anatomy of a netscam

[Anne Callery]

Hi all -- I'm not in advertising here at Yahoo!, but I can explain a 
little about advertising opportunities...  It is entirely possible for an 
advertiser to buy a word and have their ad come up at the top of the 
search results page for that word.  For an example of that type of ad, 
just enter a search for "flowers" and see what ad is displayed at the top 
of the search results page.  I don't know exactly what words the company 
in question may have bought; I tried a few and they came up consistently 
for the word "republican".  These ads are regular banner ads like the 
ones purchased on regular Yahoo! pages.

But, I really don't understand what the big deal is.  To anyone who has 
ever used Yahoo!, it is obviously an ad.  Even to somone who has never 
been to Yahoo! before, enters a search, and views the search results 
page, it should be pretty obvious that the ad is set apart from the search 
results.  It's in a little colored box and it sits above the line that 
tells how many matches were found, followed by sections with matching 
categories and sites.

I don't want to pick apart the article (Dan Lester already did a good job 
at that), but the overall tone seemed a little hysterical and, as in so 
many articles about search engines, web directories, et al., he doesn't 
seem to know his subject very well...

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Anne Callery                  Yahoo!                 anne at yahoo.com
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