The cartoon above when "clicked on" will show the computer user's eyes going from left to right in trying to absorb all the information. An Enquiro study has shown how most of us scan the screen. Their "Golden Triangle" provides evidence of this top down, left to right eye scanning. But, what is totally comprehended-understood by the majority of non-web savy users as they quickly scan? Evidently, Google believes that it needs to disclose-explain what "Googlebombing" means in a top right PPC ad for the keywords "miserable failure". I'm not knocking it in and of itself, but is that the most important thing to disclose?
6/17/06 UPDATE: Google did away with the PPC ad and just relies on that blog post entitled "Googlebombing 'failure'". This post comes up about #3 on Google when you search for "miserable failure google" without quotes, but not for just "miserable failure".
Right above that same PPC ad is the column title tag "Sponsored Links", that is NOT YET a hyperlink to a disclosure-explanation page like Yahoo has for their title tag "Sponsor Results"? I find it comical, though, that the exact same search in Yahoo renders a top left link for "Also try: miserable failure google". I don't think this is competitor bashing, do you?
6/17/06 UPDATE: Yahoo has changed their "Also try:" wording to "Also try: google.com miserable failure", and that Google blog post explanation comes up at about #2 poition in the organic results. I guess Google did not want to pay for a PPC ad on Yahoo to provide the explanation there?
I also find it interesting that Wikipedia has an explanation page for "Google Bomb", and a page for "Sponsored Links". AOL has a "Learn more about Sponsored Links" page. MSN has no explanation for their "Sponsored Sites". Ask Jeeves has no explanation for "Sponsored Results", but those words are a hot link that take you to actual ads (bad navigation, in my opinion)! All of these "column title tags" sound much better than "Paid Advertisements", which is what they really are, don't they? Why is this so? Thesaurus.com says some of the synonyms for the noun form of "sponsor" are "promoter", "advocate", "angel", and yes even, "fairy godmother"! Those words sure don't sound like crass commercialism to me, like "Paid Advertisements" do!
This 4/18/05 PDF Press Release concerning a Yankelovich, Inc. study says: "Nearly 70% (consumers) say that they are interested in products that enable them to block out advertising while 56% say they avoid buying products that overwhelm them with marketing and advertising. But 55% say they also enjoy advertising,..." The study also says that one of the top three marketing practices that consumers want is: "Marketing that I can chose to see when it is most convenient for me." This says to me that consumers want to be in control of when they view paid advertising, and implies that they also want to KNOW when they are, or are about to, look at marketing-advertising of any kind!
Therefore, what's more important, having a PPC ad (or even just a "search engine optimized" (SEO'd) blog post) associated with a few search terms to explain-disclose to search engine users what "Googlebombing" is, or having a very visible (bold color) title tag "Sponsored Links" go to a page of full disclosure about their "Paid Advertisements" that look like simple text listings?
Cartoon courtesy of www.artie.com.
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