This Is Broken - eBay ad

I hate to be one of those guys, but this is't broken. Click on the link, and tons of leprosy-realted products come up. Apparently there's a band called "Leprosy", etc.

I'm a bit more disturbed by that, than by the eBay ad.

Posted by: Patrick at February 23, 2005 08:40 AM

Google adWords are supposed to come up only if you buy advertising on the word, so even more broken is eBay buying that word to begin with... as if they expect to have an auction for leprosy coming up soon.

Posted by: sir_flexalot at February 23, 2005 09:40 AM

eBay likes to be on top of things, obviously;)

Check out this one: http://www.gadgetguy.de/index.php/2003/08#Napalm_on_eBay

Posted by: Frank Koehntopp at February 23, 2005 09:55 AM

Same applies if you google for feces.

Posted by: Jon at February 23, 2005 10:09 AM

Further investigation: Ebay will not sell me love or respect, but there is a sale on vowels.

Posted by: Citizen Of Trantor at February 23, 2005 10:47 AM

Surely everyone remembers the Sexy Dead Singles from a while back...

http://broken.typepad.com/b/2004/12/advertisers_sea.html

Posted by: codeman38 at February 23, 2005 02:29 PM

I was recently offered the suggestion of searching for "New & Used Circumcision" on ebay (not by Google though)

Posted by: lman at February 23, 2005 05:46 PM

Ebay probably sticks the word into its prefabricated ad if even a single item on its site has the word in its description.

Posted by: fuzzy at February 23, 2005 05:56 PM

As Patrick pointed out, they have product to sell when you click through. One of those products happens to be a 1948 Cuba Stamp ... and it is "NEW"

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3496&item=5559854930&rd=1

Posted by: j_straw at February 23, 2005 07:28 PM

That also hapens when you do a search on uranium and plutonium: "BUY PLUTONIUM ON EBAY!!"

Posted by: Graham at February 23, 2005 08:47 PM

Buy "Boy Scout" on ebay! Great prices and selection!

Didn't know you could sell kids :P

Posted by: JC at February 24, 2005 07:36 AM

I was going to say that this isn't broken, but after realding all of the things that you can actually buy on eBay, I will say that this is in fact broken (not to mention hilarious). If they really want people to take the adWords seriously, then it needs to account for the meaning of words, not just plug them into their stock form ads.

Posted by: Jay at February 24, 2005 08:54 AM

We don't need a definition of broken. We already have one. Read the reason for this site's existence.

"A project to make businesses more aware of their

customer experience, and how to fix it."

Posted by: Carlos Gomez at February 24, 2005 04:16 PM

The NEW in the Cuba stamp is probably to show that it was newly put on auction, or newly gotten by the seller, or...

Posted by: fuzzy at February 24, 2005 05:44 PM

I'm kinda worried about the guy who Googled "feces"

Posted by: picklejuice at February 25, 2005 03:19 PM

How about...

Thingy

Aff. Huge selection, great deals on

everything Thingy.

eBay.com

Very specific, isn't it?

Posted by: fuzzy at February 25, 2005 04:33 PM

By the way, I believe that the 'Aff' tag in there means that the adword was bought by an affiliate -- not directly by eBay.

Posted by: Michael Dwyer at February 25, 2005 11:33 PM

At least it's working better than it used to. Some years ago I was searching for info on some medical radioisotopes. Back then I got an e-bay ad about it. The isotope in question had such a short half-life that there's no way you could buy it on e-bay.

Posted by: Loren Pechtel at February 27, 2005 01:43 PM

I once did a yahoo and google search on myself just to see what garbage I had out there, as well as where my email addy would pop up (so I can hide it from bots). Ebay's out selling me too. So far no one wants me :( but I do seem to be missing some underwear?!?

Posted by: Poindexter T Quakenfuss at March 10, 2005 11:49 AM

Topic

Aff. Huge selection, great deals on

everything Topic.

eBay.com

We Live in the World of OSX, Terrabytes and Gigahertz, Couldn't anyone check these things?

-Cameron

Posted by: Cameron at March 20, 2005 06:34 PM