No I’m just talking about Google the search engine. Yes, sites use a service called AdWords from Google to allow Google to put “hooks” into their code to deliver Google ads and track users across the web.

If you have a Google account and have logged in then you go to website.com directly (even without using Google search) and website.com uses AdWords, Google tracks that you go to that site (because AdWords tells them) and then they (Google) delivers ads to you on website.com and pats website.com for it as well as delivering ads across the web to other AdWords sites. It’s why the “allow cookies” pop ups happen now because in the EU they’ve started passing regulations against this type of networked tracking.

So if I want to make a some money I’d make a site called “downfallOfTwitter.com.” I’d use a bot to fluff up content with bullshit, format the site to googles SEO specifications, sign up for AdWords and link it into my site (you basically just copy/paste what they give you and plop it into the header section of the HTML in your site) and then wait for the $$ because right now “end of twitter” “twitter dying” “downfall of twitter” and stuff like that are big time search words on Google. Inevitably my garbage site will rank high due to SEO compliance and key search word similarities yet I’d actually deliver no content. I’d have another one of those sites you’d land on and bounce away from after 8 seconds- BUT- I’d have delivered ads to you and made pennies (or fractions of cents). Throw in a quick Facebook ad campaign for my site to boost traffic, add a low dollar twitter and Reddit one. Make a Reddit account to post a link to my site as though it’s legitimate news in r/News or r/JusticeServed or literally any sub with even the most tenuous connection and then I’m making some dough.

Multiply that by whatever other current topics are trending and I’m officially part of the reason search results are garbage and people know within 8 seconds what bullshit looks like online.