Stealth Adverts

Posted on 2003/07/29 11:54:02 (July 2003) by john.

...appear to be taking over the world.

Just now I needed to find the number for my doctor's surgery, and being habitually too lazy to leave my desk, I thought I'd just try and look for it on Google. So, innocently enough I typed in "Pangbourne surgery", and hit the search button.

Imagine my surprise, when the first item in Google's results had the title:

Penis Enlargement Surgery Pangbourne SAY NO TO THE KNIFE

Ahem. Well I was quite taken aback by this, Pangbourne being on the small side I wasn't really expecting to find a hospital equipped for this kind of, erm, delicate cosmetic surgery. Amazingly though, the address was of the form:

www.blahblahblahblah.com/Berkshire/Pangbourne/

(I've substituted blahblahblah for the real name as I don't want to give them any free advertising)

I had natural suspicions that this was some kind of trick, so, on the off chance, I also typed in "Donington surgery", Castle Donington being the village I grew up in, also too small for a hospital, and lo and behold:

Penis Enlargement Surgery Donington SAY NO TO THE KNIFE
www.blahblahblahblah.com/Derbyshire/Castle_Donington/

I then tried a further variety of other towns and villages where friends and family lived - Stapleford, Theale, Long Eaton, Guildford, and they all had the same item in the results, with the same cunningly crafted URL that makes it look like a static page written specifically for that area.

I don't know what view these sorts of companies have of the general public that makes them think any individual will feel good about being tricked into reading an advert they weren't looking for. Surely this is only going to give the average web user a really negative image of that company and generally piss everybody off?! Especially when it is for a product that feeds on male insecurity, and no doubt has a dubiously low success rate (if any effect at all), yet conveniently is sufficiently personal for no-one to complain to Watchdog, or write a letter to their MP about.

It's just annoying that a lot of people see the internet solely as a means to deceive and con money out of the rest of the population.

Annoying, yes, but I think it is neccessary for the human race to remain on its toes.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/07/29 13:53:50.

Yep, that's scary. I tried it with Wimborne. Still if someone is daft enough to fall for it...

Posted by Simon at 2003/07/29 18:14:06.

You mean we *don't* have a Penis enlargement surgery in Theale? Damn... ;-)

Posted by tom at 2003/07/30 16:48:01.

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