[writepub]

Keyword advertising's entire premise is based on advertising against keywords, the system is working as designed, and I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp".

On the other hand, if the ad looked like an organic search result, that is something I'd totally object to. If the ad is clearly marked, doesn't confuse the user and works as designed, especially without maligning or baselessly smearing the targeted keyword, is it really a shakedown?

[sharkmerry]

>> I do not believe Basecamp needs to buy an ad if someone is already searching for "basecamp".

Did you do the search? I got the same results hes speaking of. If I am searching for "Basecamp" which is a company's trademarked name, they are not the top result. They label the ad, but most users are not HNers and dont notice.

https://imgur.com/a/S03I1zK

[squiggleblaz]

Google ads are, nowadays, designed to look like a regular search result. They subtly show a tag "Ad" in a box instead of https:// in the URL. Once upon a time, they were separated.

If a person were searching "basecamp alternative" or even "basecamp review", such competitor results would be well justified. If it were "management tool", of course, that would be good too.

As it is, it is effectively designed to confuse a user who is specifically looking for a specific company's website. Very few people have memorised the URL of every company they want to visit. Google is the way from a product name to your front door. This is like when you go to a tourist trap country, hop in a taxi and say, "can I go to well-recommended-restaurant" and the taxi driver takes you to "restaurant-that-is-crap-so-they-pay-me" instead and says "oh, the place you want is not good/closed/something, but this place is better". It is not the behavior of an ethical business. It is not the way to earn trust. If people seriously thought they had an alternative to Google, this kind of behavior would spur them on to use it.