How do Ebay get listed for any search?

including some quiet damaging ones

[realgames]

It seems that whatever I search for on Google E-bay have an Adwords ad with my search dynamically inserted. For example a search for "cheap rubbish" returns the following:

Cheap Widgets
Discount new & used items. affil
Search for cheap widgets now!
www.widgets.com

How is this happening? Have Ebay listed the whole dictionary as keywords with dynamic keyword inserion in their ads or have Google done something specially for them. I cannot believe they really want to advertise as selling "cheap rubbish", "cheap cr*p" etc. They have filtered out some searches as they don't have an ad offering "suitcase nuclear bombs". All very strange and rather academic but interesting nonetheless.

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:35 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[georgeek]

They do have Uranium 235 though....

<snip>

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:36 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[eWhisper]

The 'affil' (often shown as aff), means affiiliate in the ads.

eBay isn't making those ads. Their huge list of affiliates each have their own adwords accounts, and between all of them, they've targeted many keyword sets.

[instinct]

My personal favourite was:

<snip>

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[SteveJohnston]

Maybe they use some form of the {Keyword:} syntax in the Headline and Description lines of their Ads. By anchoring the keyword match on the word 'Cheap', maybe they can present more than just the keyword they have matched, within the creative.

I have only just learned about the fact that this syntax is supported, so maybe there are other ways of using it.

Steve

[justshelley]

Here's one that's really funny!

<snip>

I can't wait to get my USED donuts from Ebay. Ha ha!

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[FromRocky]

Can anyone beat these ads?

<snip>

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Heheh, now I guess it may be becoming clear why I get on my soap box and campaign for relevant keywords! ;)

Now, for a real thrill, imagine the examples you see above, multiplied by about 10,000. I have seen that keyword list, and it ain't pretty.

AWA

[realgames]

Heheh, now I guess it may be becoming clear why I get on my soap box and campaign for relevant keywords! ;)

Hey AWA - but surely Adwords are helping EBay to appear for these completely IRRELEAVNT searches. You can even use random letters and EBay are advertising them. They must have some special deal to appear for all searches apart from a few which have been filtered.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Good question, realgames

All the examples that appear above are not from eBay, but from affiliate advertisers. So they come from 'just regular folks' - not from eBay.

AWA

[farside847]

this is kinda fun...
:)

<snip>

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[jimbeetle]

What I especially like is that, except for the suitcase bomb example of course, all of the examples so far in this thread return something somewhat relevant on eBay. People do list junk, rubbish and cr*p for sale!

<edit>clarity</edit>

[edited by: jimbeetle at 10:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 3, 2004]

[figment88]

I once had an extra bagel from a to go box from Noah's that I tried to sell on eBay. I didn't get any bids, but I did receive several inquiries.

I probably could have unloaded if the AdWords system was around at the time.

[Fischerle]

On a somewhat related note, the depressing thing is that people don't read the terms of service when they advertise as an affiliate. Type in 'amazon' or 'ebay' and you will almost always see an affiliate ad that slipped through the cracks of Google Adwords, despite the fact that it is expressly forbidden to bid on either name. They don't last long, but the infusion of ignorant newbies who don't do their homework never seems to stop.

[edit_g]

<snip>

:)

no, I didn't make that up

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Issues Please. [/edit]

[willybfriendly]

>President For Sale<

Sorry, he's already been bought. You'll have to wait for the new model...

WBF

[rjohara]

Here are some more fun ones for the collection:

<snip>

[edited by: rjohara at 4:16 am (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:38 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] Same as all the others [/edit]

[rjohara]

Sorry, one more (this is fun):

<snip>

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:39 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] Think I need to make <snip> a macro [/edit]

[beren]

The 'affil' (often shown as aff), means affiiliate in the ads.

I knew that, but doesn't the ad click through to the affiliate site? I thought it did, but I just tried one. The ad had the domain listed as www.ebay.com, but when I clicked, it went to another domain and immediately forwarded to eBay.com with a search for the word I had searched for.

Does this mean the affiliate gets a cut of the money even though the user spends only a fraction of a second forwarding through his site?

[edit_g]

Does this mean the affiliate gets a cut of the money even though the user spends only a fraction of a second forwarding through his site?

Yup.

[Sweezely]

<snip>

This could be the new googlewhacking!

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:39 pm (utc) on Nov. 4, 2004]
[edit reason] Think you know by now... [/edit]

[eWhisper]

Due the the possible copyright violations of using real ads (and as I'm sure you can tell by now), I edited several posts.

We don't want possible legal problems, and posting ads written by others crosses the lines.

If you want to write sample ads to ask questions, please use example or widgets for title lines.

The mods don't have the time to search through all the ads to see if they are actual copies and pastes of ads, or just parodies.

Thank you,
eWhisper