura

Otto Peura — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:52:26 +0000

But the big question is: are they relevant in that sense that you could choose one of the ads over some of the top10 organic hits. The answer, pretty often yes.
That is why (at least for me) Google ads are not a bit irritating.

Flash banners? Irrelevant text ads? Yellow-and-red banner image? Thats a different story.