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Assuming your image was of Google ads, not organic search results: eBay might be keying off Ferret (ie pet supplies) I'd guess, whilst the genealogy site would
by pja 12y ago
Assuming your image was of Google ads, not organic search results: eBay might be keying off Ferret (ie pet supplies) I'd guess, whilst the genealogy site would probably be keying off Felicia, on the principle that Felicia Ferret might be someone's name.
You're saying that Google is inserting paid ads into organic search results with no indication that they are paid ads?
No, definitely not - the ads I'm talking about are shown in the sections marked as such. It's just that Google can expand the keywords that the ads respond too in ways that can surprise ad buyers that aren't aware of it.
It wouldn't surprise me if large websites play SEO games as well, but Google will respond to the behaviour of searchers when shown these results and push unhelpful results down the search order - if no one ever clicks on the eBay Felicia Ferret link, even though it starts off being the first result, then it will receive a penalty that ought to push it off the first page of results quite quickly.
(I have no internal knowledge of Google's processes; this is all inferred from watching Google over the years.)
- DanBC 12y agoI am not sure how you could think I was talking about ads. Look at the image - it is clearly not ads. Look at the words I wrote - I talk about pollution of search results and offer the solution of putting these things into ads.
- pja 12y agoMea culpa. You're right - Google marks ads with a yellow Ad icon on mobile.