Softpedia
 

NEWS CATEGORIES:



NEWS ARCHIVE >>
SOFTPEDIA REVIEWS >>
MEET THE EDITORS >>
Home > News > Webmaster > Google News

May 23rd, 2007, 09:31 GMT · By Bogdan Popa

Google Bans Prostitution, Drugs and Essays!

SHARE:

Adjust text size:


The Google SERP showing essay writing services
Enlarge picture
The Mountain View company decided to block the AdWords adverts redirecting the users to essay writing services after numerous universities complained about these companies. Using this removal, the search giant places essay writing firms on the same list with prostitution, drugs, weapons and tobacco, all of them being blocked from the Google SERP. However, the Mountain View company will start removing these adverts starting next month. According to BBC News, Google informed advertisers about the removal, but some of them were quite angry. Meanwhile, the search giant received the universities' applauds because most of them were
complaining that students are buying essays from the search engine, instead of creating them by themselves.

"Making life harder for these cynical web 'essay mills' is a step in the right direction," says Professor Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK, for BBC News. "We welcome this move. Essay writing sites claim that students pay hundreds of pounds for model answers - but do not then submit these as their own work. We all know this claim is absurd," he added.

It seems that no more than 12.000 essays were sold last year to the students after numerous companies were advertising their products on the Google search engine result page. If you didn't know, Google created a long time ago a special AdWords Content Policy published on a separate page, displaying all the prohibited products that might be advertised using the company's product. Among alcohol, violence, gambling, hacking and miracle cures we can also find prostitution, sexual material and cigarettes. However, it's not quite clear if the essay writing can be included in the fake documents category, because Google says that "advertising is not permitted for the promotion of services that allow people to hire others to take standardized tests for them."

If you want to read the entire list with the SERP prohibited adverts, you should check this page hosted by Google.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

1,490 hits · 1 comment · Link to this article · Print article · Send to friend · Subscribe to news

MUST-READ RELATED ARTICLES:


Hello Google, I Have A Problem!

Google: AdWords, AdWords, AdWords!

Have No Fear, AdWords Is Here!

AdWords Editor 3.0 Available for Download!

Advertise Your Business with Google

READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Jennifer on 31 Oct 2008, 15:30 UTC reply to this comment

Google may list the advertising it 'doesn't allow' but it continues to permit these websites to bid on search terms such as 'essays' 'essay writing' and 'essay writers'. Initially this was under the guise of 'essay advice' but now sites appear that are blatantly marketing essays - such as the 'Essay Academy'. The policy is a sham.

Copyright © 2001-2012 Softpedia. Contact/Tip us at

WindowsGamesDriversMacLinuxScriptsMobileHandheldNews

SUBMIT PROGRAM   |   ADVERTISE   |   GET HELP   |   SEND US FEEDBACK   |   RSS FEEDS   |   UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE   |   ROMANIAN FORUM