Search for "Ebay" Reveals Half Naked Woman in News Results

As part of my research for an article about Google site search, I typed in the search query "ebay" this morning. I was quite surprised when the news results on the first page of the SERPs yielded a scantily clad young woman appearing to be using a Wii with the caption "I Really Should Study". This is an actual screen shot of the search results which were provided on the first page of the Google results. Is this press release marketing genius or Google catastrophe? Full article on using shock in search engine marketing.

As this result appeared under the news results, it was clearly optimized for the term "ebay" and distributed as a press release by a vendor hoping to sell a Wii to every family (or at least every father) in the country. What is surprising is that such an image could be attached to a press release without being caught by either the press release distribution agency or the publisher of the press release. While it is a known fact that alluring content sells, this appears to have stepped over the line in terms of search engine marketing for a family friendly term such as "ebay".

It is a questionable practice at best - using shock value to market a product, especially when you are trying to reach a family friendly audience. In this case, it appears to have backfired against the vendor; when I repeated the search five minutes later the listing appeared to be removed from the results - even when clicking on the extended news results. Translation: no traffic. So while for the few minutes this result appeared in the index may have resulted in a higher click through rate than would normally be expected, a more conservative approach taken by the vendor would likely have resulted in more clicks over a longer period of time.

Moral of the story: if using shock value, be sure to think about your target audience. If it is likely to be deemed offensive and inappropriate, the increased buzz surrounding the shock will likely be outweighed by a negative reaction from your consumer base or the search engines.