When I search “melanie phung” and clicked through to my blog, I got a bunch of “Melanie B ringtones” [AdSense] ads on my site. When I get to my site via SEO-related terms I’m presented with search ads. The content on the site, in both cases, is obviously identical (and not at all related to ringtones or “Melanie B”).

I wrote that in October of 2007. At some point after I wrote that draft, I stopped seeing radically different ad units depending on the referring keyword so I completely forgot about it, but it really bugged me at the time — I didn’t want my site content associated with ringtone ads. (Eventually I just took AdSense off my blog because even the ads that were relevant to my content didn’t seem to reflect well on the site)

In theory, you wouldn’t appear in the results for search terms that aren’t aligned with your content — in which case, AdSense could match ads to either your content or the referring search query and it would be six of one/half dozen of the other — but we know that isn’t true in reality; often users find our pages using search terms that have nothing to do with our content.”Contextual ads” that place advertisements based on broad match keyword search terms rather than landing page copy can easily miss the mark and create message mismatches that could have advertisers annoyed and uncomfortable.

And that’s nothing compared to what could happen with this new behavioral targeting Google AdSense is rolling out. Donna just made some compelling observations about how Google’s behavioral targeting could be a nightmare for publishers and users alike over on SEO Chicks.

I always thought the beauty of AdSense is that it matches ads to content. Messing with that formula seems like a losing proposition – for users, publishers and advertisers alike.

What do you think? Would you, as a Web user, click on AdSense ads targeted at you, even if they aren’t relevant to what you’re currently doing? As a publisher, how do you feel about ads on your site that aren’t related to your content? Should advertisers on Google’s Content Network worry this will hurt their campaign performance?

Updated March 12: Also read Aaron Wall’s critique of grave privacy issues, and Bob Massa’s impassioned comment in response.

As strange as it might seem for someone who spends as much time on the Web as I do, I’ve never purchased anything off eBay, much less set up an eBay affiliate account, so I can’t speak from personal experience the way I do some of the other affiliate programs; however, this move could have a big impact.

Based on discussions I’ve had with folks who run the corporate LinkShare Referral Program for a certain large electronics retailer, nearly all of the company’s active LinkShare affiliates send traffic via PPC ads, not from the links that are provided for inclusion on web sites.

Furthermore, I just learned that Google is starting to bar affiliates from bidding on PPC ads also — this isn’t restricted to just eBay affiliates. I can only assume that they mean affiliates are not allowed to bid on keywords for which the parent company is also bidding. Surely they’d be allowed to pick up non-competitive phrases. Otherwise that would be even more ridiculous “punishment” for affiliate marketers who ought to have every right to advertise.

Ironically, while cutting affiliates out of the PPC game might somehow arguably improve the paid results (even though affiliates often have distinctive pricing from the parent, so I don’t buy that argument!), this move might actually lower the cost of keywords for those players who get to remain in the game — it’s economics: less competition equals lower prices. That and seeing as a lot of business comes from affiliates and resellers, it seems Google may be cutting off a finger of the hand that feeds its money-making AdWords machine.

For advertisers, there is a significant difference between contextual ads and (non-ad-served) text link ads. Contextual ads, like the Sponsored Results you see on the side of search engine results pages are all about ROI; whereas text link ads are primarily about (c’mon now let’s be honest) buying relevant inbound links that are intended to drive up rankings.

But for publishers, one concern looms larger than all others: show me the money!

After doing some investigating into the whole industry of purchasing text links (not to be confused with paid content or paid blog postings), I’m starting to come to the conclusion that I should migrate away from Google’s AdSense system in favor of a text link broker like Text Link Ads, or the equally creatively named Text Link Brokers (both terribly generic company names that serve as ultra-relevant anchor text anytime someone links to them).

So here’s the thing, it took me a whole year to get my first Google AdSense check. I look to be on track for another year of the same. Don’t get me wrong, I have no real complaints about the program. So why am I thinking of walking away with money left on the table?

Reasons Why Text Links Are Better Than AdSense

1. Google’s minimum for actually cutting you a check is higher than most other services, but until the money is in your bank account you haven’t actually earned anything yet.
2. With contextual ads you only get paid when someone clicks, while the simple act of publishing the text links is all it takes to earn money under the other model. And depending on the default level you set for editorial oversight, text link ads can run themselves as easily as the AdSense script.
3. While one could argue that visitors to the site might actually be interested in contextual ads and that text links, by comparison, are simply link spam –i.e., that I’d be doing my readers a disservice by switching to text ads — the truth is that I don’t think any regular readers of this blog are too interested in the cheesy contextual ads that get displayed alongside my posts currently.
4. Because text link ads don’t require anyone to actually click through, there’s less pressure to pimp out a site with ads in very prominent locations. (Google advises advertisers to pay attention to eye tracking and heat map studies to make decisions on where to place ads.)and finally…
5. Even if I only sold 1 link a month with Text-Link-Ads.com, I’d still be earning more money than I do with AdSense currently.

Whether you think text link ads are “black hat SEO” doesn’t really matter if you’re the publisher, not the advertiser. Even if there’s a possibility that the search engines start discounting your links by virtue of being lower quality, the only reason this should matter to you as a site owner is if the ability to pass PageRank is part of your sales proposition (which means, de facto, that you were already trying to pull one over on the algorithms).

If you’re a very large site, text link ads look pretty tacky, so I certainly don’t think revenue should be the only consideration when deciding between AdSense and paid links; but on the other hand, AdSense would detract from how seriously I would take a large, would-be authoritative site as well.

If you’re interested in selling ad space on your site as well, visit Text-Link-Ads.com.

1. SEO is not rocket science
2. SEO is not brain surgery
3. Brain surgery is not rocket science
4. Apples are not oranges
5. Oranges have no need for SEO, rocket science OR brain surgery
6. SEO cannot guarantee profit
7. Excellent, “100% White Hat SEO” is no guarantee of profit either
8. Black Hat SEO works sometimes, sometimes it doesn’t
9. Hats can be stylish, with the right outfit
10. Stirring up idiotic controversy about how SEO is irrelevant compared to paid search (or vice versa) is sure to generate heated conversations, publicity that can last weeks if not more, and links to your site.

The Business of Typo-Squatting
Simply buy an unregistered domain that is similar in spelling of a major brand, put some Google AdSense or Yahoo ads on it, and share in all that “contextual” advertising revenue. This works because most web users will click on the ads to get to their intended destination, rather than retype the domain or do a search to locate the correct URL.

And there is very low risk for the ambitious typo-squatting entrepreneur, as the Washington Post explains:

Because purchasers can change their minds within five days and avoid paying the $6 registration fee for the name, many investors enter the names in Google’s ad program for a quick test and quickly drop those that don’t yield enough clicks to cover the domain registration fee.

But others, including those who speculate on potential traffic of a specific domain name, argue that the pages are helping people find information related to what they’re looking for. Typo-squatters and those who provide services to support them claim these pages benefit the customer by making unused pages “function as alternatives to search engines.”

The Losers and Winners
This is a huge problem for those of us who participate in paid search. Every one of those clicks costs the advertiser money. For small business owners who pay a couple of cents per click, as well as for larger businesses bidding one or two dollars for competitive brand terms, that adds up quickly. Basically you are forced to pay money for clicks you are almost guaranteed to get for free in organic search (a search on your brand name).

Result: higher ad budgets (and lower ROI) and brand dilution.

As search professionals, I suppose, we could try to educate consumers about this type of web spam, but there’s no incentive for them to refrain from clicking on those ads. After all, one click gets them where they wanted to go.

It works for the consumer, and it works for the search engine since they (as the owners of the ad network) get a cut of that ad spend. Because Google and Yahoo benefit from the advertising revenue there is a disincentive to pull the plug on this practice across the board. Even when they don their “what’s in the best interest of the user” hats, removing these pages is still not a pressing issue. Sure, they clutter up the Internet with low-quality content, but like I said before, the argument would go, if someone mistypes a URL and then is presented with a link to the site they actually wanted to get to… well, isn’t that better than just landing on a 404 error page?

But as the recent click fraud lawsuits against Yahoo and Google show, publishers are starting to get fed up with those companies turning a blind eye to practices that benefit the search engines at the expense of advertisers. It would be wise for owners of ad publishing networks, especially ones focused just on parked domains, to try to reestablish the goodwill of legitimate content publishers and help unclutter the World Wide Web by cracking down on typo-squatting. Not because it’s in their immediate financial interest, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Mazda is buying PPC ads for the keyword “Pontiac” and inviting a comparison between Pontiac and Mazda. They are riding the coat tails of Pontiac’s SEM spending, since the latter is encouraging everyone to google them (If I’m using it as a verb, it’s lower case, right?). The organic positions are still held by Pontiac-related sites though, and the price of those PPC ads will go up as the two car makers jockey for top position. So while Mazda’s strategy is very clever, it’s not likely to yield them a huge amount of free or low-CPA traffic.

Read How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet in the current issue of Wired Magazine.

Yahoo needs more than innovative products; the proverbial middle child needs to step up its PR. As the article points out, “In many cases, Yahoo managed to launch key products before its rival [Google], which is located just a few miles away in Mountain View, California. But the media and the blogging communities have overlooked Yahoo’s innovation as soon as the search giant launches the same service.”

Aside: Something interesting that caught my attention about the Red Herring article doesn’t have anything to do with Yahoo advertising. It’s that the URL they use to point to it reads:
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15040&hed=Yahoo+Revamps+Search+Ads

But stripping away the stuff after the numerical article ID takes you to the same page no problem:
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15040

In fact, just adding gibberish to the end of the URL doesn’t break anything either. So it looks to me like Red Herring is just stuffing keywords into URLs for SEO purposes.

Apparently the difference in per-click payouts is large enough to outweigh lower click-through rates (according to one publisher I asked, income is up 40%-60%!)

That, plus some recent grumbles that AdSense ads are becoming less targeted and relevant to publishers’ sites, might result in a sizable migration. I have to admit that I grow increasingly puzzled by the AdSense advertisements showing up on many sites, this one included.

AdSense losing customers to YPN is significant because analysts estimate that search advertising in the United States could grow nearly 80% in the next five years to $7.5 billion.

Hope we publishers are going to see some of that come over our way.

Your content is valuable. And starting within the next two weeks, advertisers will be able to bid for placement on your site right from your web pages. With Onsite Advertiser Sign-up, a new feature of AdSense, your AdSense ad units will display an ‘Advertise on this site’ link that takes interested advertisers to a page which you can tailor for your business.

Please note: If you’re already displaying AdSense on your site, you’ll have to opt out of this new program.

But that’s not all. Google is going full out with its advertising programs. It has created a referral program for AdSense publishers to recruit new publishers: When someone who clicked on one of your referral buttons reaches $100 in AdSense commissions, Google will pay you $100 too.

Recommended reading:

• Google AdSense Optimization Tips
• 15 Common Mistakes by Google Adsense Publishers that Violate Terms of Service
• This 8-part series from ProBlogger.net: AdSense Tips for Bloggers
• Interview with Jason Calacanis

For homework, go through these articles and identify everything I’m doing wrong with this blog.