Maximize your investment.
Years ago, in one of my presentations and in one of the classes I used to teach,
I used to show a graphic of a very lengthy URL which upon being clicked, at least
to the casual observer, did nothing more than bring the clicker to the main page
of a different site than the site where the link was embedded. I would then try
to engage my students in a discussion. If we knew that the shortest
distance between two points was a straight lines, I would ask, why would such a lengthy URL
be needed to bring the user to the desired page. A much shorter URL (one that
I'd show them) would be sufficient.
The discussion that developed was always lively and fascinating, mostly because
for the people in my class this was the first time that they'd understood, hands-on,
that hyperlinks were capable of doing much more than simply bringing them from here
to there, that they could also convey significant information about where they
were coming from, or even inform a third party that a transaction was taking place.
While working on this column I read an article which can serve as an example of
how specialized this field has become. The article was titled: Compare
& Contrast: Search Ad Program Strategies, and essentially did precisely
what its title suggested - it compared different pay per click advertising programs.
To a certain extent, what's being discussed in this article is an extension of
that lengthy URL that I'd show my classes. Of course things have developed considerably
since then. I have to admit that today I doubt I would be able to decipher the
URLs that convey the considerable information that gets stored, and passed from
site to site. An understanding of the fine points that distinguish between these
different services, however, can apparently make the difference between a successful
or wasteful advertising campaign on the web. The people who use these services
are constantly busy analyzing the results of their ad campaigns, and for good
reason. They want to maximize the return on their investment.
Go to: What's so bad about advertising?, or
Go to: There are legitimate reasons, or
Go to: Still running it up the flagpole