Well hardly. I remember Aaron pointing out last May a case where About.com had managed to cover what little content they did have, with an advert. At the time we talked about the tipping balance of the site - at what point do we consider that the articles are only there to support the adverts?
Well that point came for me today. I was looking for a review on Pocket PCs, About.com duly popped up on the first page SERPs. When I visited the page, it was 100% advertising!
Not even a pretense of an article, a hint of a review on that page. Has About.com, now owned by the New York Times, taken the final step in becoming a fully fledged Ad-Only Network or was I just unlucky? And does anyone has any tips on buying a Pocket PC? :)
Nick Wilsdon is the CTO of 
4 responses so far ↓
1 Cody // Jan 21, 2006 at 3:50 am
It is for this reason that I have a filter installed that removes about.com completely from my Google results, as well as an adblock entry that merely says *.about.com/*.
I have considered the site useless trash for years now.
2 Nick // Jan 21, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Is that using the CustomiseGoogle FF extension? I’ve heard good things about that but still not taken it for a test drive. I guess the old-school SEO in me finds the idea of surfers personalising their results a little disturbing ;)
3 robyn tippins // Jan 22, 2006 at 1:20 am
That is unbelievable. Well, not unbelievable, but really stinky.
4 Cody // Jan 22, 2006 at 10:53 am
Yeah, its the CustomiseGoogle extension. Good for many things.
Google personal search allows you to delete search results as well. Two problems though: first, it only works when I am logged in and second it doesnt remove the whole domain, at most its a whole subdomain if I remember correctly.
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