Read this article. What do you think?

http://www.clickz.com/article.php/970571

Just another guy thinking EVERYthing should be free.

It is perfectly ethical. Acually I am suprised ppc has lasted as long as it had. This is one of the quickest ways to advertise in search engines, I mean it is not too different then yahoo taking money to add your site faster to their database. Remember, no one wants to wait 3 months to be added to a search engine.

Why not? Just like hostdirectories have top 10 hosts (if you pay), and search results land you at the top (if you pay). Wouldn't it be great if all the search engines were like this? Everytime you searched for something, wouldn't you feel great if you knew that the results were all paid, disregarding revelance? I know I would.

(If you can't tell, I'm more for Google's clear style of pink background, labled sponsor links).

I honestly cant tell if chicken is being sarcastic.

As for top ten hosts. Paying for a spot in that, that is not ethical, you are paying for someone to say something you are not. But honestly if you use pay per click search engines, depending on what you are looking for, you would acually get what you are looking for faster right? I mean no one(well mabey someone) is going to pay 25 cents a click on a subject that is totally unrelated to their site.

Chicken is being sarcastic. And I'd agree -- the only reason PPC search engines exist is because they have real search engines to partner with.

in my opinion Pay-Per-Click Search engines are not ethical, they change the meaning of term search engine.

Search engine's crewel web sites on internet and return results on the basis of certain criteria's like link popularity and web site contains, but companies who pay them are placed on top of results which is not ethical.

I have seen many search engines who directly gives you links for there advertisers on top without mentioning they are paid listings, example: AltaVista. just type web hosting and it will give you results like this

http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/web?q=web+hosting&pg=q&kl=XX

in above case they must mention that links given on top are paid advertisements (like google do and place words advertisements or sponsors). :mad:

By doing this kind of business practice they are not only spooling good web sites but also cheating user from getting true results. :(

for example if bran X is totally horrible company which do not provide any support at all. there market reputation is also very bad but they do have lots of money to pay there advertising billing and when ever any user type 'GOOD HOST' in search engine there name comes on top. :(

now I think this is unfair. placing advertisement on search engines is ok but displaying them as a part of results is not ethical and must be stopped or these web site should name them self as AD ENGINES and not search engines or directories and make there intensions clear to the users. :o

excuse me for my English. :)

Hello
PPC search engines are only useful in that they supply data to search engines.
That data is always identified as a "sponsored link" so there should be no confusion.

I am not sure what the difference is between PPC and paying someone to keep submitting, optimising, cloaking your web pages to get to the top of the results.

Research has shown that you really need to be in the top 5 results to get any benefit from being in a search engine and the only reliable way of doing that is to pay for it.
This may seem unkind or unfair, but it does keep irrelevant results out of the listings.
After all, who is going to pay money to have an unrelated site displayed under "web hosting"?

Gordon

Pay per click search engines are here to stay.

Until recently many search engines and directories were free. However, they have all found advertising will not cover their costs. Some have started charging for all commercial listings. Others are pay per click. Even google is testing pay per click for their sponsored listings to the side.

The reason pay per click is growing exponentially is that the traditional engines need revenues and if they put Overture, for instance, at the top and then earn on each click, they can gain significant revenue dollars.

The people I feel bad for are those who worked hard and spent extensively for rankings and now find that there are three sponsored listings before the search/directory listing even starts.

What other ppc search engines besides Overture are there? Any as popular as Overture?

As far as I know the most popular is Overture, but there are dozens other ones...
You can find a comprehensive list on http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

Yes I as being sarcastic (guess I should lay it on a bit heavier next time). I don't think pay for anything is wrong, it is the way the world works. I guess it stems from what people think of when they say, "Search Engine". What it does, or what it is supposed to do.

On that note, search engines have always returned irrelevant links to search terms, so maybe they've never really lived up to the original purpose anyhow? Claiming you can use a particular search engine to find what you are looking for and mixing in advertising is similar to what many (not all) many hosting directories do.

http://google.com/search?hl=en&q=web+hosting
I can tell which ones are paid.

http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/web?q=web+hosting&pg=q&kl=XX
If you look closely, the first 5 out of 15 results displayed are paid (wouldn't know it or even think about it if you weren't paying attention), and the remaining 10 might be either. I don't know. Are they search listings? More ads on the bottom, then you can get to page two.

Anwhoooo... I think the question is more, what is a search engine, than it is ethical to have paid listings. Same as what is a host directory (many are just paid host listings). Nothing wrong with that and knowing that, I wouldn't use certain directories if I needed hosting.

Ohhh, and this isn't about ALL hosting directories, I think everyone knows which ones I'm talking about.

Well if people had actually supported search engines by clicking an ad or 2 now and then maybe they would all still be free.

True, but pity clicking isn't a model that would really work (long term) anyhow.

I agree with Chicken

Some how I always do

Hmmmmmm

:D

Going back to GordonH's point about all PPC listings being marked 'sponsored' so there is no confusion, this simply isn't true. Take a look at Excite.com for example, or Dogpile or Ixquick or AltaVista for that matter.

I think dogpile lists them by search engine so you would need to know they were paid ones, but my point still stands.

Are those results relevant to the subject?
In our industry usually they are.

Is it unfair?
It may be seen as unfair to people who can't afford to advertise
but it makes it the same as any other media then.
You can alway use unpaid for advertising (PR) or a mixture of both.

Does the fact that someone has paidfor a listing make it any less relevant?
You want people to visit your site.
You caneither spend months trying to get a good search engine ranking (which may or may not work) or you can pay to get a good listing.
I know which I would prefer.

Gordon

Like every other good under capitalism, search engine placement is priced according to demand. As it should be.

For those who cry foul at PPC engines, let me ask you: how would you determine who is awarded placement? Before you answer relevance, consider the inherent faults to that model:

Relevance, if determined by a human (a la Yahoo), is subjective.

Relevance, if determined by some google/altavista/lycos algorithm, can be manipulated, as we have seen with so many of the SE placement techniques we've all come to know and hate.

Relevance can't easily be judged based on a user's search terms. How to determine, for example, whether a search for "web hosting" indicates a user looking to buy hosting service or a user looking to read articles on the topic?

Does the fact that someone has paid for a listing made it any less relevant ? Well. it depends how you define relevance but of course, the very act of paying for a listing does not automatically make it less relevant.

However, it is really a matter of the searcher's perspective. When they search for 'affordable web hosting' or whatever, there is an expectation that the returned results are the most genuinely relevant to that inquiry. With PPC, not only is this not the case, there is a deliberate attempt to mislead the searcher by placing these results at the top of the page and by marking them as anything other than what they are - which is text advertising.

A

Originally posted by WillSmith
For those who cry foul at PPC engines, let me ask you: how would you determine who is awarded placement? Before you answer relevance...
I agree with the whole post, and would just like to add a couple of things. We have a preconceived notion of what a search engine *is*, which is why the thought of paying for results makes people uneasy. We think it is (or should be) an unbiassed tool to find what we are looking for.

Since when have search engines been guilty of returning revelant links within the top 10 results? I can't remember a time, though google comes about as close (IMO) as what I consider to be an Internet searching tool.

As Will said, how else would one determine the top spots? Mucho dinero seems to be the obvious and easy answer, and I personally couldn't come up with another that would actually work.

I'm not trying to confuse you by flipflopping my views. The point is that they've figured out a way to give their advertisers the most bang for the buck, which is what advertisers want (obvisously). It just doesn't fit with many people's idea of what a search engine is.

Added:
I do not, however, feel that selling tradmarked phrases and terms to just anyone (your competitors) is ethical, and SE's have to watch this.

Exactly. The Internet, unlike any media before it, is a work in progress, different in flavor, constitution, and nature from year to year.

Television and television advertising hasn't changed in decades. Nor has print or radio advertising. The line between content and advertising in those media is unambiguous and stark.

The lines between content and advertising in our own beloved medium are not so, which I feel, while potentially dangerous, is a testament to the technological capabilities and diversity of the web.

Perhaps the problem is not "corruption," as the ClickZ author condemned it, but limited vocabulary. How can "search engine" apply to both Altavista and Google, whose approaches to searching diverge more by the day?

I here and now declare "search engine" a term to be used in reference to sites whose search result order is determined by relevance and relevance alone. Those sites whose results are ordered according to bid will be called... ideas? ;)

Originally posted by WillSmith
Television and television advertising hasn't changed in decades. Nor has print or radio advertising. The line between content and advertising in those media is unambiguous and stark.
Well, to some degree it isn't, though I don't think they are trying to trick you (as some may argue with the SE's). I'm talking about product placement (when an actor reaches for a PEPSI, or drives off in a CHEVY - usually with a nice camera angle showing the marque, heh). To be honest, I'd rather have a show full of those little ads than have to see actual 30 second commercial spots.

The bad thing about PPCs is that a site's relevance becomes totally dependent on the amount of money someone's willing to spend. This does corrupt the system because the "aim" for accuracy is replaced by the aim for profits.


Just think of our government. The big corporations that are able to contribute lots of $ end up getting their agendas passed while the little guys get screwed in the process. Just look at the Bush administration.
:rolleyes:

All I know is that PPC engines are making tons of money*, and it's also a good way for you to do business.

It also produced more accurate results.

ie. PPC engine: if you bid on "web hosting" - the engine will start producing results that contain "web hosting"

ie. NON-PPC engine: if you search for "web hosting" - the engine will start producing results that contain "web" - then after who knows how many million "web" results come up - it will start producing results for "hosting" - not what you wanted is it???

However, you can do an advanced search or Balloon/Boogle it, but most people don't even know that...


* Getting back to the money, on the one PPC engine I bid on the term "web hosting" and only spend say $25/month.

As a test, I bid on an adult site at 10 cents a click, within less than 2 minutes my $25 was gone. Thank goodness I didn't bid through Google, I can imagine the bid would be +$1 per click.

Originally posted by Skeptical
The bad thing about PPCs is that a site's relevance becomes totally dependent on the amount of money someone's willing to spend. This does corrupt the system because the "aim" for accuracy is replaced by the aim for profits.

I don't think so. First: that's how capitalism works. Second, do you really think classic search engines produce "relevant" output? If you type in "web hosting", what decides if host A is on place one and host B on place two? And why has the offering of host A more relvance? :confused:


Just think of our government. The big corporations that are able to contribute lots of $ end up getting their agendas passed while the little guys get screwed in the process.

I don't think a government works like a search engine. The last one is more efficient. ;)

Originally posted by Walter

I don't think so. First: that's how capitalism works. Second, do you really think classic search engines produce "relevant" output? If you type in "web hosting", what decides if host A is on place one and host B on place two? And why has the offering of host A more relvance?

True, but at least classic search engines are trying. Once you get into the PPC strategy search engines will not spend much of their attention in developing good algorhythms for searching, at least not as much.

As far as capitalism, it isn't perfect. This is why big corporations get much more say in capital hill than the common people, who don't have as much vested interest "per" person, but collectively do.


Originally posted by Walter

I don't think a government works like a search engine. The last one is more efficient. ;)

Hahaha...

Originally posted by Skeptical
True, but at least classic search engines are trying. Once you get into the PPC strategy search engines will not spend much of their attention in developing good algorhythms for searching, at least not as much.

So you have to choose between a corrupt PPC engine with relevant hits and a classic engine with 50 to 80% irrelevant hits which "tries".
The users out there will decide. Time will tell.

As far as capitalism, it isn't perfect. This is why big corporations get much more say in capital hill than the common people, who don't have as much vested interest "per" person, but collectively do.

Of course it isn't perfect. And there are several ways to interprete it, the American way is not the same as the European way, and even in Europe there are big differences.

I use ppc search engines when I want to be solicted. Like if I'm looking for something to buy. But if you're just searching the Internet for information, then why would you use one?

Because you don't know the difference. Why do people get AOL and never actually travel on the internet? ;)

Originally posted by Chicken
Because you don't know the difference. Why do people get AOL and never actually travel on the internet? ;)

Thats the whole point.
Very few people would go to a PPC search engine to search for something but as they supply data to most of the major search engines we probably all use them already.
We are certainly all exposed to their results.

Gordon

Originally posted by Walter

So you have to choose between a corrupt PPC engine with relevant hits and a classic engine with 50 to 80% irrelevant hits which "tries".
The users out there will decide. Time will tell.

I don't know where you are pulling these numbers. Have you done a complete analysis of the search engines out there and the results they pull? 80%? Sounds way off.

And just do a search on overture.com (formerly goto.com) for "web hosting". Notice they only list the ones that are paying them $, which only amounts to about 500 or less results. Now how is that beneficial to the internet at large? I'd rather do the same search on Google and at least be able to browse the entire database of them.