When I test search on google to check the rankings of a site I administer I sometimes see it listed in the sponsored results. This is despite the fact that I have never setup an adwords account for this site and I am certain that no-one else would have. Can anyone explain what is going on? Not that I'm complaining mind you!
Cheers
welcome to Webmaster World....
Clicking on the link takes you to the correct site so I don't think theres any funny business going on.
If you do, they could be sending you traffic through adwords and paying less per click than you pay them for each visitor.
When I test search on google to check the rankings of a site I administer I sometimes see it listed in the sponsored results. This is despite the fact that I have never setup an adwords account for this site and I am certain that no-one else would have. Can anyone explain what is going on? Not that I'm complaining mind you!
In my years with AdWords support, bwelsher, I've heard similar reports a number of times. Looking more deeply into it always in the past shown that either:
* Someone still the company thought it would be a good idea to set up an AdWords account, and did so - but failed to mention it to anyone. So if there are other people in the company besides yourself, I’d start asking around. If there are lots of people, then I'd suggest starting with the person who would be your company's equivalent of a 'marketing' person.
* Someone who USED to work at the company, but who has since left, decided it would be a good idea to set up an AdWords account, and did so - but failed to mention it to anyone before leaving. This could even be a high-school student that a business owner had hired for a week, a son or daughter, a helpful intern, etc.
(By the way, all this assumes it is a sponsored link, rather than an unpaid search result that you're seeing - and it certainly sounds as if that's the case here.)
If the above suggestions don't turn out to be fruitful, and you want to pursue it further, you might want to write AdWords support and have them look into it. You can reach them using the form on this page:
[adwords.google.com...]
When you write, send them copies of the ad or ads - along with a list of the keywords for which you found the ads. Also, expect them to ask you for a fair amount of information to confirm that you are the owner of the site.
Quite a mystery! I hope you'll let us know how it turns out. ;)
AWA
Also, you can right click on the ad's hyperlink, copy shortcut, paste into a text editor and at the end of the url string you can see the url the party is using within adwords as the landing page url. Often, a tracking mechanism there can clue you in further.
If you contact AdWords support, they will be able to track it down.
AWA2
... If you have a yellowpages ad for your business, for example, when you last renewed your contract you might have opted for their online package which could include AdWords.
Excellent addition AWA2. Glad you're around. ;)
AWA
