Comments on: AdWords black box darkens http://yardley.ca/2005/12/09/adwords-black-box-darkens/ greg yardley on online product management Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:04:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Greg http://yardley.ca/2005/12/09/adwords-black-box-darkens/comment-page-1/#comment-455 Greg Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:16:58 +0000 http://yardley.ca/merge/?p=189#comment-455 Funny how they are not removing spammy/arbitrage sites, just charging them more. So do they really care about the user experience, or is this a way to maximize revenues from sites that are gaming he system? Funny how they are not removing spammy/arbitrage sites, just charging them more. So do they really care about the user experience, or is this a way to maximize revenues from sites that are gaming he system?

]]> By: John K http://yardley.ca/2005/12/09/adwords-black-box-darkens/comment-page-1/#comment-454 John K Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:34:46 +0000 http://yardley.ca/merge/?p=189#comment-454 Early this year, I thought that Google would scare off the mom&pop types with all the new complexity, and lose "diversity" with the result being a ton of Amazon, Ebay, NexTag generic advertiser ads like: Buy {Keyword:} Compare prices on {Keyword} Free Shipping. www.bla.com However, that hasn't seemed to happen. Google does react to things (like when they targeted reduction of affliate ads). If anything, they've moved to where the real money is, luring bigger and bigger players with all the complex features. So now the big offline advertisers are starting to spend dough on Google. That's not gonna get smaller. As long as they can hire an SEM who can get them 2X ROI on their ad spend, they're gonna be very happy to keep pushing dough to search. So Google can afford to piss off a lot of people - because the ROI is still there, the macro economics are good, and the competition still sucks. And re: arbitrage - it's all temporary. Arb opps may go away quicker when a bunch of math people control the black box that the arbitrage was based around. Early this year, I thought that Google would scare off the mom&pop types with all the new complexity, and lose “diversity” with the result being a ton of Amazon, Ebay, NexTag generic advertiser ads like:

Buy {Keyword:}
Compare prices on {Keyword}
Free Shipping.
http://www.bla.com

However, that hasn’t seemed to happen. Google does react to things (like when they targeted reduction of affliate ads). If anything, they’ve moved to where the real money is, luring bigger and bigger players with all the complex features.

So now the big offline advertisers are starting to spend dough on Google. That’s not gonna get smaller. As long as they can hire an SEM who can get them 2X ROI on their ad spend, they’re gonna be very happy to keep pushing dough to search.

So Google can afford to piss off a lot of people – because the ROI is still there, the macro economics are good, and the competition still sucks.

And re: arbitrage – it’s all temporary. Arb opps may go away quicker when a bunch of math people control the black box that the arbitrage was based around.

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