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How can we know if paid search advertising works?

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Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

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post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trademark litigation can be expensive, but you can't win every trademark case just by throwing more money at the problem. If there was a legitimate IP violation then someone would have won a case against Google by now.

I think that's a very reductive take. The idea that I can buy placement in searches for a competitor is not clearly a "legitimate IP violation" but I think it's also not clearly "not a legitimate IP violation". Is it good for society that I can redirect users who intend to be looking for a competitors' products? Its a complex subject that I'm not sure the courts have examined the repercussions of properly. The counte…

Courts are responsible for interpreting the law, not for considering repercussions. If you think the current situation isn't good for society then take that up with the legislative branch, not the judicial branch.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary revenue model for search is micro auctions to determine ranking of product placement on search results. Google monetizes search with ads. The micro auctions are for those ads. They even say "Ad" on each of them. If you have evidence that they're doing paid placement in the actual search results, I'd love to see it. FWIW, I do wish Google's ads were more obviously visually distinct from search results (a…

> Google monetizes search with ads. Google monetizes search but not with Google ads. This is the primary distinguisher. Its an auction selling space on page for a supplier to provide their own textual content. Google's online advertisement businesses don't sell space on Google pages, but online ad products for other peoples' pages. Google considers all of this as ad revenue, but distinguishes search from their advert…

> Its an auction selling space on page for a supplier to provide their own textual content.

Are you referring to the things that say "Ad" next to them on Google's search result pages? If so... those are ads.

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