2007-05-24
Dont be evil? Google will fix your typos with sponsored links
David Ulevitch posts about the
"Dell/Google Partnership deal":http://blog.opendns.com/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-page/
specifically about how they create a landing page for all their customers when they type in a missing/invalid domain. The landing page is full of ads (under the fold organic results doesn't count in my book).
Verizon tried this a while back and the outrage was enormous, and they quickly backed down.
"OpenDNS":http://opendns.com came up with a unique workaround for their customer base. They intercept the call to determine if the page is a typo and serve one of their pages instead.
The main difference to a opendns typo landing page and the google one is that the page is 90% organic results *AND* you have choice to not use their service. The choice here is what will keep opendns honest.
I'm actually surprised @GOOG here, this kind of thing wouldn't have happened a couple of years ago.
At least the core-search product team has kept true to the mantra. I guess it makes a difference when they know their customers have a choice.