The Trouble With Keywords and Tags...

1. 85

   DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years ago

   This is big trouble, yes indeed.  Trouble with a captial "T,"  Trouble right here in HubPage City. (With apologies to Meredith Wilson, author of "The Music Man.")  ;-)
   
   The trouble, folks, is an annoying phenomenon I've noticed with the Google Ads.
   
   Hubs by folks such as myself, and a few others I've read, attempting to educate the public about societal problems ranging from "the latest new study and fad," to the ills caused by government and corportations...tend to have the exact opposite ads placed!!
   
   WHY in blazes would anyone click on an ad promoting exactly the item or service against which the hub is speaking, especially  when all the commenters agree??
   
   For example, on my hub showcasing the problems with the auto insurance industry, the first prominently displayed ad is for an insurance company!! 
   
   This proves that the search engines are targeting ONLY the tags and keywords, and NO attention whatsoever is being paid to actual content.  In short, the robotic spiders employed cannot and do not READ the article! 
   
   I recently read a hub against the fad of "ergonomic design," for example, and sure enough, the ads were for 'ergonomic office chairs.'  Something is very wrong with this scenario!  Ultimately, it will hurt people's earnings, when instead of clicking the ad, folks will look at it and say "Pffftt!!"  (or worse) and leave.
   
   Somehow, I'm thinking that tags and keywords are actually anti-income with these types of articles.  It's fine, if you are writing hubs attempting to sell a product or service, but if you are writing against those things, then the ads need to be for 'alternatives to xxx product or service.'

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   1. 85

      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      But Lizzy, what else do you expect? They are robots. I don't think they've invented a machine which can read context!  All they can do is look at the subject of the article, and present ads on that subject. 
      
      That's why you can't expect to make money from the kind of articles you mention.

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      1. 85

         DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't necessarily "expect to make money" from those articles... but some might...
         And right, robots can't read...actually, the day they can, be very afraid!
         
         I just don't think the robots are programmed to look further than the title, and search out any 'anti-words' within...even in a title.. a word such as 'greed' should be a direct tip-off...
         As the old saying goes, "GIGO."  A human had to write the program for the crawlers....just sayin' ... ... ...

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            No, of course they're not.  "Anti words" would be too difficult to define - if you can find someone who reckons he could program such a complex idea into a robot, they could probably make a fortune!
            
            Plus, as Susana says - what companies do you think there might be, who would have ads relevant to "anti" corporate greed?

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2. 64

   darksideposted 12 years ago

   This has always been a problem since the dawn of contextual ads.

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3. 43

   Mikeydoesposted 12 years ago

   In due time. Ads will continue to improve, especially if more and more businesses advertise online. Sadly I do notice crappy ads on my hubs at times.

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4. 91

   Susana Sposted 12 years ago

   The main problem is that I doubt there will be many advertisers paying to display ads on anti insurance. The only scenario that I can think of are lawyers maybe? (Or another idea that just struck me are ethical insurance companies, if there is such as thing!)
   
   So if you wanted to try and get ads for lawyers dealing with insurance lawsuits (or ethical insurance) you'd need to change your titles, text and tags to get those ads to show up.
   
   If it were me, I'd look in the keyword tool first to see if anyone is actually bidding on anti insurance type phrases first to see if it was worth the time to change the hub. My guess is that there wouldn't be many bidders and therefore very few possible ads that could be displayed.

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