Naughty Google

Recently while I was reading some blog I saw a Google AdWords advertisement that caught my attention. It wasn't because the product or service being advertised was something that I wanted to use but, rather, because I was surprised that Google would allow this type of advertisement to pass through their AdWords system. Here is a screenshot of the advertisement of which I speak:

Now, being a webmaster for as long as I have, I know enough to tell you that if you go about promoting your websites using services like this, your sites will be de-listed from major search engines in a hurry. The services that this advertised company offer are designed to send so-called "targeted traffic" to your site or to submit your site to "thousands of major search engines." Google does not recommend the use of such services as you will find in their Webmaster Quality Guidelines but, in effect, by allowing these companies to run advertisements through their AdWords program they are making some money by condoning the use of these spammy services.

Some poor novice webmaster may buy into such a service as the one advertised and be surprised to find that this Ad by Goooooogle has now caused their site to be de-listed or banned from Google's search results because they now have thousands of links from spam sites. And on top of that, they are receiving garbage (un-targeted) traffic that doesn't convert well.

If Google truly wants to uphold the claim that they "do no evil" then they will have to do better than this.