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Previous: (Just for fun) Store sign with time | Main | Next: Airline travel
December 27, 2004 12:04 AM
Broken: Advertisers' search-result ads
Some advertisers are buying strange keywords in the search engines, and then basing their ads on those search queries.
From Boing Boing:
These are all actual AdWords results [i.e. ads shown in Google searches]:Famine
Find Everything You Want at Ebay
It's Fun, Quick & Easy to Buy! -aff
www.eBay.comFind Drought
We have what you're looking for.
Drought & much more! www.eWoss.comVomit
600+ Popular Stores - One Website &
One Simple Checkout - Shop Now! SHOP.COMLint
Lint for sale. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com
Speaking of things that are broken, one of the worst forms of advertising I've personally seen is what's branded as IntelliTxt. Basically, these ads will randomly attach themselves to words in an article, using a special color of link; when moused over, they'll show a pop-up describing the destination of the ad.
Need an example? See, for instance, any article at http://www.devarticles.com/
The problem? They're not quite contextual enough yet. During a demonstration of one of these ads in an article about a computer virus, the word "worm" had an ad attached to it... advertising medication for stomach worms. >_
Yeah, I have to agree with you, intellitxt's ads are pretty horrible. I just went to the first article on the front page, (Evaluating XML Editors) and the second link, "editing programs" was an advertisement for Roxio DVD editing software. Actual sentence context: "Welcome to the world of XML editing programs and ..." Not DVD. Sorry, Mr. Txt, Roxio is incorrect.
ssssmemyself: I stumbled across another article on a site that used IntelliTxt, where the "San" in "San Francisco" linked to a provider of Storage Area Networks. ::slaps head::
Do animals and extraterrestrials use online dating sites?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=martian
Sexy Hippopotamus Singles
Free photos, personals and hot
profiles of local singles. Free
www.infobert.com
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=martian
Sexy Martian Singles
Free photos, personals and hot
profiles of local singles. Free
www.infobert.com
That's nothing! Look at this, while the product is still there:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1468&item=5548117353&rd=1
Ok, go to google.com and type in 'horror'. You'll get this on the ad bar:
HORROR
Browse a huge selection now
Find exactly what you want today
www.eBay.com
This is actually broken twice because not only are they advertising horror but they don't have ANY puncuation!!!!
Apathy
Apathy.
Free to use. Get info and more.
www.puredirectory.com
Vomit
Looking for Vomit?
Find exactly what you want today
www.eBay.com
Peeing
Great deals on Peeing
Shop on Ebay and Save!
www.ebay.com
Terrorist for less
Looking for Terrorist?
Find exactly what you want today
www.eBay.com
Flatulence
Info about Flatulence
Useful Tips and Tricks.
www.business-information.us
Insult
Great deals on Insult
Shop on Ebay and Save!
www.ebay.com
I once heard of a friend that he got the following ad on google:
Condoms
New and used condoms.
Get them now at eBay!
I really don't get it how they can let those ads come up!
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: (Just for fun) Store sign with time | Main | Next: Airline travel
Don't forget the contextual ads in articles and websites as pointed out in this very space!
http://broken.typepad.com/b/2003/10/contextual_web_.html
Posted by: Erich at December 27, 2004 01:02 AM