Search Sanity or Insanity?

Paid listings blocking software.

[Fruit and Veg]

Basically it's some software that can block paid ads so the user only see's 'organic search results'.

Mentioned in - internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3286781

Here's the co - intermute.com/news_detail_120803.html (is that domain name tinged with prophetic irony?)

And here's a quote from the CEO - "Search Engines have lost their way and tarnished their credibility. Instead of first displaying the most relevant search results, most Search Engines now show the highest paying ad-sponsored results," said Ed English, CEO, InterMute. "AdSubtract's Search Sanity feature allows users to roll back the Internet to the good old days of search engines, when relevance mattered most. Paid search results disappear, with Search Sanity enabled."

I think he's overdosed on nostalgia.

What do you reckon my searched obsessed friends?

[sem4u]

I wonder what would happen if you used it on Dogpile.com or Excite.com.

I don't think it will catch on and anyway how would search engines be able to make money without showing sponsored links?

[AWildman]

I reckon that people won't get this software. The sponsored links are easy to distinguish from the rest, at least on Google.
Sides, how does this software distinguish between results that are only at the top cause they pay and results that would have been at the top whether or not they had paid? Its unfair that one's results would be filtered out simply cause one pays to have them at the top even though they would be at the top of "organic" results. I'm sure there are companies that paid their way to the top but that also would get that top position anyhow, even if they didn't pay.
BTW - I don't pay.

[Fruit and Veg]

The url of the link shows if a link is paid or not, that's how I pressume the soft(spy)ware spots it (I haven't used it btw).

'anyway how would search engines be able to make money without showing sponsored links?' - exactly!

[AWildman]

I understand that finding the paid results is easy enough, but what I wonder is would those results be at the top for that search regardless of whether the company paid to have it there. If that is that case, i.e. - the site would be listed in the top spot with or without paying - then using software that auto filters anything paid could potentially remove worthwhile results.

[jesd]

What a waste of development time. With the actual postion, style, and url tags of paid listings...how could they keep up with the changes to spot these listings? Do you have to pay for the software? Then the updates to keep up with an ever changing enviornment? If not, what do they (the developer of the program) get out of it?

Nothing is done for free! To me this just sounds like a way for them to track you searches for other reasons. Maybe your paid listings would not show up...but I bet you get alot more junk email or pop-ups or something up that alley. A new twist on spyware maybe?

Maybe I am just to conspiricy driven though.........

[dirkz]

Could be quite useful for MSN.de or AV.com :-)

[woop01]

Adsubstract is the company that creates software to block all of the big three affiliate network ads and the has its own affiliate program to promote itself.