171–180 of 215 posts
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I never knew. How can that justify that they deceive many users?
Google's Adwords strategy was a reaction to competitors who literally sold placement in search results .
More or less deceiving visitors is not ennobled because everybody else does it.
I'm going to come out in defense of patio11 here. Not because the ad isn't deceptive - it undoubtedly is. But because he fell into the dark side of a grey area and it's worth discussing HOW good people end up there. From a rationalist perspecive, the ad is justified. He is effectively capturing the majority of the market possible through adwords. So what's next? It makes sense to take your know-how in one market and…
I'm not promoting it, but take it for what it is. Adapt it to your best judgment.
That said, the stars saying "rated by lots" is both genius and evil :).
There is a clear distinction between what Google is doing and what Patrick is doing. Respect diminished.
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Without those ads the amazing search technology wouldn't exist.
Google's search engine predates the ads by quite a few years, actually. You'd be correct to say, "without those ads, Google would necessarily look very different than how it does today," but then, that's nearly a vacuous statement.
I don't understand who still sees ads. It's apparently a huge majority of Internet users, but I don't understand where they come from. I often set up computers for family and friends and installing AdBlock is one of the first things I do. Who is computer-savvy enough to buy and install their own computer, and yet not computer-savvy enough to get AdBlock? Or do (most) people actually like ads?
I dont like ads, I just dont dislike them enough to care, if they bother me that much I dont use the website.
Patrick is falling into what, I call, the marketing trap. I like some of Patrick's advice, but I wouldn't follow this... ever. Patrick has a nice little niche business but that's all it is, a niche. Niches, by definition are really small, focused and low in demand. In a niche, the stream of new customers eventually dries up and the temptation is to move further and further over to the marketing dark side to keep the…
And you are falling into the "if I build it they will come" trap. He definitely has a niche business. Many of us do. For most of us, our niche is tech. Patrick's niche is education. In the tech/startup niche, often the extent of marketing that is required is posting to HN and getting featured by TechCrunch. Trying to expand our niche outside of this is probably a bad sign, and most likely ineffective. I hold this thr…
However, there's a massive difference between good marketing and deceptive/illegal marketing.
Apple does great marketing. Grifters, scammers and spammers do deceptive marketing.
Second, education is not a niche. Education is a sector, one of the largest in the world. Primary school teachers are a market, and bingo cards is a niche.
Technology is a sector, Web developers are a market and version control is a niche.
Boxing yourself into a niche that's too small with a product that's not particularly attractive makes marketing much more difficult than it needs to be.
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Google's Adwords strategy was a reaction to competitors who literally sold placement in search results .
From my point of view, this is an explanation not a justification. More or less deceiving visitors is not ennobled because everybody else does it.
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From my point of view, this is an explanation not a justification. More or less deceiving visitors is not ennobled because everybody else does it.
When Google announced Adwords, it was with fanfare about how above-board their program was, and they were widely praised for it.
The rating stars however are a different story and are definitely in the dark gray area (say at #333). The "rated by lots" will make users draw a comparison with the other unpaid listings without realizing it is fake, atleast in the sense the other stars arent fake.
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Apparently, an URL like http://images2.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/ad-blending/... is blocked by the rule -images/ad- This is a false positive and a surprisingly broad rule.
It is a broad rule and I gave on the article because I could not see any of the image. I was about to white list the site when I realized that using Ad Block Plus and NoScript for years has resulted in me experiencing a significantly different Internet. So much of SEO simply does not apply to people like me. But in fact I do spend a lot of money on-line, but the I spend on content. Even if it's a funny shirt from a w…
Also, if a site is covered in ads, I click away. If I kept reading the site the person reading the analytics of the site would think I approve of what they're doing. I'm not going to get into an arms race with my content providers. I'd rather find and support better content providers.
I suppose it's similar to the GNU 'don't use non-free software even if you pirate it' stance although I'm by no means dogmatic about it.