Lying and Stealing
What Google is doing is unethical because it intentionally causes financial harm to advertisers using their system in these ways: 1) Properly targeted ads purchased at the REAL auction prices generate a certain measurable percentage of sales. 2) Not showing an advertisers' ads for all the SPECIFIC (exact match) searches they are willing to pay for is intentionally depriving them of sales. 3) Selling them garbage traffic that will not convert in place of targeted traffic is fraud. 4) Artificially inflating the bid prices when advertisers are most likely to generate sales (during the holidays or whenever those keywords are in high demand) is immoral. 5) If your ad spending spirals upward and conversion rates drop you are the victim of this Google game. When you try to reduce spending Google's system will start showing unrelated ads in place of those you've paused or even deleted!
CONCLUSION: If you're buying ppc ads on Google's system use ONLY exact match and watch your spending constantly. They can NOT be trusted. If you're spending a lot of money there the only way to control their system is through employing an automated IMPARTIAL third party analytics program such as ClickTracks feeding a bid management program that can immediately shut down spending anomalies before you lose your shirt.
BETTER: Replace all ppc ad traffic with other sources. It is a bad idea to do business with a company that can not be trusted.
AFFECT ON USERS: Google's system is worse for users of their search engine because it does not show them the most targeted ads, is inconsistent in what it does show, and provides a less optimum searching experience.
P.S. Google AdWords used to be an exceptional gift to businesses providing direct access to specific products for searchers. It worked extremely well. (And yes, lots of people DO click on ads and DO buy products and services from those ads.) Too bad Google got greedy and turned it into what it is today.
P.P.S. Why do so many still use Google? Because they have an extraordinary percentage of the search traffic. They sorely need some true competition and for us as Internet users to use something else. Until that happens Google has far too much power over far too much.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
