7 ms·

Basecamp's Protest Google Ad

107 points by bradleybuda 7y ago

writepub 7y ago
Keyword advertising's entire premise is based on advertising against keywords, the system is working as designed, and I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp". On the other hand, if the ad looked like an organic search result, that is something I'd totally object to. If the ad is clearly marked, doesn't confuse the user and works as designed, especially without maligning or baselessly smearing the targeted keyword, is it really a shakedown?
- sharkmerry 7y ago
  >> I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp". Did you do the search? I got the same results hes speaking of. If I am searching for "Basecamp" which is a company's trademarked name, they are not the top result. They label the ad, but most users are not HNers and dont notice. https://imgur.com/a/S03I1zK https://imgur.com/a/S03I1zK
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Google ads are, nowadays, designed to look like a regular search result. They subtly show a tag "Ad" in a box instead of https:// https:// in the URL. Once upon a time, they were separated. If a person were searching "basecamp alternative" or even "basecamp review", such competitor results would be well justified. If it were "management tool", of course, that would be good too. As it is, it is effectively designed to confuse a user who is specifically looking for a specific company's website. Very few people have memorised the URL of every company they want to visit. Google is the way from a product name to your front door. This is like when you go to a tourist trap country, hop in a taxi and say, "can I go to well-recommended-restaurant" and the taxi driver takes you to "restaurant-that-is-crap-so-they-pay-me" instead and says "oh, the place you want is not good/closed/something, but this place is better". It is not the behavior of an ethical business. It is not the way to earn trust. If people seriously thought they had an alternative to Google, this kind of behavior would spur them on to use it.
Keverw 7y ago
I hate how the ads people confuse as actual results... Stuff like this happens on other search engines too, not just a Google problem. someone I know was looking for a open source office suite and downloaded one that had adware installed. Same software, but with bundled extra junk, so they just made a new installer and splash page for it. So people don’t realize it’s not the official site but see it as the first result. Then someone was running keywords for a broker for retirement accounts but when you clicked it you got a fake anti-virus wanting you to call a boiler room in India pretending they are from Microsoft. Non tech savvy people including the elderly falls for this stuff mistakenly. I see it as a form of elder abuse. I had to help a relative clean up after that and they had to also contact their bank. I understand advertising is so they can provide free services but I wish advertising was done more ethical. However with ad blockers some news sites want you to pay too, which I don’t really want a subscription for every news site I might see a link to a article for. I used to be against ad blockers but with all this shady stuff I don’t blame people anymore for using them. So don’t really want to pay for things, but wish the ads would more transparent and sites could offer a reasonable priced premium option to remove ads and some extra features. I know people like to hate on Google lately and other big tech, but I feel they have contributed a lot to society and even open sourced a lot of great stuff such as the V8 Engine used by Chrome and Node. I just wish advertising was better and if anything goes wrong actually being able to get ahold of someone for help would be great, especially when paying for stuff. I think at one point the advertisements used to have a yellow background instead of blending in with search results, but that was probably like a decade ago if my memory is right. Seems like every few weeks there's some support horror story with Google, someone had issues with their Google Fi, their Android app on the market, someone recently claimed they were banned from Adwords for using the Apple Card, etc... So I'm a bit conflicted when it comes to companies as I like some things they do but not a fan of others. Same with Microsoft, but they have opened up more as a company supporting open source and Windows 10 looks really great even though I wish it had a *nix foundation under the hood. So personally not a huge fan of Windows, but I sure like Xbox and TypeScript. Even Microsoft Office on a Mac is popular. So I guess I just pick and chose and not really loyal to any tech company. Also I have the React Chrome extension which lights up blue for sites using it, and so ironic Twitter uses React, a technology built by Facebook which I see them as competitors. Tech seems like a weird industry sometimes. But then again the iPhone has parts made by Samsung in it. I guess the same happens in the car industry, where some companies use each others parts. Netflix uses AWS, while Amazon is also offering it's own competing video service.
squiggleblaz 7y ago
Isn't this trademark infringement? Or perhaps it's time we extended some IP law to protect smaller companies against bigger ones for a change.
- kazinator 7y ago
  "base camp" is a term in the English language; gluing the words together without a space doesn't materially change this.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    Sure, if they were advertising places to go camping maybe. But in the field of project management tools, it has a specific meaning. Trademarks are always field specific. J. R. McDonald could start a carting business called "McDonalds Carting" with no real problem. But they would struggle to get away with starting a burger restaurant called "McDonald's Fine Burgers".
- wmf 7y ago
  https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118 https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118 Sounds like Google considers it OK as long as the ads don't mention Basecamp by name.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    Google doesn't make trademark law nor do they get decide if some behavior follows the law or not. Google obviously considers it okay; they get to profit from both the aggrieved party and the malicious party. The question of whether a business practice is illegally unethical should not be determined by a person who profits from it.
    - wmf 7y ago
      I assume Google's policy is informed by trademark law and all the lawsuits that they have defended. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2015/06/02/google-and-yahoo-defeat-last-remaining-lawsuit-over-competitive-keyword-advertising/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2015/06/02/google-a...
Nicksil 7y ago
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp Yields Basecamp's website as first result on desktop[1] and, hell, even gives a Wikipedia snippet when on mobile[2]! Thanks, DuckDuckGo! [1] https://i.imgur.com/XBI4Wxs.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XBI4Wxs.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/BaPuiUO.png https://i.imgur.com/BaPuiUO.png DuckDuckGo > Google
- tqi 7y ago
  FWIW when I refresh the page I get ads for monday.com [1] and visymo.com [2]. [1] https://imgur.com/a/cffTwf7 https://imgur.com/a/cffTwf7 [2] https://imgur.com/a/Y1HoGBr https://imgur.com/a/Y1HoGBr
- mcv 7y ago
  I see a zoro.com ad above the first result on DDG.
mikepurvis 7y ago
Maybe I'm just not in a targeted locale, but the "basecamp" serp on Google for me looks totally reasonable: https://imgur.com/AVRTl60 https://imgur.com/AVRTl60 If anything, this is an over-commitment to a single interpretation of that query, which could also be about a variety of different topics, including climbing, an Airstream trailer, and others which appear farther down the page.
- ac29 7y ago
  You must have an Ad blocker - there are no ads in your picture. If I search without an Ad blocker, I see an ad for a competing product before the organic basecamp result.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    Oh shoot, I totally do. Well that explains that, sorry for the noise.
Joakal 7y ago
Can anyone see if you can put an ad for DuckDuckGo for looking up "Google"? If not, this is Google not playing by their own rules. Edit: looking up DuckDuckGo on Google, it's weird to see a DDG ad top result and DDG organic as second result on Google. There's no competition but money will still go to Google.
- buboard 7y ago
  > it's weird to see a DDG ad top result and DDG organic and google will never introduce an option to not show an ad if you 're the first result anyway.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I generally click the organic result for companies I like, and click the ad for companies I don't like. No idea if it matters.
    - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
      Google earns money anyway
      - mcv 7y ago
        Do they get money just for placement? I actually thought they got money for clicks. Although in that case it's entirely possible that my reaction is exactly the wrong way around: Google will probably be more likely to place the ad that gets clicks than the one that doesn't.
        ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
        it depends on how you setup the ad. Conversions/ Clicks/ Impression etc.
kull 7y ago
We had a competition using our name in ads, we sent complain to google legal team as we have trademark on our company name. It fixed the issue of competitors not using our name in the content of ads but they still show ads when our name is googled. At one point we just gave up to fight with it.
- romanovcode 7y ago
  Yeah, this is exactly what Google replied to this tweet. https://twitter.com/GoogleAds/status/1169040432787013632 https://twitter.com/GoogleAds/status/1169040432787013632
amadeuspagel 7y ago
It's incredible how entitled people are. Explaining why your product is better then basecamp is a perfectly legitimate use of an ad. It's something that people who google "basecamp" rather then typing in the URL might be interested in.
- marcosscriven 7y ago
  Can DuckDuckGo advertise on Google with “Google” as a keyword?
  - mcv 7y ago
    Not according to the article. And that might be a good basis for an anti-trust case.
- mattigames 7y ago
  I think it's incredible how naive people are; a lot of people just click the first search result without giving it much thought because they assume searching for "Basecamp" makes the first result automatically "Basecamp"; plus anyone with deep pockets can get the first 4 places even if their products is way worse and even damaging for the user.
Zanni 7y ago
This is a Good Thing. Competitors with more money are going to do everything they can to get their product info in front of curious eyeballs. You want them to do it via obvious paid advertising rather than black hat SEO. And contrary to Jason Fried, I think the ads are well differentiated, and it's easy to skim past them to the first organic search result. Though you could argue that there are too many of them. Two or three seems more reasonable than four, which pushes the organic results pretty low on the page.
- tekstar 7y ago
  You are Plain Wrong. It's a terrible thing. Due to the risks inherent to black hat SEO (delisting), serious non-shady companies wouldn't use it to compete on a competitor keyword. This isn't 2011. Companies that are going to use black hat SEO are still going to use black hat SEO, they aren't going to switch to the ad marketplace. Take a second and consider who these ads benefit. Having to compete in paid listings on your own trademark benefits Google, firstly. Secondly, I guess it benefits deep-pocketed competitors who can position themselves above the top organic result. It absolutely does NOT benefit users, and it is an outright tax on the company owning the trademark (who users are obviously attempting to reach via Google). It is a Bad Thing. Unless you're Google.
- fasicle 7y ago
  "it's easy to skim past them to the first organic search result" From my experience, so few people actually do this. When I watch friends or family use Google, they almost always click on the first or second result without thinking that it is probably an ad.
  - dhagz 7y ago
    It really is an amazing example of a healthy pattern becoming dark after awhile. Google spent years establishing themselves as the best search engine, to the point where you would want to click on the first result. Then, they slowly start adding ads, but the ads look like ads and people can easily ignore them. Until one day, someone at Google realizes that if the ads looked more like actual search results more people would click on them - meaning Google could make more money.
jiveturkey 7y ago
I usually shake my head at these rants, but The real problem here is not the ads per se. It's that they are not marked well, so users are tricked into clicking them. I've seen the ads degrade over all these years from clearly obvious, to plausible-deniability obvious. This is actively harmful to users. I find basecamp to be pretty mediocre but I'm glad they've raised this issue in a public enough way that Google was forced to respond. Too bad their response just cemented the notion that they don't care about users anymore. You do have to laugh when they say with a straight face, "it's for the users". Basecamp: > When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own brand name, you’re forced to pay up if you want to be found. It’s a shakedown. It’s ransom. But at least we can have fun with it. Search for Basecamp and you may see this attached ad. Google: > To provide users with the most relevant ads, ... implying that ads are a service for the users. lol. It's official, Google sucks.
mikestew 7y ago
I think part of the problem is that folks didn't notice when Google transitioned from a search engine to an ad engine. For a long time we collectively thought of Google as a search engine, and a damned fine one it was. But we missed the switcheroo, and now we get pissed off when we try to treat an ad engine as if it is the old Google search engine.

107 points by bradleybuda 7y ago

Keyword advertising's entire premise is based on advertising against keywords, the system is working as designed, and I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp". On the other hand, if the ad looked like an organic search result, that is something I'd totally object to. If the ad is clearly marked, doesn't confuse the user and works as designed, especially without maligning or baselessly smearing the targeted keyword, is it really a shakedown?

sharkmerry 7y ago
>> I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp". Did you do the search? I got the same results hes speaking of. If I am searching for "Basecamp" which is a company's trademarked name, they are not the top result. They label the ad, but most users are not HNers and dont notice. https://imgur.com/a/S03I1zK https://imgur.com/a/S03I1zK
squiggleblaz 7y ago
Google ads are, nowadays, designed to look like a regular search result. They subtly show a tag "Ad" in a box instead of https:// https:// in the URL. Once upon a time, they were separated. If a person were searching "basecamp alternative" or even "basecamp review", such competitor results would be well justified. If it were "management tool", of course, that would be good too. As it is, it is effectively designed to confuse a user who is specifically looking for a specific company's website. Very few people have memorised the URL of every company they want to visit. Google is the way from a product name to your front door. This is like when you go to a tourist trap country, hop in a taxi and say, "can I go to well-recommended-restaurant" and the taxi driver takes you to "restaurant-that-is-crap-so-they-pay-me" instead and says "oh, the place you want is not good/closed/something, but this place is better". It is not the behavior of an ethical business. It is not the way to earn trust. If people seriously thought they had an alternative to Google, this kind of behavior would spur them on to use it.

Keverw 7y ago

I hate how the ads people confuse as actual results... Stuff like this happens on other search engines too, not just a Google problem. someone I know was looking for a open source office suite and downloaded one that had adware installed. Same software, but with bundled extra junk, so they just made a new installer and splash page for it. So people don’t realize it’s not the official site but see it as the first result. Then someone was running keywords for a broker for retirement accounts but when you clicked it you got a fake anti-virus wanting you to call a boiler room in India pretending they are from Microsoft. Non tech savvy people including the elderly falls for this stuff mistakenly. I see it as a form of elder abuse. I had to help a relative clean up after that and they had to also contact their bank. I understand advertising is so they can provide free services but I wish advertising was done more ethical. However with ad blockers some news sites want you to pay too, which I don’t really want a subscription for every news site I might see a link to a article for. I used to be against ad blockers but with all this shady stuff I don’t blame people anymore for using them. So don’t really want to pay for things, but wish the ads would more transparent and sites could offer a reasonable priced premium option to remove ads and some extra features. I know people like to hate on Google lately and other big tech, but I feel they have contributed a lot to society and even open sourced a lot of great stuff such as the V8 Engine used by Chrome and Node. I just wish advertising was better and if anything goes wrong actually being able to get ahold of someone for help would be great, especially when paying for stuff. I think at one point the advertisements used to have a yellow background instead of blending in with search results, but that was probably like a decade ago if my memory is right. Seems like every few weeks there's some support horror story with Google, someone had issues with their Google Fi, their Android app on the market, someone recently claimed they were banned from Adwords for using the Apple Card, etc... So I'm a bit conflicted when it comes to companies as I like some things they do but not a fan of others. Same with Microsoft, but they have opened up more as a company supporting open source and Windows 10 looks really great even though I wish it had a *nix foundation under the hood. So personally not a huge fan of Windows, but I sure like Xbox and TypeScript. Even Microsoft Office on a Mac is popular. So I guess I just pick and chose and not really loyal to any tech company. Also I have the React Chrome extension which lights up blue for sites using it, and so ironic Twitter uses React, a technology built by Facebook which I see them as competitors. Tech seems like a weird industry sometimes. But then again the iPhone has parts made by Samsung in it. I guess the same happens in the car industry, where some companies use each others parts. Netflix uses AWS, while Amazon is also offering it's own competing video service.

squiggleblaz 7y ago

Isn't this trademark infringement? Or perhaps it's time we extended some IP law to protect smaller companies against bigger ones for a change.

kazinator 7y ago
"base camp" is a term in the English language; gluing the words together without a space doesn't materially change this.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Sure, if they were advertising places to go camping maybe. But in the field of project management tools, it has a specific meaning. Trademarks are always field specific. J. R. McDonald could start a carting business called "McDonalds Carting" with no real problem. But they would struggle to get away with starting a burger restaurant called "McDonald's Fine Burgers".
wmf 7y ago
https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118 https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118 Sounds like Google considers it OK as long as the ads don't mention Basecamp by name.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Google doesn't make trademark law nor do they get decide if some behavior follows the law or not. Google obviously considers it okay; they get to profit from both the aggrieved party and the malicious party. The question of whether a business practice is illegally unethical should not be determined by a person who profits from it.
  - wmf 7y ago
    I assume Google's policy is informed by trademark law and all the lawsuits that they have defended. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2015/06/02/google-and-yahoo-defeat-last-remaining-lawsuit-over-competitive-keyword-advertising/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2015/06/02/google-a...

Nicksil 7y ago

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp Yields Basecamp's website as first result on desktop[1] and, hell, even gives a Wikipedia snippet when on mobile[2]! Thanks, DuckDuckGo! [1] https://i.imgur.com/XBI4Wxs.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XBI4Wxs.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/BaPuiUO.png https://i.imgur.com/BaPuiUO.png DuckDuckGo > Google

tqi 7y ago
FWIW when I refresh the page I get ads for monday.com [1] and visymo.com [2]. [1] https://imgur.com/a/cffTwf7 https://imgur.com/a/cffTwf7 [2] https://imgur.com/a/Y1HoGBr https://imgur.com/a/Y1HoGBr
mcv 7y ago
I see a zoro.com ad above the first result on DDG.

mikepurvis 7y ago

Maybe I'm just not in a targeted locale, but the "basecamp" serp on Google for me looks totally reasonable: https://imgur.com/AVRTl60 https://imgur.com/AVRTl60 If anything, this is an over-commitment to a single interpretation of that query, which could also be about a variety of different topics, including climbing, an Airstream trailer, and others which appear farther down the page.

ac29 7y ago
You must have an Ad blocker - there are no ads in your picture. If I search without an Ad blocker, I see an ad for a competing product before the organic basecamp result.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  Oh shoot, I totally do. Well that explains that, sorry for the noise.

Joakal 7y ago

Can anyone see if you can put an ad for DuckDuckGo for looking up "Google"? If not, this is Google not playing by their own rules. Edit: looking up DuckDuckGo on Google, it's weird to see a DDG ad top result and DDG organic as second result on Google. There's no competition but money will still go to Google.

buboard 7y ago
> it's weird to see a DDG ad top result and DDG organic and google will never introduce an option to not show an ad if you 're the first result anyway.
- mcv 7y ago
  I generally click the organic result for companies I like, and click the ad for companies I don't like. No idea if it matters.
  - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
    Google earns money anyway
    - mcv 7y ago
      Do they get money just for placement? I actually thought they got money for clicks. Although in that case it's entirely possible that my reaction is exactly the wrong way around: Google will probably be more likely to place the ad that gets clicks than the one that doesn't.
      - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
        it depends on how you setup the ad. Conversions/ Clicks/ Impression etc.

kull 7y ago

We had a competition using our name in ads, we sent complain to google legal team as we have trademark on our company name. It fixed the issue of competitors not using our name in the content of ads but they still show ads when our name is googled. At one point we just gave up to fight with it.

romanovcode 7y ago
Yeah, this is exactly what Google replied to this tweet. https://twitter.com/GoogleAds/status/1169040432787013632 https://twitter.com/GoogleAds/status/1169040432787013632

amadeuspagel 7y ago

It's incredible how entitled people are. Explaining why your product is better then basecamp is a perfectly legitimate use of an ad. It's something that people who google "basecamp" rather then typing in the URL might be interested in.

marcosscriven 7y ago
Can DuckDuckGo advertise on Google with “Google” as a keyword?
- mcv 7y ago
  Not according to the article. And that might be a good basis for an anti-trust case.
mattigames 7y ago
I think it's incredible how naive people are; a lot of people just click the first search result without giving it much thought because they assume searching for "Basecamp" makes the first result automatically "Basecamp"; plus anyone with deep pockets can get the first 4 places even if their products is way worse and even damaging for the user.

Zanni 7y ago

This is a Good Thing. Competitors with more money are going to do everything they can to get their product info in front of curious eyeballs. You want them to do it via obvious paid advertising rather than black hat SEO. And contrary to Jason Fried, I think the ads are well differentiated, and it's easy to skim past them to the first organic search result. Though you could argue that there are too many of them. Two or three seems more reasonable than four, which pushes the organic results pretty low on the page.

tekstar 7y ago
You are Plain Wrong. It's a terrible thing. Due to the risks inherent to black hat SEO (delisting), serious non-shady companies wouldn't use it to compete on a competitor keyword. This isn't 2011. Companies that are going to use black hat SEO are still going to use black hat SEO, they aren't going to switch to the ad marketplace. Take a second and consider who these ads benefit. Having to compete in paid listings on your own trademark benefits Google, firstly. Secondly, I guess it benefits deep-pocketed competitors who can position themselves above the top organic result. It absolutely does NOT benefit users, and it is an outright tax on the company owning the trademark (who users are obviously attempting to reach via Google). It is a Bad Thing. Unless you're Google.
fasicle 7y ago
"it's easy to skim past them to the first organic search result" From my experience, so few people actually do this. When I watch friends or family use Google, they almost always click on the first or second result without thinking that it is probably an ad.
- dhagz 7y ago
  It really is an amazing example of a healthy pattern becoming dark after awhile. Google spent years establishing themselves as the best search engine, to the point where you would want to click on the first result. Then, they slowly start adding ads, but the ads look like ads and people can easily ignore them. Until one day, someone at Google realizes that if the ads looked more like actual search results more people would click on them - meaning Google could make more money.

jiveturkey 7y ago

I usually shake my head at these rants, but The real problem here is not the ads per se. It's that they are not marked well, so users are tricked into clicking them. I've seen the ads degrade over all these years from clearly obvious, to plausible-deniability obvious. This is actively harmful to users. I find basecamp to be pretty mediocre but I'm glad they've raised this issue in a public enough way that Google was forced to respond. Too bad their response just cemented the notion that they don't care about users anymore. You do have to laugh when they say with a straight face, "it's for the users". Basecamp: > When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own brand name, you’re forced to pay up if you want to be found. It’s a shakedown. It’s ransom. But at least we can have fun with it. Search for Basecamp and you may see this attached ad. Google: > To provide users with the most relevant ads, ... implying that ads are a service for the users. lol. It's official, Google sucks.

mikestew 7y ago

I think part of the problem is that folks didn't notice when Google transitioned from a search engine to an ad engine. For a long time we collectively thought of Google as a search engine, and a damned fine one it was. But we missed the switcheroo, and now we get pissed off when we try to treat an ad engine as if it is the old Google search engine.