Oh, it's for a thing called "money".
Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
171–180 of 236 posts
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#172In Google maps, the top result for a locksmith in my city is a company that doesn't actually exist. The company has no website, just a toll-free number. The business name doesn't match anything in the state records. If you zoom in, the address given is literally in some kind of alley. The business has 4.5 stars and all of the reviews are in vague, broken English that never contain any details about the service or why…
Almost all Google search for businesses are "scam". If you search for locksmith, plumber, heating and cooling, lawn, mechanic. It's all fronts often in eastern europe masking like local business and taking a hefty cut.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#173It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine…
> Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. You shouldn't need to do this. Googles ad auction on search multiplies your bid by a quality score when deciding which ad to show. A site that satisfies what the user is looking for will have a high quality score, whereas the 'wrong' site (ie. one for a competitor) will have a low quality score - part…
The same rules that allow scammers to look like a legit result allow smaller firms to compete with the Best Buys and Targets of the world by advertising their local outfits on searches for "Best Buy" and "Target." Without that allowance, organic search degenerates into a winner-take-all system and one of two things happens: (a) small places are just locked out of search traffic, (b) they invest that money in SEO instead of ads and the organic results get worse as people try and trick Google into thinking their site is Best Buy or Target.
There should be a solution to the problem of the scammers. Banning advertising being allowed to show up on someone else's organic search results ain't it.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#174You won’t believe what the top 5 results for chatgpt are
I just did that search.
Ublock origin in firefox returned, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. openai.com blogpost, 3. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 4. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 5. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com.
Clean firefox with no ublock, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 3. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 4. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com, 5. ChatGPT article on businessinsider.com.
What am I missing?
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#175Scammers also do this for searches like 'aircanada' (no spaces), including sometimes impersonating the official website while telling you to call a support number as the website is down.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a real and thorny problem seems to have a trivial answer.. there's a good chance the trivial answer is incorrect. Amazon has a system like this, where you can "claim" listings. It's how scam products get all those five star reviews for some other profuct. They find a t-shirt or some little thing doing well and file claim after claim until they win the listing.
> If a real and thorny problem seems to have a trivial answer.. there's a good chance the trivial answer is incorrect. Two of my favorite H. L. Mencken quotes: "There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong." "The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake." And this…
Ironic, coming from LBJ.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a real and thorny problem seems to have a trivial answer.. there's a good chance the trivial answer is incorrect. Amazon has a system like this, where you can "claim" listings. It's how scam products get all those five star reviews for some other profuct. They find a t-shirt or some little thing doing well and file claim after claim until they win the listing.
> If a real and thorny problem seems to have a trivial answer.. there's a good chance the trivial answer is incorrect. Two of my favorite H. L. Mencken quotes: "There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong." "The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake." And this…
Law makers seem to universally ignore the unintended consequences of the laws they propose or endorse.
I wish there were a requirement to list all the foreseeable consequences of any law that's proposed, both positive consequences and negative ones.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#178> And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one. For the same reason a Yelp result shows up as the second item on the page: Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on key…
> Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm.
I think cloning a website would probably fall under their misrepresentation policy. “We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.”
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#179> And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one. For the same reason a Yelp result shows up as the second item on the page: Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on key…
> Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm. I think cloning a website would probably fall under their misrepresentation policy. “We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.”
It definitely does and that's a scam. What I mean is that there's no policy stopping KIIN from advertising on "PF Changs" as a keyword because they want people to know there are alternatives to the national chain option.
Re: Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result
#180Malvertising certainly appears to be the flavour of the month for threat actors.
Must've seen a half dozen articles on fake ad sites for cloud vendors and various services in the last couple of weeks alone.