I wanna tug on your shirt about something. You see, theres a little diddy thats been buggin a bit. I dont want to name any names or point any fingers, but just want to share my two bits, sort of throw it all up in the air and see who grabs what.

We here in the techie goop world like to sometimes talk in acronyms, so forgive me if I dont explain everything; Ill try my best though.

The situation

I have a little spit about what in my mind adheres to a major bug, a flaw in the system if you will, that is not getting as much attention as certain people think it should. It deals with a few rather large corporations, one in particular that in some way has a bit of a hold about you and me. And personally, I dont like to be controlled all that much.

You ever wonder how to get at the top of the search engines for a particular key word or phrase? Well the process of getting there entails an effort called SEO better suited as Search Engine Optimization for you common folk. LOL. That means laugh out loud. ;) wink. Well my organization offers this SEO practice to many clients. But there is something that gets in the way, something that is bothersome and to tell the truth, not really fair.

A Foreshadowing

First off, tell me which of you out there actually like to get spam. Lets see, one, two, ten oh zero. Thats right; spam is one of those nuisances that we all despise. Tangent If you are spamming people, please stop. I bring up spam here because it sort of relates, in an obtuse manner, yet not too obtuse.

The Beef

Now frankly, I am also growing very tired of bogus websites. The websites in particular are those that offer no real content, but just deliver a junk page with a load of Google ads. Many of you out there may not recognize these ads that I am talking about, but there is one thing that Google offers to people that in my opinion is tilting the search engine experience in a very derogatory fashion.

The Google APIs allow website owners to display Google based Adsence advertisements on their own websites for profit. Now an API is short for application program interface. APIs are used in all sorts of programming fashion and as a source do no harm whatsoever. But the specific API that I want to discuss allows website owners to display the Google based Adsence advertisements on their own private website with the chance of making a buck or two based on the traffic delivered to the specific advertiser.

Seems fair enough, right? I mean hey, if I bring you customers, shouldnt I get a kickback? Well lets examine this idea a little deeper. For instance, take a look at www.klickcommerce.com/swimsuits_bikinis/fashion_news.html. This is a legitimate site that discusses the sale of swimwear and as you can see on the left hand column, there are Ads by Google. This site properly utilizes the Google Adsence API in an ethical and tasteful manner. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The customers that come to this site get the content that they were searching for and also they get a few advertisements about some parallel content.

Now take a look at www.swimsuitguide.com/swimsuits.php. It is riddled with ads, all ads and really has zero content whatsoever besides the ads themselves. If you click on any of the links, all you get is another page with more advertisements.

The issue

I want you to realize something about these advertisements. The companies that place these advertisements are all paying on a per click basis. And Google pays anyone with the API on their site a small percentage, like a finders fee if you will, for any click that comes from their site. So as a site owner, I can forget about creating a valid site, I can forget about offering any content to the customer, and I can forget about offering anything at all as long as I can coerce someone into click on any of the Adsence ads listed on my site because I can make a nickel.

Think about that and I will pick up here next month and get into the real problems with this scenario. Have a nice day and remember what I said about spam. It all comes together. :) Slimey. And dont forget your swimwear; it is mighty hot out there these days.

Part 2

Issue No. 1 - The proliferation of junk sites is getting out of hand.

We left off last month with an interesting description of the Google Adsense system and its ability to allow webmasters to post Google Adsense advertisements on privately run websites for profit.

In Detail

Google charges its advertisers in two ways. The first and most commonly known is the CPC or Cost Per Click method. Easy enough, you buy a specific key word or phrase for so much per click and when a customer clicks on you, you get charged. Sure, the advertiser pays for visitors to its site.

The second method is the CPM or Cost Per Thousand Impressions. This system is a bit more precarious. The advertiser gets charged after its ad has shown up one thousand times, regardless of the location and if anyone has clicked on the ad. And on the other side, the webmaster makes a percentage of what the advertisers get charged.

Can you feel a problem brewing here?

At first glance, this appears like fair practice. Yet upon examination, webmasters are compelled to add the advertisements on their sites to earn some extra cash. Well this is where it gets nasty. There are those webmasters (people) out there that will gladly take advantage of any system. They forget about making any real website to share information, forget about making any real website to sell something and mass produce junk sites riddled with the Google Adsense advertisements.

I am going to be blunt. We are responsible for the creation of development of websites. I am not trying to blame Google for anything here. I am just trying to point out that there system is easy to take advantage of. Their system costs advertisers money and is slowly screwing up the Internet.

(Advertisement) Sexy Clothing, Beachwear and Bikinis

For the most part, the advertisers that go with Google do not understand what they are getting into. Everyone sees Google as the big Giant of the Internet. Yet as an owner of many online websites selling anything from bikinis and beachwear to skincare and more, the ROI (Return on Investment) form Google is really low in comparison to its top competition. That may sound harsh, but heres the deal.

Advertisers are getting charged regardless if their ad shows up on a valid site or a junk site. Googles search count increases based on the number of ads that get displayed. And more and more poor webmasters are creating bogus sites that add nothing to our Internet experience except a waste of time when we come across their damned sites.

The same webmasters that are creating bogus ad riddled sites are also the same webmasters that are sending out billions of junk mail or spam to advertise the sites. They are also the same webmasters that are creating tons of pop-ups. They are the same webmasters that are using other ill-advised advertising techniques to get traffic to their bogus websites. The end result is that the Internet is getting uglier and uglier.

Not to mention again that the ROI from Google advertising in comparison to other search engines tends to be very low. But that is another story all together.

In the grand scheme of things, everything is related. And weather you like it or not, it is our duty to make things better. I do not believe it it Googles fault one bit for the problems that are here in the Internet world, but I do believe that Google has the power to make things better. They are indeed one of the most powerful companies in the world.

So stay cool and dont forget your swimsuit; it is mighty hot out there these days.