Abortion, Adoption...It's All the Same, Really!

seobook on Tue, 2006-03-21 13:45.

Search marketing

4 comments

Amazon.com recently had to modify one of their search suggestions, after receiving complaints that abortion searches were suggesting pro-life searches.

Amazon.com Inc. said Monday it had modified the way its search engine handles queries for the term "abortion" after receiving an e-mail complaint that the results appeared biased.

Until the recent change, a user who visited the Seattle Internet retailer and typed in the word "abortion" received a prompt asking, "Did you mean adoption?" followed by search results for "abortion."

Search suggest has had a few jokes and few other follies in the past, but none of them have been on life or death issues, at least that I know of anyway.

Comments

Just noticed - where has the

MaxD on Tue, 2006-03-21 14:06.

Just noticed - where has the adsense gone Aaron? Show's how much i noticed.When did you kill it?

aobut a week ago

seobook on Tue, 2006-03-21 14:12.

Week or so ago. Someone complained and I wanted to get rid of it for a while.

adsense removed

wheel on Tue, 2006-03-21 14:25.

Quote:

Someone complained and I wanted to get rid of it for a while.

Here's a vote aaron for going back to the old style of people paying you to advertise as posts where we can comment and discuss. Better for the advertisers (no blindness - everyone reads the threads) and better for us 'consumers of product' :).

I appreciate the input

seobook on Tue, 2006-03-21 14:45.

I appreciate the input wheel, but from having spoke with potential advertisers, few want to be reviewed...they are scared. Also few SEO business models and business people fit all of the following:

honest - ie: no hidden agendas like collecting your data and cloning your business model - this stuff has got called out MANY times on TW
profitable - no point advertising if you are not profitable
needed by TW members
better than what TW members already have in their private collections
understand the value of feedback
are willing to deliver true value - ie: share something other than a crippled down version of their service

In other words it is hard to find advertisers that add value to the average TW reader's day. If they don't add much value to the experience you can be almost certain they will get ripped apart upon review.

There are a few businesses that might make sense to advertise - like a host, a payment processor, affiliate software program - but even most of that stuff, which requires some sort of commitment from the buyer, would be best bought off recommendations instead of ads.

I think Dave's ideas about offering up tools and whatnot directly might be a good call (easier to fit needs if we are tied in directly to the site and model). Also I thought Massa's idea of a marketplace might be pretty cool to explore.