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Even more reason to switch to other search engines such as DuckDuckGo.
duckduckgo's ads are not exactly a beacon of quality either, so I wouldn't trust them necessarily to not let something like this through. Install adblockers for everyone you know.
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Absolutely. Google's making ads look like search results [1], but let's bring up an example from the early-to-mid 2000s [2] because that's extra relevant here when today's relevant search engines put ads confusingly at the top of your search results. The ad isn't a "sponsored result" but it's fair to say the results are sponsored (and confusingly so). 1. https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squint-and-youll-click-it/ 2.…
Regarding #1, did you ever notice how the "dark pattern" that article was about got reverted shortly after that, except not on DuckDuckGo which still contains that "dark pattern"?
Remember when Google highlighted ads in different colours? Like the garish pink and green from way back in 2001: https://edge45.co.uk/blog/google-adwords-evolution-timeline/ (scroll down to see it near the bottom)
Look at how they intentionally tried to differentiate the ad from the rest of the search results: large swaths of white space separate the top sponsored ads from the rest of the search results even in a time when monitors were smaller, with clearly different link and background colours, etc.
I wonder if anybody's built a browser plugin to provide Google search results pages that look like they used to back in 2001? ;-)
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DuckDuckGo shows me three scams in the ads at the top of the page when I search "employer ID number".
I got an ad for ebay. followed by 3 results. The ad should be more clearly marked but I don't see any scams here. [1] https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-find-your-ein-4768994 [2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/employer-identification... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_Identification_Number
On Bing.com I get https://www.irs-tax-ein-number.com, https://irs.usa-taxid.com, https://ein-gov-online.com/irs-ein/application, and https://www.irs-ein-tax-id.com
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Absolutely. Google's making ads look like search results [1], but let's bring up an example from the early-to-mid 2000s [2] because that's extra relevant here when today's relevant search engines put ads confusingly at the top of your search results. The ad isn't a "sponsored result" but it's fair to say the results are sponsored (and confusingly so). 1. https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squint-and-youll-click-it/ 2.…
Regarding #1, did you ever notice how the "dark pattern" that article was about got reverted shortly after that, except not on DuckDuckGo which still contains that "dark pattern"?
And at the same time that Google supposedly can’t catch these guys, they randomly suspend my ads account without even an explanation. And of course no recourse or way of getting in touch with a human.
Maybe you're not spending enough money. I'm sure Google's AI suspension bot doesn't go around suspending their top spenders (account wise), even if it has high confidence there's a breach.
Also, while active, I stopped accepting any of their automatic “improvement” suggestions, as they inevitably lead to increase spending, but almost never to better conversion.
If I ever need to advertise with Google again, I’ll probably need to go through an agency and pay quite a bit extra.
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Regarding #1, did you ever notice how the "dark pattern" that article was about got reverted shortly after that, except not on DuckDuckGo which still contains that "dark pattern"?
What exactly was reverted? Google search results look like the screenshot in that article for me.
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What exactly was reverted? Google search results look like the screenshot in that article for me.
I believe it was the placement of the favicon in regular search results that was reverted because it appeared in the same place as the word "Ad" in the ad.
(DDG seems to do it the other way around: results have favicons, ads have nothing in that spot. anyways, adblocker back on)
I hate that there is no easy way to block or report a bad ad on google… don’t like that 30 minute ad in a 5 minutes video? too bad… don’t like that adult content ad on the middle of your daughter video? too bad.. not that you can use a different platform anyway