Switched Keys

When Google first started their pay per click ad support it was somewhat unintrusive. After a few years the madness has set in. The internet and our access to it (pop-ups) is now as cluttered by advertising as our radio stations televisions phone lines highways and mailboxes (physical and digital). Much of it is Ads by Google.

In order to earn PPC dollars there are a host of tactics that sites use to get users to click. Much of it is deceptive and manipulative. Search engines are flooded with sites with clever site coding that have no inherent value of their own.

One of the most annoying practices in all this is when these PPC vultures buy up previously owned sites for their click through value. You click a search result for something like Tyler hosting or a previously owned domain for a current business and you end up on such a site with ads for other Tyler sites or in most cases ads that masquerade as Tyler sites. Anything for a click-through.

Advertising is not a bad thing but there's not a lot of value in it and when companies use trickery to get me to respond to an ad the rebel inside me screams out. I do shop on-line and I do click links to businesses on a respectable site. But my clicking is rare. With all the emphasis on advertising it's ironic that the most reliable businesses the companies I recommend and do most business with are not big advertisers. Instead they have built a reputation on good customer service.

My rebellion screams the loudest at the biggest purveyor of this madness Google. I search with other engines and I never click an Ads by Google link. I wish I could do more.

Join me.