Normally I’m not much of a defender of Google, but as someone who pays a lot of attention to online advertising I think I would argue about the relevancy of the ads on search terms. It really depends on what you are searching for. Based on the millions of clicks and conversions happening every day, it’s hard to argue that the ads aren’t relevant overall.

I do agree that a portion of their success comes from building a platform that worked for small-time advertisers. Of course, do you realize WHY it works for small time advertisers? Because their ads are placed against relevant search terms, users find their ads relevant, click, and convert.

I’m not sure what you mean by putting the burden on publishers. By not disclosing revenue share? Making it CPC only? Publishers of course have the choice to NOT run Google ads….

PLEASE, is anybody really buying this crap? Google turned search advertising into the most profitable media business on the web by following the basic principle: keep your publishers constantly in the dark with no idea of what a good job you’re doing at cheating them.

Fact is: When I google a search term I rarely find relevant ads. Google’s success comes from the fact that they offered a product that small-time advertisers can afford to buy and to make sure they can afford to continue buying they put the burden on small time publishers.