Google has been playing around some time now with showing ads based not only with the query you are currently on, but by also blending them with recent queries you made. My guess is that this is done on the assumption that if the same person performs two queries, one right after the other, then odds are the queries themselves are probably related. While this sounds good on paper, from my experience more often than not the results have nothing whatsoever with what I was searching on.
Today I did a search for [cookies disabled], because I was trying to see how many sites were showing that as their title to Googlebot (which, btw, is definitely a sign of the non-seo-conscious webmaster). I was shown this ad from Pronto.com:
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Obviously just slopping broad match targeting on their end, coupled with the fact that with AdWords you can insert a token in your ads, and include the actual phrase the person was searching on. I’ve seen it before, and ever since AdWords has allowed us to find great deals like Ebay selling Black People, and low prices on Child Brides at Amazon.com, I’ve always kept my eyes out for other, well, unusual shopping opportunities. So, I figured I would see if Pronto had anything to offer me in the way of [cheap dates]. I gotta tell you, I was surprised what Google thought were good matches for that one!
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Thanks for the dating tip, Google! 😀
1) “Obviously just slopping broad match targeting on their end, coupled with the fact that with AdWords you can insert a token in your ads, and include the actual phrase the person was searching on.”
Incorrect – AdWords uses the {KeyWord:Default} tag to input the keyword that you are buying, not the keyword (or search query) that is being searched. So pronto is buying that keyword (not broad matching to it)
2) Those dating services are probably buying the term “dates” or “date” and bidding higher than say EHarmony or another dating service. This is not a Google fault, but a advertiser misunderstanding how to use AdWords.
Years ago, I did a search for “blood diamonds” and found a Google AdWords selling “blood diamonds”. It was not the coolest thing to see at all. I talked about it on SEW and I think Threadwatch.org picked it up for some discussion. That was 3 years ago or so. Guess this is still going on more less
P.s. You captcha is the worst I’ve ever seen.
@Baylow – Worst in what way? There are plenty of extremely crappy CAPTCHA’s out there… mine is tons better than most of the hard to crack ones.
As to the matching, you’re just wrong on that one. I promise you that Pronto did not bid on [cookies disabled], any more than Ebay did on [black people] last year.
@AK Works – Yeah, Google manually got rid of most of the offensive ones after the last fuss. I’m guessing that the only reason that any might get through would be due to this whole “previous query” matching thing that they are doing.
I imagine that you get brids at low prices because they are in wheelchairs, but pushing a wheelchair around gets old real fast.
BTW in some countries the going rate is 40 goats – BAAAAD joke!