potentialgeek - 7:11 am on Apr 24, 2007 (gmt 0)

I've also seen so many fraudulent ads by AdWords abusers. I've banned many of them, but already reached the 200 limit.

Their link titles look attractive and optimized for relevance--they 'tell' consumers what they want to 'hear.' But they mislead the public, leading them to, among other destinations, a search engine whose results are new ad links of another online advertising company other than Google.

Sometimes I'll check the site's home page, but it won't even have one! How did Google give it an AdWords account?! These aren't even MFAs--nothing is "made." It's contentless trash.

The fraud is rampant, because the ads aren't approved before publication, and not checked by Google after they are published.

The sad thing is even reputable companies are now joining in using misleading ads (esp. titles) like the Black Hat AdWords crooks they would never get away with in a paper or magazine--or even attempt!

I felt like putting a warning notice on my site:

"If you find ads misleading, please report to Google... Apologies in advance. Google has an awful screening system... if the domain listed in the ad is weird, the ad is probably bogus. Google offers many useless, time-wasting, misleading ads. Its team of talented engineers is currently working on a solution."

Google needs a craigslist bad ad flagging system. Go Google PhDs! See if you can figure out the code. Tip: View > Source.

p/g