*Sorry about the spelling in the title^ I thought i'd write a summary of what my upcoming 'competition' will be on google. As i expected before even starting. The advertisements running on the google's engine are damn near not relevant at all to the seach phrases. Nor at all what the (average) user would be looking for. It goes w/out saying that i personally will not be able to afford directly competing with these advertisers (on the engine) Regardless of the fact that i have & will have exactly what these phrases are looking for. On a much larger level too. (i know this from exp) It isn't that there's no other 'real' competition. It's that these advertisements are purely driven by money, and not at all relevance. As you'll see.. we only found *1* (2 if you wanted to argue) ~relevant advertisements through all of this searching. And i use relevant very loosely. The first search phrase i am going to use is http://www.google.com/search?num=100...ds&btnG=Search 'free rss news feeds' I am not clicking the advertisements, going straight to the domains. Ok so what can we expect for advertisements from google? Let's take a look. #1: WorldVision.org WorldVision, offers a whopping 3 proprietary feeds. It goes w/out saying that these people have an agenda and it's in every article. I'm not saying this isn't relevant. Or they are bad people at all. However you would think the first hit would contain more then 3 feeds. Not ran by a Religious organization. Furthermore none of the feeds they offered passed the w3 validator. #2 RSS.InfoWorld.com These people have several open feeds. Unfortunately. It's entirely tech news specific. Again not saying it isn't relevant But why would one assume the user is looking for tech news? - Their feeds do not pass validation. #3 NewsUSA.com Template anyone? There's actually no public feeds available here. Not only that, but you can't even click on the articles they claim are in the feed. Also, there seems to be an utter neglect of having any 'real' news here. As in no world news, political, location specific etc.. At glance, you would question the integrity of their apparent feeds all together. - These people want you to sign up. Which i did not do. #4 NewsFeedMaker.com Their main page couldn't possibly have less content. Then come to find out, navigating through their menus...There is no feed here. Once you click on what you would want. They ask for registration. And i would bet it sends you a proprietary non-RSS link. Lastly, they require a 'URL' in order to get the link sent to you. Why would one assume i have a URL? #5 ChannelWeb.com These people have 'news' Unfortunately it's all tech related. The main feed i tested failed validation. & the majority of their feeds are 'bloggish' #6 RssFeedsGenerator.com At first glance you would almost think this is MFA. There's no feeds linked on the site (as usual) they want registration. I proceeded to check the 'google' (news) box & put in 'politics' in their search/submit/registration box & clicked 'Generate'. I recieved a link on the site, and an e-mail with several advertisements at the bottom. The URL you recieve (although i can't say for sure) would appear to be non-static (very long, and very alpha numeric random). However it did actually spit out a feed. So what's the catch? None of the links IN the feed are pointing to articles. They are pointing to major political sections of well-known websites. I decided to give them another chance as maybe 'politics' was too general. I 'generated' another feed using the phrase 'Bird Flu'. Nope, these are links to web pages/sites. No articles. This is not actually a 'feed'. As it would rarely if ever be updated. It's more of a proprietary search engine that spits out XML links to sections of sites. Useless. Their feeds don't pass validation either. Though you can tell just by looking at it, that it wouldn't. #7 FreshContent.net At first glance you're thinking YES World & US News. Click away.. Damn.. there's no feeds here either. What they provide is some type of strange php script they want you to paste into your web page. Oddly, you can't view any of the apparent articles they are carrying at all. I couldn't find them. #8 Amazines.com Again, at first glance you're thinking this web site is huge. Might actually be promising. Since the first section i clicked on was 'business' and most definately the first 'article' (small paragraph) was actually an advertisement for a website. I decided to give them another chance with a different section. You'll notice that all of their sections are really 'general' and there appears to be no real 'news' here at all. Next i tried 'enviroment' and came up with a 'hate crime' article? The next article was also crime related, the next one was 'political' (all in enviro* btw), next one is about 'a' Mafia. All of the articles in this section were written by one person and are MUCH closer to a 'blog' then 'news'. I can't forsee anyone considering this news actually. I decided to click the 'Free Web Content' @ the top right (because obviously, i'm looking for content for my website right?? not RSS news feeds like i was searching) - As to no surprise, and like many sites i'd seen even outside of writing this. There is no 'news' here. This is a list of services that can be sold essentially. Such as 'Advertising' 'Advice' 'Affiliate Programs' 'Ebooks' 'E-Commerce' 'Investment' etc.. You don't find these on REAL news websites because quite frankly. It ISN'T news. In a last ditch attempt to redeem these people i clicked on what would be the most relevant RSS feeds to news. I was going to go for 'Business News' first but we know how that turned out last time. I hit 'Current Affairs'. Wow this almost looks like 'news'. Sort of.. "Will Germany vomit its Jews out". Can we forsee CNN carrying this headline? - Ok maybe that IS news to some one but lets look further.. After that and one other link i didn't bother with, I couldn't help noticing that ALL the other links in this feed were specific to one subject, and essentially one article that spans 30+ pages long. Also as the others, utterly bloggish. Not really news. Their feed did not pass validation although to be honest i thought it would. But then i saw the syntax errors. Ok so that's it for the main page advertisements. I decided to click the 'More sponsored links' @ the bottom/end of the list. Low and behold. Here we have almost an exact same list as the main page. Only one website, at the very bottom, is different. SO let's check it out. (btw 'More' = 'Same') #9 Chordata.info Oh hello there popup window. Thank you no i'm not interested. *close* I clicked on 'News General' as the others were, 'blah' Ok at first this to be looks possibly the most relevant and promising as any of the sites we've seen before it. This appears to just be links to other Organizations feeds. But hey, that's quite a step up considering. I clicked the first link which was for a BBC feed. Mmmk well unfortunately this is a link to more of a bloggish section of their site 'Have your say' Though they did actually provide a link to the BBC news feed directly. That's a bonus considering. Went back clicked the 2nd link. 'Newsback'. Hey this almost looks like real news. In fact, i think it is. I viewed 3 of the provided articles from newsback and i will say it 'Passed', had relevant news. And links to the original article(s) (offsite) I don't have too much bad to say about Chordata, however their list of feeds is a bit ~blah/small, contains more then a few+ media/reseller/affiliate/blogs/etc.. but given the previous sites. This has to be declaired as the best so far. I liked the fact they provide direct links to the feed(s) from organizations. Unfortunately since these guys don't even actually show up on the google results page (maybe sometimes they do @ #8 (kind of doubt it)) & they are @ the absolute bottom of the 'more sponsored' list - i doubt they get much traffic. Lastly, and not to be 'too mean' but some one could compile a better list then this within a pretty small amount of time. Possibly make this entire website 5x over again. (sorry!) Though to be fair i didn't visit every section of their website as i was just looking for actual news feeds. To clarify Chordata themselves does not have any feeds, they just link to others. Ok so that is going to wrap up Part 1. To summarize, we found one relevant kind of so-so site being advertised, not on the google results page, but @ the bottom of the 'more sponsored links' among an exact mirror of sites being advertised on the original results page. This isn't related to advertising however i couldn't help noticing something on the actual engine results. #3 was actually a link to news.yahoo.com and news.google.com is nowhere to be found. Part 2 http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'rss news feeds' Ok once again delivering a chuckle, i couldn't help noticing on the actual engine results news.yahoo.com is actually #1 now. Hah. Ok here we go #1. NewsNow.net I'm actually familiar with this site. It definately gets the job done. Unfortunately, i don't have to review their site to know that they do not offer any actual RSS news feeds. #2. YellowBrix.com Well hello there register for a free trial templated website. We don't need to review anything much further then your main page to know that you have nothing. #3. CapeClear.com Free Trial? Really? Next... #4. WorldVision see above ^ #5. Reader.earthlink.net I'm sorry did i specify i was looking for a reader? Oh that's right i didn't. #6. ChannelWeb.com see above ^ #7. RSSFeedsGenerator.com see above ^ #8. NewsFeedFactory.com Ok this one is 'different' and not really in a good way. This is entirely Sports related. And i couldn't help noticing headlines like this "BaseballFit Baseball & Softball Training :: Marketplace" That are pointing directly to a clickbank account. I decided to click it, and of course it's selling something. Other links.. are actually links to something on their website, however essentially it's just the title of an article (on a per page basis none the less) provided by whatever organization that produced it. With of course, advertisements just about everywhere. Oh and lastly, and most importantly. There is no RSS feeds here at all. - Almost forgot. This may be the closest to an MFA that i've seen yet. Ok so that wraps that up. To be honest i knew what to expect on this search & results. However unlike the last search, there is no "more sponsored links" @ the bottom of the ads list. To summarize Part 2 - we didn't actually find any RSS feeds at all. Part 3 Now, let's get a little deeper into our searches and find out just how decent some of the websites being advertised here are when getting more specific. I'm basically going to think of a random location and start pumping it in with the addition phrase. http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'Ontario rss news feeds' #1. YellowBrix.com ^- see above #2. ChannelWeb.com ^- See above #3. RssFeedsGenerator.com ^- See above. #4. FreshContent.net ^- See above #5. NewsFeedMaker.com ^- See Above #6. Chordata.info ^- See Above #7. FeedMiner.com Ok this one is new. First glance you're looking @ a search box. Ok not often that this turns out good but hey why not. I'll throw in (of course) Ontario "Sorry. We've encountered an error. Please try again." Well, ok then. I decided to click 'Recent Feeds' on the right side. Ok i won't list what 'feeds' are there, but let's just say. These are not news, and are likely not feeds at all really. 3 links to (what appears to be crappy) .info sites. Through highlighting i noticed some URLS are pointing to XML's so i'll look... This one is religious... and.... this is not a news article it's a spam for a religious website. Also this is far from being an actual XML file. That wraps Ontario up. There's no additional 'More sponsored links' Let's try... http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'pakistan rss news feeds' #1 FreshContent.net ^- see above #2 Newsfeedmaker.com ^- see above #3 Chordata.info ^- see above. no additional 'More sponsored links' How about.. http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'india rss news feeds' This one i thought for sure would have some advertisements but nope. #1. Freshcontent.net ^- see above #2. NewsFeedMaker.com ^- see above no additional 'More sponsored links' Ok these searches are either too general or just not getting me anywhere so... http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'free india rss news feeds' Wow a lot more advertising here. Let's find out just how 'free' things are shall we? #1 NewsGator.com/RSS_Reader Uhhhh mmmmmmm ahhh yes i wasn't looking for a reader #2. RSS.InfoWorld.com ^- See above #3. NewsUsa.com ^- See above #4. NewsFeedMaker.com ^- see above. #5. ChannelWeb.com ^- See Above. #6. RSSFeedsGenerator.com ^- See above #7. FreshContent.net ^- See Above #8. Chordata.info ^- See above. Wow so ahh there you go. This is seeming pointless and i'm going to try one other search at this point. Since we are getting more results with 'free' (although, all but one offers anything free) i'm going to use that again http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'free chicago rss news feeds' Ok instead of listing the #1-8 again... All the advertisements we had seen before. Just so people don't think that the keyword 'free' is whats murdering it here. http://www.google.com/search?num=100...rss+news+feeds 'chicago rss news feeds' Results.. everything we've already seen & even with changing the 'feeds' to 'feed' we still get the same results. -- One of the (high ranking advertised #2 on 'rss news feeds') sites that did not show up during this phase of searching is: # AllHeadlineNews.com I'm not overly familiar with these people. However i do recall dealing with them in the past. As it stands currently, they offer no feeds. It is another pay-for subscription template site. Accessable non-registration content is essentially null. There's nothing here. Additionally although i could be wrong.. i recall they did offer feeds for free in the past, however they inserted advertisement URLs randomly in them. Which was really annoying. (i could be wrong, but that's what i remember) One that just showed up @ #1 when searching 'free rss news feeds' # Infominder.com Front page has ~4 sentences. This is one of those pay/subscription sites that checks feeds for you. Yay. 'Free Trial' Interestingly enough, i added -"free trial" to my search & advertisements that say exactly "free trial" (such as infominder) in them still show up. Also, on that -search, a new site showed up: # nbcsearch.com Yet another no-content template pay/subscription site that has no feeds to offer. --------------- So.. looking back on this how do we .. summarize ... Trash. Yes that'd be word. Trash is what we found. It is essentially impossible that no one in the world is attempting to advertise their legitimate RSS feeds. The 'Trash' we found above here, is the result of money. Not relevance. Not at all relevance in fact. I would fully expect by pure majority if we changed the phrases to any location, or subject. The same advertisements would show up. Relevant sites, relevant results, and relevant advertisers are completley thrown in the 'Trash'. If some one cares to argue that my search phrases were not 'good enough' or somehow bias and thus neglecting legitimate advertisers. Then please provide me with the 'correction' and i will provide a full search & results again. One could attempt to argue that i am finding 'feeds' (although most the time, no feeds at all) but my argument would be, it's one or the other. If it's going to be an in between then we should be finding relevant, actual RSS feeds. I did in fact specify, news & RSS. Not to mention 'free'. One of the most staggering things to note here, is the COMPLETE lack of content at all on many++ of these websites. Relevant content, on any level..pertaining to the search. Clearly means nothing. Many of these 'registration' sites have null content &/or even examples (content). How is possible that the quality score of these sites is not in the negative? One may argue that the (minimal) 'tech' (2?) sections we found IS news. You're right it is news. But i didn't specify tech at all. When a user enters phrases such as the ones above ^ the engine should not assume, nor place advertisers that have this specifically, above actual news. There's a reason why sports/tech only get a ~5min job at the end of every news cast. Don't forget about the sports MFA site we found that was possibly the worst of them all. One may ask 'what do you know about the differences between a blog and news' - And i'll tell you - News reports on events that have been, or are currently happening. - Blogs tend to rant on about ones personal (bias) feelings on a situation. One could actually attempt to write an engine to tell the difference between a blog and news. - Often there is a cross, and even when there is a cross i will stand behind it as news. However if the majority exceeds to be bloggish. Then it is not news. It is ones feelings. Question: What should have been found? Answer: Actual REAL news websites. If nothing else the adwords engine should be picking up on known news agencies that have RSS feeds. None the less lesser known (self ran?) sites that offer rss news. Often sites that seem to be bloggish at first, on second glance actually have really good news/feed content. Quite often you see less 'blog' in it at all and the only reason you think that is the site setup or where it's being hosted. There's no way that no one in the world is attempting to advertise legitimate RSS news feeds. Question: What are you the standard? Answer: No, but yes. Question: How can you expect adwords to know and pickup on the differences? Answer: Quite easily. I'm not saying adwords needs to validate feeds or anything like that. I just threw that in there to make a point. What i'm saying is, there is a million sites offering a lot of news feeds and we didn't find one of them. When the user specifies RSS news feeds, there should be little question as to what they are REALLY looking for. It does not take a genius to write code to filter the crap. That is not the problem here. The problem here is as if, there is no filter at all. It's content vs content. You either have 10 feeds or you don't. The engine does not even need to know what a feed is in order to note, the amount of them linked on site. Again, it's not like no one in the world is trying to advertise their legitimate rss feeds. .
It's mind boggling that Google has sold its sould to spammers. I think it may have something to do with the barely relevant or completely irrelevant ebay ads and ads from other large, big sites. Here are just a couple of random searches: Julius Irving: Sponsored Links Julius Irving Looking for Julius Irving? Find exactly what you want today. www.eBay.com Julius Irving Get new Julius Irving on eBay Express. Happy Shopping! www.eBayExpress.com Physical Science: Physical Science Looking for Physical Science? Find exactly what you want today. www.eBay.com Golf Stroke Golf Stroke Whatever you're looking for you can get it on eBay. www.eBay.com Spammy ads like this lead to ad blindness, increased costs for relevant ads, and really hurt the system. And I don't get it, if they don't kill it PPC advertising will become more important to businesses than phone books and all other types of advertising could ever be.
Its not ebay's fault. What happens is, that you get money for referals to ebay(if somebody new signs up). If it costs a few pennies to advertise thats a huge proffit margin!
Thanks for not commenting on what i wrote and tossing this into a discussion about ebay. Out of all the people that have read this.. NO ONE has anything to say? How many times does this crap need to be proven before the blind leading the blind here take note, recognize and even mention that 'something' might be wrong?! Countless times on this forum i have watched people prove this. Yet somehow the sheep majority, as if this is Enron overlook it all. How is it possible that so many users on this forum can overlook this, that, and everything in between continually. I am by far not the first person to point this crap out. I can change subjects completely and point it out on damn near anything, anything at all. You don't even have to look hard! - Please continue to avoid what is stapled right onto your forehead! If google wasn't so blinded by higher paying+low quality $$ signs maybe they'd recognize what VOLUME means again. Don't you think if all the garbage ads were taken off the engine that the volume of clicks would skyrocket? - What the hell happened to relevant results? do any of you EVEN REMEMBER what the ad system looked like a year+ ago????? Ad blindness is hardly the biggest issue. The "Quality Score" system is a complete fraud - Yes i said it Fraud! "Deceit, trickery, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit" Users are lead to believe that their "Quality" can somehow be good enough to achieve higher rankings. BS - Clearly no one with a quality site achieved that in the example above ^ or any of the other countless examples that have been provided in the past. You WILL be ousted some one who has NO CONTENT & is running a template pay-for registration site that the majority of the searchers could give rip for. THAT IS A REALITY that YOU are ignoring! No one can even define "Quality" Yet every other 5 posts on this forum is another person telling some they need to increase it!