July 15, 2010 by Alexei M
Search engine giants Google have been rumbled in what appears to be an on-site test for related Adwords, which they placed on the bottom right hand side frame of their search engine site. The search engine returns included related keywords which had some bearing on the original search query.
Barry Shwartz from the news and information site ‘Search Engine Land’ was alerted to the apparent tests by a user of the site, and requested confirmation from Google directly to find out what was going on.
A spokesperson responded with the following statement, admitting that they had been experimenting: “We’re always experimenting with new features and tools to help users find information online. We’re currently testing a feature on English language versions of the Google search results page in which additional advertisements for related queries or refinements of the user’s original query may appear.”
“This beta experiment provides users with a diverse set of relevant ads, and offers advertisers with relevant broad match keywords another opportunity to reach their target audience.”
Following this statement, Google has also begun to use test a beta experiment which has been seen to include competitor returns for queries. This means that if a user types in a company such as ‘Coke’, the returns will bring up related competitors in the industry such as ‘Pepsi’ alongside the primary search query results.
By using ads that broad match to competitor brands, Google is directly promoting different products even if a specific company has purchased the right to feature on the top of the search engine listings. This will potentially anger companies who have fought hard to obtain a legitimate place in the search engine rankings, as it could be seen to sabotage SEO efforts through direct links to competitors.
Related posts:
