Eric Lander wrote an interesting post over at Search Engine Journal about a "flaw" in Google's behavioral targeting.

Here's an example:

First, do a search for "florida ford dealers" and look at the sponsored results. Everything looks fine and there are no strange ads.

(Click for larger size)

Now let's do a search that immediately follows that for "new york yankees." Look at the sponsored results!

He and forum members believe that this is a problem. After all, I wasn't searching for Ford that time around.

Clearly, advertisers are put at risk with their ads being served up on irrelevant result pages. To make matters worse, it’s clear that the maximum cost per click associated with an ad can allow it to effectively dominate keyword markets it has no business being in.

In some instances, however, it works well. The chances, however, for that to occur seem to be rare from my testing. For example, I searched for "florida dodge dealers" and then for "car dealers." Only one sponsored result was geared to Florida.

Note that it is the third sponsored result:

So what's your take? Is behavioral targeting a good idea or not? Google has appeared to be unexcited about it and it makes sense. I can see that people are not enthusiastic about it. Forum members hope that advertisers aren't charged as much.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

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