Thesaurus.Reference.com is a Synonym for Spammy.Ad.Site
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
We have a few clients that sell products that are not labeled as “cheap” but they are considered inexpensive. The problem is very few people do a search for the term “inexpensive”, they usually use the search term “cheap”. But you don’t want to put the word “cheap” in the text so you hope the search engines will figure out the semantics if you use word similar to “cheap” such as “inexpensive”. So I went to the online site http://thesaurus.reference.com and was very surprised to see the amount of advertising on the site and in some cases how far off that advertising was.
Of course every one has the right to earn a living and capitalism is the fuel of our country, but there has to be limits to the commercialization of a website, especially one that is an academic website, or so I thought. But even if you allow the number of ads they have displayed, the sneaky way in which they try to trick you into clicking is reprehensible.
If you click on the image to the left (view it larger) you will notice that the advertisements are the first links you will see to click. Luckily in the subject matter of text ads the ads themselves were so far off from my search term (Homemade Jerky showed up for a lookup of the word “cheap”) that I didn’t click them by accident. But I did additional searches and could have easily been fooled. Some of the ads actually had the clickable ad link read, “Synonyms For” which might lead an unwary Internet traveler to click it.
I’m certainly not idealistic enough to believe that advertising on the Internet will go away or even believe it should. Too many people feed their families and make their living through Internet advertising. No, I’m simply saying a website owner should take responsibility for the ads they show their audience and the consider the number of advertisements on the page. At some point, too many ads make the website in question extraneous, extrinsic, immaterial, impertinent, inapplicable, inapposite, incidental, inconsequential, insignificant, marginal, moot, nonessential, peripheral, pointless, tangential, unapt, unconnected, unessential, unimportant, unrelated, wide of the mark…well, you get the point.
Want to know what Shell is doing?
11 Responses to “Thesaurus.Reference.com is a Synonym for Spammy.Ad.Site”
By Bill (6 comments.) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
It is definitely hard to balance advertising and good content when your on an ad network.
By Eric Gehler (3 comments.) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
I agree with you Shell in respect of how they are blending their ads.
An authority site should be more responsible, forthright, accountable, amenable, amendable, answerable, culpable, dependable, levelheaded, liable, mature, reliable, reputable, sensible, solvent, and trustworthy.
Eric
By Shell Harris (162 comments.) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the humorous response to this post. It was funny, hilarious, rib-tickling…ah, you get the point.
By New Sun SEO (1 comments.) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Thank you for the very hilarious post. I liked how you made a topic that is kind of serious and bland into a very funny informative article. This blog is always nicely written and I look forward to reading more of your great work
By Tracy (2 comments.) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
I know what you mean, the word cheap has negative connotations. I lean toward affordable, it is an ok word.
By ERPUniversity (1 comments.) on Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
When giving training materials and guidelines than ads should not be there. There is a site for Open Source ERP Training (ERP software is enterprise resource planning).
Open Source ERP training. You can surely follow their model for the same .
By Boris (1 comments.) on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
I agree but what are we to do? It’s not likely to change anytime soon. I would consider it good if Google would get rid of MFA sites.
By Ashley Cameron (1 comments.) on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
HI, I agree with you in this case..
Yes, there should be balance between the ads and content..
By free sms (1 comments.) on Jun 29, 2008 | Reply
its true that it’s not the best way…but still we won’t be able to do anything about it…people use it as a means to get money…it has been going on..and unfortunately it will continue on..btw nice topic:)
By Flanok (1 comments.) on Jul 5, 2008 | Reply
I used to be a retail manager and we were always told never to use the word cheap to our products because it has a double meaning.
Cheap could mean shoddy or badly made.
So we agreed we would always use the words of low cost or give a direct comparison of prices to the competitor, so they could see how “cheap” the product is.
However on the internet you need to convert your site and your words to how your customers will find you and the word cheap, cheapest and cheaper are certainly widley used.
It is a challenge
By Jevin (1 comments.) on Aug 1, 2008 | Reply
Thanxx for this lovely post!!! Yeah very true what you said!! i reckon its not the best method!!!