Nowhere to Click: Google AdWords Ads Without an Ad Title
Somebody got creative over the weekend. Not sure how they got it past the automated ad tester, but I searched Google for Asian to compare their ads to Ask Jeeves ads and found the top AdWords ad did not have a link and title associated with it (and I tested on two browsers on two computers).
Wonder how you get the ad to #1 with a 0% CTR? You could make the ads funny too, like:
I can only afford
two lines.
or
AdWords Ads
half off sale.
I think they know what they are doing. hehehe (they not being Google)
Published: June 20, 2005 by Aaron Wall in google
Comments
> I can only afford
> two lines.
Hilarious. I'm sure without a doubt you'd see your no referrer hits skyrocket if you did it.
This is very clever, and like you say it's beyond me how it's been done. I've slipped some dodgy things under the radar before but nothing quite as radical as this. Then again, those type of things tend to only last a couple of days before they are caught...
PS - To get to #1, you'd have to have a regular ad for the keyword 'asian' and click on it a few times to give the word some CTR, then modify the ad to the invisible title, and bid high enough to overcome the actual ads lack of CTR in order to hit the #1 spot. Not like you're ever going to actually pay the click cost anyway, so I'd say that's gotta be the cheapest way of getting a permanent #1 slot on Google ever!
Hey Aaron, what were you searching for, Google might be putting some kinda filters on ya...
>what were you searching for
can't you tell by the ads? 10,000 Chinese products and 10,000 Asian women.
It is pretty ironic that an article slamming Ask Jeeves for their ads was just published, and the article moreless gave Google the green light.
Usually you see that when there is ad blocking software installed (particularly the ad blocking with Norton Internet Security). It removes the title link, but leaves the rest of the ad. The filter is trigger be the destination ad URL (directory with "ad" in it or certain affiliate program URLs that have been added to the filter). I am guessing ECW has been added to that filter ;)
I was poking around some more, this is definitely not any of the filters, but if you look at the source code, it is actually a foreign language character(s) as the title. I do not have the particular character set required for it, so I see the square box usually associated with an unknown character. So someone from Asia probably sees the correct title, it just isn't in English language characters.
I don't even see squares - could be a browser thing? Either way, could this then actually be a valid way to creatively use AdWords?
Such old news, still in 2005, and I just noticed it now when searching: Search Marketing Specialist on Google. There is a PPC from SoftwareProjects.com. Screenshot is here of PPC ad with no title.
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