Search Engines Take Their Time Disclosing Paid Links

An anonymous reader says "This CNN.com article talks about how most search engines have not disclosed the difference between a paid ad and an 'objective' result. The one exception of course is every geek's favorite search engine, Google. Once again, hooray for Google!" We mentioned the FTCs Mandate that search engines be clear about who's paying for what. Apparently all the non-google engines are on vacation ;)

Comments

It's only a recommendation

[Telecommando]

It's not like they're required by law to do it.

Yet.

Re:It's only a recommendation

[dalassa]

I would say that ethics requires them to do so, but then I turned on the latest finacial news.

Ethically they should disclose who pays them to sponser links, but will they; not unless forced too.

Re:It's only a recommendation

[bravehamster]

This is about advertising. There are no ethics in advertising. It's a business. They probably feel like disclosing who paid for the ad is the same as devaluing the ad.

That's a load of crap. Just because something is a business doesn't mean that ethics are thrown out the window. This is sadly too often the case, but there's a reason you have to take a class called "Business Ethics" to get an MBA. As for disclosing who paid for the ad, that's not what we're talking about here at all. This is about telling people that the link they're clicking on is an ad! In order for the internet to maintain it's usability, Search Engines must be trusted sources of information. That's not the same as saying they aren't allowed to make money. They can make all the money they want, just so long as they aren't screwing with the results to favor someone who dropped some cash in their laps.

Re:It's only a recommendation

[Anonvmous Coward]

I'm very close to advertising. I've watched some of the decision making. It's not ethical.

Ever see a picture of strawberries? Chances are, that strawberry is covered in lipstick to make it an appealing shade of red. Everybody knows that McDonald's burgers look nothing like their picture. Car commercials feature locations that nobody'd ever take the car too. Heck, one showed a Jeep outrun a helicopter up a mountain. Ads, as a general business, are deceptive. Ever see that popup that looks like a message box saying 'you have 1 new message'? Heh.

If advertising was ethical, products wouldn't be held in such a ludicrously high light. They take whatever means are necessary to get people to come visit, with no regard to whether or not they're being deceptive. This is why search engines must disclose paid links.

another example ...

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

... of a law we just don't need. why does it take the FCC to mandate such a thing, let the market decide. Google is already the defacto search engine, not just because of its tech. but also because of the way it does ads and not being "sold out" as far as search placement goes. why does the government feel this kind of thing requires legislation? if people want a search engine which doesn't sell search result positions, they'll use one. if they don't care, they won't. what's the big freaking deal. save the legislative branch for getting rid of all the stupid laws, not passing new mandates.

Re:another example ...

[valmont]

the big freakin deal is that the average joe user is not able to distinguish search engines which have sold out, and will take any search result they're given to face-value. FCC's effort is to ensure consumers to have the information they need to make the informed choice to go to google.

Credibility

[TibbonZero]

I think that search engines really get users on credibility.
I know that with Google, I won't get popups, not too many banners, no porn ads.
More importantly, getting what you search for is important. I know with google, I can find anything almost, and their Cache and Translate features really help out. I know with confidence that Google will give me the results I want.

So, why are these other Engines killing their credibility by jumping on this bandwagon, and not telling the users what they are getting? Less people will use it, and the service will die.

In addition: Check out this.. It's google's beta of their answer service. Ask a question, and Pay for the answer. Kinda cool if you have a complex or hard to find problem.

Re:Credibility

[nyquist_theorem]

In addition: Check out this. [google.com]. It's google's beta of their answer service. Ask a question, and Pay for the answer. Kinda cool if you have a complex or hard to find problem.

Am I the only one that's rather impressed by this? The quality and depth of some of the answers provided to some pretty straightforward or simple questions is remarkable.

EG, for $20, you can ask "abc television had a story on a lady in cambodia who set up a orphinage and her relationship with a cambodian pilot" and get this. Or, for two bucks, you can ask why your site isn't listed on google and they'll tell you. Lastly, if you're wondering how to help American businesses expand into Romania, for $30 you can find out.

The best part is that they even give you the search terms they used on google, as well as any other resources they used. For those of us that have been using search engines since Altavista was good, feeding a search engine a balanced diet is pretty straight forward - but if you've seen someone new to the net try to work a search engine, you can understand how useful this is - the whole "teach a man to fish" bit, I suppose.

Wow.

Re:Credibility

[Broccolist]

Google answers was a nice idea, but it's a failure. There have been only 4000 questions since the project started a month ago -- even though for some time it was advertised on every google search result! At an average of (say) 5$ a question, that equates to 20,000$ of total cash transactions, only a fraction of that being revenue for Google. The buying market is obviously too small for this to work. If they have an ounce of business sense, they'll drop the thing soon.

Lots of similar services have popped up in the past, and they all failed. The problem is that although you have plenty of sellers with too much time on their hands and looking for a cheap ego-boost, there are very few people willing to dish out any money to random people for information they could just as well find themselves.

A search engine by any other name...

[Anonymous Custard]

Is it fair to call yourself a search engine if you're really just an Ad database? What if a company offers their site as a search engine, but actually only retrieves relevant Advertisement-links frmo their own paid sponsor database, and never searches the rest of the web?

I think we need an official definition of 'Search Engine.' Just like a product can't be certified as "100% Grade-A Beef" without meeting some set standards of ingredients and production process, a 'search engine' should have to meet certain standards as well. Isn't it false advertising if they say they search the web but really search their own Ad databases?

For now, it'd be useful if each search engine had an About page which describes the type of search they do; be it a monthly crawl, a live search of popular sites or info services, free and paid submitted links, etc, or any combination.

The only question that should be debated in congress is where the responsibility lies for user-education, sort of a consumer responsibilty clause or free speech thing. Should the sites tell you, or should you figure it out yourself?

Non Google Engines on Vacation?

[5h4k4-2u1u]

Apparently all the non-google engines are on vacation ;)

You mean there are other search engines?!

Re:silly

[liquidsin]

You, sir, are high. Or drunk. Just because someone springs the money for more advertising doesn't mean they offer superior products/services/information. The beauty of the web lies in the basic idea that it's a medium for everyone. Anyone can get a message out on the internet. The more that diminishes, the less useful the web becomes.

AHEM

[Telecommando]

It's the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission not the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).

The FTC handles trade, commerce, tariffs, advertising and business practices.
The FCC handles radio & telephone communications policies, standards and practices.

Re:Government Regulation

[Peyna]

Except for that large notice right before the infomercial that states: THIS IS A PAID ADVERTISEMENT AND THE OWNER OF THIS STATION IN NO WAY ENDORSES THE PRODUCT BEING SOLD WITH-IN. Also, they are required to flash "paid advertisement" every so often on the screen, much in the same way that newspapers have to print "paid advertisement" on ads that resemble stories.

Has anyone else noticed this Google problem?

[Outland Traveller]

In the last few weeks I've noticed a disturbing trend when using google. I'll search for something using keywords, and the page that google spits back is 50% full of links to third-tier sites that read "Advance search for [your keywords]". If you go to those pages they are full of ads and do not have the information you're looking for. It looks like someone found an unfortunately effective way to poison google's results.

Re:Has anyone else noticed this Google problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a thread on usenet about this issue.

The current hypothesis is that the search44 guys have a lot of domains, and a lot of pages with different keywords.

Re:Has anyone else noticed this Google problem?

[frankie]

yes, Yes, YES! It is really annoying as hell to see mighty Google getting bombed like this. There's a Hacker Sith Lord out there laughing at us.

If you see this happening in a search result that you care about, please report it either by email (search-quality at google) or by web form.

Here's some of the sites I've seen that are abusing cross-linking to spam Google:

costa-dorada.net
e-bevs.com
elevenacceleration.c om
ije-ir.org
ims-corp.com
indonesiahelp.com
i ndowebdesign.com
kluthe.net
laserprintersbymte.c om
makingmusic.net
myownpoll.com
ocean-press.co m
onesmack.com

Google: Trouble in Paradise

[bareman]

Lately using Google I've been more annoyed to find advertisements at the top of the results list when I have been searching for a quoted string.

Try searching for the following quoted string: "building your own electric car"
and the first link returned today is for autoweb.com. Now, if Autoweb had a resources for building an electric car I would have no problem with their paid ad showing up. Hell, make it first on the list and make animated arrows to it if you like.

BUT you see, autoweb has nothing on the page about ELECTRIC cars, much less about BUILDING a car of any type. No, all they have is a paid advert that hits on the word CAR.

Come to think of it (yep) I just tried "Baby you can drive my car" and there they were. Top-o-the list.

Here's more; you can't even defeat the advert buy specifically trying to exclude the ad by "-buy" or even "-autoweb".

Please GOOGLE gods, return to the good old days where a quoted string only returns sites that have the entire quoted string.