Did you see my story a few days ago about the kids with the dad’s credit cards and the hookers? Turns out, just as I suspected, that it was a fake story. It was a piece of link bait.
What is link bait you ask?
It’s a story, post or article that is created for the sole purposed of creating a link back to the originating site. But, not just any link, a keyword laden link. You see, Google uses how many incoming links a site has as one of its measures for a site’s popularity. The more links pointing to a site, the more popular, therefore the higher authority it has and the the higher it will turn up in search results.
You know, this is one of the things that bothers me about Adwords/Adsense.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about Google’s advertising program. I think that it’s against google rules to talk poorly about them, but this is just too much. In a nutshell, the program works like this: advertisers create ads that Google then pushes out to content producers/ providers so the ads can be displayed on relevant pages. As a content producer/ provider, I get a cut of the ad revenue whenever someone clicks on the ad. The advertisers use “Adwords” and the publishers place “Adsense” ads on their pages.
As an adwords advertiser, you can use a technique called “dynamic keyword insertion.” Basically the ad replaces a word in the ad copy with a keyword on the page. The only real requirement is that the inserted keyword has to physically fit in the space alloted for it within the ad.
When applied properly, it produces an ad that perfectly matches the page or whatever keyword the person is searching for. It’s a thing of beauty. When it doesn’t work, it’s just embarrassing. Take this for instance:
I have a post on this page where I’m talking about the cyclone that hit Burma. I talk about all the people that died there, and how the gummint over there is killing their own people. The best ad that they can come up with to post on this page, is an ad for “Myanmar Ringtones”?
What does that sound like?
Howling wind, houses falling over, people drowning? What kind of a ringtone is that?
Of course, you can argue that I should write more targeted posts, meaning posts that target a specific keyword or whatever. Well, there’s a whole industry that does just that, but that’s another story. I guess I wouldn’t be so miffed if I’d written a story about Justin Timberlake, and the ad said something about getting Justin Timberlake ringtones, that would be a better fit, but “Myanmar Ringtones”?
They could’ve put ads for dishwashers, ads for weight loss products, lots of different things.
Maybe I just caught it at the end of a product rotation, and those ringtone ads were the last left. Google only gets paid when someone clicks an ad, so I guess they have to display all their inventory if they want to make any money. I’m really not hating on Google, I’m just hating the limitations of the system.
OK, enough of the whining. I think I’m going to go drink for whining.
Actually, I think I’m just going to go to bed. I’m getting grumpy. Hopefully, I’ll still have an adsense/adwords account tomorrow or whenever the next time they look over the network and figure out that someone’s been talking trash.
Maybe I’ll come to my senses in the morning and delete this post before anyone notices it. I just had to get these frustrations out.
Folks, my girlfriend and her friend Isabel are hosting a Venezuelan food event at Sips on 7th. This is the address of Michelle’s cousin’s soon to be open coffee shop. If you’re in Austin for SXSW, or just happen to be in town for any reason, come by after 7 pm and have a taste of some Venezuelan food. They’re serving arepas in three varieties:
Reina pepiada (chicken and avocado)
Domino (black beans and white cheese)
Jamon y queso (ham and yellow american cheese)
They also have an assortment of soft drinks and l’il D is selling twizzlers and gum. Come on down to Sips on 7th at 1405 E 7th street and get you some arepas!
