Forum Moderators: open
Article starts with:
Abbott, head of Web marketing for Integramed.com, which sells infertility treatments, considers obtaining an editorial listing in Yahoo's directory "a waste of time," given that 95 percent of his site's traffic comes from pay-per-click advertising in search networks Overture and Google.
I personally am a bit dismayed that users would really choose to see advertising as opposed to genuine results. What does this mean about the development of the web? More and more commercialization and personal opinions (the most interesting part of the web) sidetracked?
This is the oldest piece of 'news' i've seen for a while. Yahoo category listings ceased to be worthwhile when they stopped affecting Yahoo search results, nothing to do with PPC. Most people still click on the 'genuine' listings, not the paid results.
No reason to be dismayed! It makes sense that if you are looking to BUY something that you click on the advertising link. The "genuine" results make it harder to find things to buy as they are either informational sites where it will be harder to buy something, spam, or sites that are there because of the qaulity of the SEO rather than the quality of the product or how much an advertiser is willing to PAY for your lead.
Ive seen the future.. and its good for webmasters, browsers, and the web..
Its PPC for products and services, and the main index for information. Keeps everybody happy - well.. ..almost everybody...
I want information, not stores! I want to now about other's experiences about my vacation destination, diverging opinions about medical treatments or political issues. I want to know what is the best home photovoltaic or stereo system, the history of Baghdad between the two rivers or Baghdad on the bay, the new Athens or Babylon.
Oh well.
sic transit gloria internet
So don't click on the sponsored listings which are clearly marked on every major search engine. There is more information available online now than there ever was before PPC and any other method of profiting from the internet...
The worst that can result from this is a split between free and paid sites online. Sure, you may have to adapt to get the best experience from the internet, but since when was that not a requirement?
