by Admin
by Brenda Wright
by Brenda Wright
http://www.enquiro.com
Recently one of my co-workers passed me a print article he had come across. It was written by a hacker (apparently one of the good kind) and his experiences with Google AdWords.
At first glance I assumed that someone had found a way to 'hack' into Google ads, however it turned out to be an exploration of the hacker's legitimate experience with AdWords. While reading it was not the frightening experience I was expecting, his story did help me to see the Google PPC AdWord process from a different perspective.
Having worked with Google ads and Search Engine Marketing for several years, there are a number of AdWords shortcomings that I have come to anticipate and deal with. Of greater interest to me was the hacker's approach to mounting a PPC campaign. He did try to find the right keywords, which is an important early step, but he may have forgotten who his target audience is - or he may have been so eager for additional readership of his blog that he was ready to try anything. It is hard to imagine his target - hackers like himself, who tend to see themselves as outside the mainstream - clicking on a Google ad.
After his ads had been running for several days on Google, they were suddenly disallowed. His subsequent keyword choices, which did not all include 'hack' derivatives but seemed to also include 'security' terms, were also disallowed after several days of running. The hacker soon discovered that he was able to play a game of cat and mouse with Google by running the banned keywords under new campaign/AdGroup names after they had been disallowed. Ultimately, however, the hacker did not get what he wanted, which was additional traffic to his blog.
Obviously, the hacker was trying to run ads for products/services that Google does not approve of, however his frustration with Google was valid.
Yes, Google does plainly state in its site Content Polity:
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of hacking or cracking.
But realistically, how many small business people actually read all of Google's caveats before starting an AdWords campaign?
Whatever oversights were made by the hacker, Google should not have let him bid on the terms in question - nor should they have run those ads for several days before taking them down. The difficulty of course is that Google does not normally have humans reviewing ads or destination sites before they begin running them (as Yahoo! Search Marketing - formerly Overture - does). Would it be so very difficult for Google to flag at-risk keywords before the ads run, and have a human look over the ads and the landing site?
Brenda Wright
Head Sponsored Search Strategist
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing
Copyright 2005 - Enquiro Search Solutions.
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