Ok, although I’m fascinated by thoughts on the nature of the universe I thought I’d make my first post on web matters. And since I absolutely love learning new things I turn to Google a lot to help me find those new things. But I’m growing more and more frustrated by the amount of crap that’s turning up on the first page of searches. There seems to be a nasty trend of spammers deviously plastering Google Ads all over their front pages.

Now I’m not against online advertising.. it has it’s place, and I would like to place my own Google Ad on this blog at some point, but I am starting to entertain thoughts about using another search engine, because I’m simply not getting the search results I want. Two cases in point:

1. Stevepavlina.com – As much as I love learning from his posts and especially his new book, Personal Development for Smart People, it’s plainly obvious that he is deviously making money from adsense ads placed near the headings of his posts.
2. Dictionary.reference.com – I used to use this site all the time but it’s now been plastered with advertising which makes it difficult to see exactly where the search results are.

Ok, ok, to be fair, the latter probably wasn’t sponsored by Google Ads but the point is no less valid: Overadvertising detracts from the user experience.. the very thing that keeps Google in business.

In my humble opinion Google should allow a maximum of 1 ad per page instead of the current 3. Keep in mind of course that Google are not the only advertisers out there anyway. Minimising the number of ads is probably the most viable way of reducing spammers.

The only end spamming serves is a destructive one. At the end of the day if we can’t rely on search engines to give us the results we want then we’ll move on to other mediums of information gathering.. thus destroying the very tools needed by spammers to sustain their selfish goals. Spammers beware!!

Edit: I’ve just noticed that Steve has removed adsense from his site. Definitely a good idea and keeping in line with his recently published book.