01 Jul Denigration Automation: How To Buy Black People Online

Google adsense and other Pay Per Click campaigns have done wonders for some of my business initiatives.  Pay Per Click, or endearingly, PPC, works by allowing one to bid on keyword search terms for which they want a particular landing page or website to be found. 

For instance, when one owns a website selling Black Internet Marketing Widgets, and they want to get promotions for said terms, then one can create a PPC account, bid on those keywords and let traffic start to roll in.  So, when someone goes to that search engine, and types in “Black Internet Marketing Widgets”, then depending on how high the bid was, that website will be listed in a prominent place, in an attempt to let a potential searcher click and proceed to the site selling the widgets. 

You pay for the click.  Easy enough?

Well, there are automated scripts that dynamically can assist a searcher by providing a link instantly for the searcher’s needs.  Evidently, they work by taking the keyword of that searcher’s term and then creating a search string that allows a particular site to be promoted. 

In the case below, I was doing searches on the Spending habits of African Americans (BLACKS) online.  Doing a Google search on “African Americans Buy Online” brought me the following search results, in which SHOPZILLA is using this dynamic script. 

THIS is a case of PPC automation GONE BAD.  Buy Black People?  Bargain Prices?  Smart deals?  Shame on Shopzilla’s automated script.  A quick throwback into online slavery.  AND as you can see, the sponsored link is above 14 MILLION results –>  Amazing. 

 The SECOND part to furthering this observation on Denigration Automation goes to Shopzilla.com’s website, where they take their scripting for “Optimal User Search Experience” to the next level and place the search terms (or their variation) into a their web page. 

As marketers, Black or not, it is important that we utilize good old-fashioned sense in how we automate processes.  Does Shopzilla.com know that their script would allow them to gain traffic on terms such as “Buy Black People”?  Not sure…

But do your own test … Go to http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=african+americans+buy+online and see if their Google Adwords campaign still is running that automated script.  Look in the right hand side with the PPC ads… and comment back here if you see what we saw!