Text Link Ads was acquired by an advertising agency, MediaWhiz, a few weeks ago. That company, in turn, is wholly owned by an uber-boring-sounding private equity firm, Lake Capital. OK. So, why does this boring information mean anything to you?
It means a few things. It validates that text link advertising, much to Google's chagrin, is an ethical approach to advertising. I always believed this. And I seriously doubt a "portfolio company of private equity firm Lake Capital" would purchase something that peddles unethical products. This just adds to the credibility of the link advertising model. MediaWhiz echoes this sentiment:
"Adding TLA's recognized expertise in text link advertising is a perfect fit with our strategy of creating one of the broadest platforms of online marketing solutions to meet the diverse needs of our advertisers," noted MediaWhiz co-president Yannick Tessier.
Several other substantial companies appear to believe in the link advertising model as well. Upon a cursory inspection, I caught the following corporations "red-handed" purchasing text links:
Office Depot over here,
Equifax over here, and
BizRate over here.
Of course if I found these so quickly, I would also surmise Google knows about quite a few of them, too. Matt Cutts has been well-aware of link advertising for a long time. In fact, I know that Patrick Gavin (of Text Link Ads) and Matt Cutts have met for lunch at least once. I'd venture to say they didn't talk about his inventory; but I'm sure Matt has an account.
"Let's not talk about the links, OK?"
So if Google hates text link advertising so much, why does it still work? Google could clearly be much more aggressive about it than they are.
Ultimately, it's only a front. Text link advertising is now normatively acceptable, as several fortune 500 companies are involved in it. It's not in Google's interest to admit it's an ethical practice. However, it is, and it now has an infrastructure built around it. Google wants to sell more text ads themselves with their own advertising venues. Who can blame them? And Google likes to turn everything upside-down from time to time (as they did most recently with the pornography industry *not work safe*) -- but text link advertising appears to be here to stay.
And now a private equity firm agrees, too.
November 21st, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I think it's less of a problem than some imagine since site with higher PageRank and thus search credibility also tend to be more selective about who they link to. If only crappy site sell links to other crappy sites, what's the big deal?
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:24 am
Jerusalem Post is a crappy site (look at the bottom of their pages)? I don't think so. I could dig out quite a few more of such sites too.
November 22nd, 2006 at 6:39 am
Google are so wrong on this issue - the fact that we even have a link economy is down to them yet they deny it exists.
I think they need to wake up and start to realise that the genie aint going back in the bottle....
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:03 am
I've been starting with text-links for a few weeks now, and must say: what's the big deal? it's nice for people to pay money to get a high ranking, and it's nice to people who offer place on their sites and get money from text-links
good system
though you've got a point in the crappy sites bring good sites down
Linda
http://www.prosearch.org
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:04 am
I think we're agreeing here.
I'm not in any way suggesting that the Jerusalem Post or similar sites are crappy. The point was that non-crappy sites don't tend to link to crappy sites. I think we'd both be shocked to find text link ads or any other form of advertising on sites like that for crappy sites. I'm writing this from my Treo, so can't easily take a peak at the ads on the Jerusalem Post's site but would be shocked to find anything related to adult industries or pyramid marketing scams. This, to me, shows that text link ads can promote good sites while not helping crappy ones.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:51 am
Would Google have to be careful clamping down on other advertising practices from an anti-competitive standpoint?
They have it in their power only to list sites that carry their advertising, and the only valid links are paid Google adverts.
But they wouldn't do that.
Here are some related interesting links
A recent Matt Cutts interview on text links and paid posts
http://videos.webpronews.com/2006/11/21/pubcon-exclusive-interview-with-matt-cutts/
They know what you are up to
This thread on SEW is also interesting
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=90316#post90316
I think Google can detect text links using algorithms. The big question is if counteracting text links might be an anti-trust issue.
Yahoo and other directories are a paid link, though vetted. The same could be argued for many text link forms of advertising.
November 26th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
This is why google is moving towards using more user data profiling for serps. They need a way to move away from linking as a form of trust indicator.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
I've heard rumors that a major national electronics retailer is buying text links too.. and spending more than $10k per month..
November 28th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
[...] They boldly claim that they have the fewest dropped calls of any wireless network. That's wonderful. But with one of their competitors, T-mobile, paying for text links, I can surmise that wasting any URL equity at all is just plain silly. And that's just what they're doing. Let's take a look: [...]