OK since I had no replies I made this up as I went
I guess I will see where this ends up...
Good day,
As of November 7, 2002, by request we removed all keywords / meta-tags that refer to We-Make-Things from any online ad sources. At this point any residual search engine results that have “we%20make%20things†or similar results in the resulting sponsored url section are not current and do not reflect our current unpaid or paid advertising desires and objectives.
Also on numerous sites results that are not of the paid nature, a third party reviewer placed our results in the same categories, this is not possible to change in most every case.
As well there are search results that indicate our sites contain similar products and offerings. This is a reflection of search engines algorithms and not due to keyword/meta tag targeting of "WMT" name variations. While this may be disconcerting at first, careful examination of the link should find that it is not due to a current practice of targeting "WMT" name variations.
A review of the following keywords:
1. we make things
2. we-make-things
3. wemakethings
Found that out of the 285 separate visits that were received by these three keywords combined (out of over 50k other seperate visits), no apparent or even indirect connection to a visit and a resulting sale could be made.
As a result of the changes, I am monitoring the keywords and will do what I can to remove the offending search results, but this reverse method of removing results is not infallible and due to technical or many other reasons may never result in complete removal of the information from the web.
Any results that are found to be targeting specifically those keywords should be brought to my attention so we can determine the source and have them removed.
Regards,
TechRealm
"If all else fails, blame the webmaster..."
<edited for readability>