See adverts before you search Hrush
In its never-ending quest to serve more ads than ever before, Google is now showing you ads before you’ve even searched for anything:
Brilliant. Why don’t they just slap some ads on the home page instead of indulging in convoluted exercises aimed at displaying ads that fool users into clicking.
Oh, that’s right–Google only gets paid if you click the ad, never mind then.
[via Blogoscoped]
I’ve often wondered how long it would take before they slap ads onto the homepage. Looks like they’ve gotten there in a real hurry.
Seriously, did anyone actually believe that the simplistic and even childish innocence of ‘do no evil’ would outlast the commercial aspirations of a publicly held company?
Reminds me a lot of how Cleartrip keeps the ‘I want Insurance for Rs. ___’ check box ticked by default as opposed to giving the user the choice to ignore it.
KC–good point.
Is this the price of giving consumers great products for free?
Well Cleartrip is undoubtedly the best ‘product’ in the online travel space, but my guess is that customer perception of Cleartrip would take a bit of a beating if Cleartrip makes decisions on behalf of the user.
What next? I book an economy ticket and you have a "pre-checked" check box that says ‘Upgrade to business class’ ?
Either way, keep up the great work on the product front.
KC–Cleartrip actively supports customer decisions, Cleartrip is the only site that actually "remembers" your insurance preference. If you uncheck the insurance selection once, it will be unchecked the next time you return.
Cleartrip ‘remembering’ the preference is no doubt a good feature.
Unfortunately the act of keeping the ‘I want Insurance worth __ ‘ check box checked by default doesn’t solve the problem for average users who do not notice it in the first place.
A lot of registration pages for popular websites have such check boxes for subscription to e-mail newsletters, and they aren’t checked by default I(at least on the reputed sites).
So, when something as innocuous as a newsletter is not offered without active customer consent, how can you decide a FINANCIAL transaction worth Rs. 149+ on behalf of the customer? Beats me.
I’ve actually tried different keywords so that an ad pops up but I haven’t found one till date. Any specific keywords?
Karan–it’s not rolled out to all their local country sites yet. It’s still being piloted.