BP bids for Adwords Ads just like everybody else. Adwords and Adsense, Google's huge profit engines, use a speed of light bidding process to determine which advertiser's ads get run in which positions in the side and top bars that contain the 'sponsored links' when Google returns your query to its search engine. Google's ad's can't be 'bought' by BP or anyone else. BP is running a huge multi-media advertising campaign part of which is its Adwords and Adsense ads.i've run a few different Adwords-Adsense campaigns through the years. BP's, though larger, is no different than the ones i've setup and run. BP puts a top price [bid] on how much it'll pay everytime a surfer clicks on one of its ads when it appears on Google's site and a seperate, usually smaller, top amount it'll pay when it's ads that appear throughout the web on pages that contain related keywords get clicked on. Plus BP chooses how much it total it'll pay each day thereby limiting the number of times it's ads appear, once BP has spent all its daily budget its ads are done running until tomorrow [it's being estimated that BP is spending $10,000 a day on its Google campaign]. Further, BP can define which countries it wants its ads run in, at this point they are running almost exclusively on Google.com, the US version, in fact i haven't seen one BP Adwords ad at Google.ca here in Canada.
So, BP is doing exactly the same thing every capitialist company does in exactly the same way and the mainstream media's widespread use of the term 'buy', seen everywhere these last few days refering to BP's ad campaign, is either intentionally misleading or just plain ignorant. All of the media outlets understand how Google's Adwords works, they all use Adwords themselves as well as compete with Adwords for advertising revenue. The term 'buy' in the headlines [like below] are being used to misinform readers on one level but also to undermine Google's 700lb advertising gorilla.
Google's Adwords setup can be gamed in a couple of ways. First, and i see lots of evidence that this is already widespread, like BP, anybody can bid on that top spot on Google's return page. Any Google Adwords account holder can bid on the search term 'oil spill', for instance. Many companies and enviromental groups are bidding against BP for that top spot, the higher they bid the more BP must bid in order to appear which is exactly what's happening on the US's Google.com. Second, we as individuals can undermine BP's advertising/propaganda campaign by clicking on their ads in Google's sponsored links areas whenever they appear on your computer in response to your relelvent keyword searches at Google. Not only does BP pay everytime someone clicks through to one of its ad campaign's landing pages but the more often they are clicked on the quicker each day BP's budget is exhusted thereby stopping its ads and allowing other ads from other points of view to rise to the top.
Google's Adwords and Adsense programs have made Google billions of dollars in the last decade, they are a powerful advertising tool that focuses advertising dollars directely at people who search for terms closely related to the topic or object being advertised. Google/Yahoo's directed advertising schemes are very powerful especially in view of the fact that the majority of people don't know what 'sponsored links' even are, but that power, like the power of a reservoir behind a dam, or the computational power of your computer can manifest different outcomes depending on how it's used.
Knowledge is power. If you have a small budget and a big idea Google's Adwords and Adsense can be harnessed, even one individual, to challenge the schemes of the rich. Learn enough about Adwords and Adsense and you'll see how easy it is to launch your idea out into the river where the big money and the big ideas flow.
BP Buys 'Oil' Search Terms to Redirect Users to Official Company Website
Is it Unethical for BP to Buy Google Ads on Oil Spill-Related Keywords?
