HubShout | Online Marketing Solutions

I found this great article outlining the contradicting approach Google uses to defend its arbitrage rule.

Ask.com article

The article defines this violation as "Arbitrage, when it comes to Google AdWords, is when a advertiser hopes it can buy traffic from Google for less than it makes off ads on its own site."

Now there was a lot of back and forth in the comments (on the article), and an Ask.com rep even joined in. Personally I think it's ridiculous to create an loop of ads just to get traffic. It hurts user experience and in many cases doesn't even lead to the answer the user was looking for (see McDonald's + Cheerios ad examples).

So if Google says ask.com is essentially a product extension, is it fair that Google ignores it's own rules? I don't disagree that it's a good rule, but I don't think exceptions should be made like this.

That was a pretty good piece of investigative reporting. She went at them pretty hard hitting questions.

Great read! I always enjoy reading the comments section on a controversial topic.

Ok so... if Google can do it, I can too right? As long as I position my site as a search site for answers? Anyone see a problem with that?

I think like you stated the rule should be the same for all online sites including Google! I say give it a shot & see how long before Google notices & puts a stop to you & your search site!

He who has the power makes the rules.....The Goog knows this.....

Well... technically the ask.com rep positioned the site a search page to get answers, so they said they're following the rules. If we created a new site where we would allow ads to show via Google adsense or some other method what paid us when someone on our site clicked on their ad, then we found low cpc keywords and ran adwords campaigns to target them and get clicks to our site, would it be against the rules if we positioned our site as a new search engine? If we positioned the product to give people relevant answers on topics but also bought and sold ad space for a profit... would we be hurting user experience if we still gave the user sufficient answers?

Yeah, think about that. Any thoughts on why this would/wouldn't work?

As long ans answers are not "sponsored" all should be well...

Did not know what arbitrage meant , did a few minutes of research and all I can say is ......That escalated quickly

Jason... In my first post I explained what Arbitrage is when it comes to Adwords advertising... AKA Google Rule on Arbitrage lol