Many marketers will tell you that paid search can be expensive but it is better because it is targeted. Clearly, targeting is better than random advertising – rarely is “random” better when you already know who your audience is; the ones who are your best customers. This new change in search, paid or not… is the new algorithm for ads and even more importantly, content filtering – and called by industry experts – “The Filter Bubble“.

I remember being so amazed – and afraid – when ad targeting was new on Google.

I noticed it when I was getting ads for a potential client. I had been asked to check out their webpage. I didn’t know their URL, so I searched for it under their fairly long, brand name.  After that. I saw them everywhere. I mean everywhere I went.  Every. Single. Page.

Pretty much anywhere I went on the web, I saw their content.

This went on for more than a week. (I didn’t mean to take up their paid search, it just happened.) In my general, everyday life, their products and services are meaningless to me. In my professional life, they meant a lot…but, I am NOT their target demographic as a customer. They know this and appreciate my objectiveness. Whew!

Back then…their paid, targeted ads were skewing my web results.

Or, so I thought.

Flash forward, in less than two years – that kind of advertising is nothing compared to what the content masters are doing to our search today. They have created the filter bubble that is keeping us from ALL the information available on a subject and only giving us the results they think we want to see. Now, I am really worried. We all joke that Google will run the world one day. Is that day here already?

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl