Granted, I’m a little late to post this and the response from Microsoft and subsequent fix was released and distributed in December. But the bigger story here is the ad the popped up inline with the article promoting - what else - a competing product to Excel and the rest of the Microsoft Office suite, Google Apps (formerly Google Documents and Spreadsheets).

The picture is worth 1,000 words and whatever the amount that Google paid for it.

In a new digital age where Web-based apps are hurting Microsoft’s desktop stranglehold, give props to Google for pulling off a marketing double-play: a great ad promoting a solid, competing product, and taking advantage of reverse free PR, piggy-backing on their competitor’s widely-publicized misfortune.

Can anyone really stop Google?

The interface is clean and has the elements you’d expect: A modest toolbar with options for adding, copying and deleting slides, fonts and attributes and paragraph formatting. Google even provides 15 presentation themes right out of the box.

The differentiator for Google is the ability to run the slide show on the Web. You can invite people to participate (share the document), run the slide show (Start Presentation), and it plays - in your browser - with a Google Talk IM hanging out on the right so you can collaborate and annotate.

While all the bells and whistles you get with Microsoft’s product aren’t quite there - you have to admire the power of another desktop application in a browser and wonder at the new realities delivered from the Web 2.0 promise.

Presentations now join the rest of the Google Web-based applications: Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Spreadsheets, Docs, Page Creator (web pages) and Blogs.

While speculation certainly prevails in the industry whether or not Google Apps is ready for enterprise computing, it is most definitely a viable option for schools, non-profits, start-ups and non-computer owners. For the most basic (and even most intermediate) users, all your most fundamental tools are available - for free.

If you have a Web browser, you can sign up for a free Google account and have 2GB of storage for email and documents. If you need more space and can afford $50 per year (a whopping $4.16/month), you can have up to 10GB and lose the ads.

I don’t want to sound like a Google commercial, but you also get the ability to collaborate with others and the services is available anytime using most mobile phones.

The big worry is still the fact that you’re storing all your information on someone else’s computer. How much does the world trust Google to not do evil things? Their mission and corporate policies are clear and straightforward. But will that policy carry on if Larry and Sergey part ways with Google for whatever unforeseen reason?

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I’m still trying to find a good use of dynamic keyword insertion. Clearly, this isn’t it. I have no idea what a cover menu is. If you search for it, the first 12 results are for “menu covers” - in the plural.

Ok, so take points right off the top for bad keyword research. But here’s the page I was taken to.

Now granted, I wasn’t duped into thinking this link was going to take me somewhere useful. Blame me for click-fraud here, if you must. But I clicked the ad out of sheer curiosity as to what was worth paying for such a horribly misconstructed and misplaced ad. Apparently there truly must be a lot of money in trying to fool people into clicking more paid links that will keep spammers and malware creators in business. Maybe it’s the malware authors that are buying the links?

Clearly this is not what Google had in mind when they raised their standards for ads. Weren’t they supposed to get a real human to be reviewing ads, too? That’s what they hinted toward.

But wait, there’s more.

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This ad was at least worded in such a way that I would be more enticed to click on it. Even the URL seems to indicate that this might be a viable vendor. But, sadly, it isn’t.

To the Google folk: It’s sad enough these types of sites still clog the organic listings. They’re entirely more deceptive looking as a paid ad. Is this the new bar that has been raised? Is this where the future of the paid is is going? Or was the announcement of “raising the bar” just a PR spam to justify raising keyword prices?

I’ve personally heard many Google reps say that the number one priority is the end-user, the searchers. How does this help the end user? Where are the quality results I expect as a searcher? Google is still slipping in it’s mission, and I, for one, am starting to tire of the results.

This means that the ad you see advertised in the right-hand column of your Google search results page will link you to a page that is actually selling the product it claims to be. At least it’s supposed to. Google used to rank the order of the ads by a formula that combined how much an advertiser is willing to pay, with how popular an ad appeared to be (by how many times someone clicked on it). Now, they’re factoring in how good the landing page your ad points to is.

Why this is significant

This has the potential to clean up misleading ads and reduce the spam in online ads. Cleaning up online garbage is always a good thing for the end user and is consistent with Google’s 10 Commandments-like Philosophy. Google placed this new landing page factor into their AdWords ranking scheme back in December. However, Google changed their algorithm earlier this month and that latest change has caused a barage of complaints. Why? It seems that Google deems that if your landing page isn’t of sufficient “quality” - they will charge you more - much more - per click. Some who were paying as little as $1 per click are now paying as much as $10 per click. Imagine what that does to their ROI. Even a 10% conversion rate will still drive their ROI down into the gutter.

What is Quality - Google Style

Google has published their own page of guidelines for helping to determine what constitutes a “quality” Web site. (Google’s even assigning something called a quality score to your page).

It all comes down to what all the good search engine marketers (SEM) have said all along: Quality is King. Write for your site visitors.

Google guidelines (the abridged version):

• Have your ad link to the page in your site most relevant to the copy in your AdWords ad. Link directly to the product you’re advertising - don’t link to your home page or other “category” pages.
• Have relevant and substantial unique content. Do not “borrow” copy from OEMs or distributors. Make sure your site is different from others’.
• Visitors to your site should be able to “easily find what your ad promises.” In other words, practice good marketing and help the visitor follow the scent to what they’re looking for.
• Treat personal information of your site visitors responsibly. Tell them why you’re collecting it and what you’ll do with it. Yes, if you place an AdWords ad, Google has a team of people who will manually check your site for a privacy policy.
• Practice good Web design - good navigation, no pop-ups, annoying JavaScript that changes your site visitors’ browser windows or other settings.
• Make sure your site adheres to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

It’s a tangled Web we er, they weave. Despite it all, the Web is still the most cost-effective vehicle for getting your meing branded image. What Google is doing is punishing the bad content providers and tricksters. In the end, theoretically speaking, it should clear the garbage and make life easier for the rest of us honest marketers.