Mac or PC? PC Google Ads Suggest a Mac
There’s an interesting little poll running to gauge whether people given $3,000 would buy a Mac or a PC. Not surprisingly it is running way in favor of Macs. 74% at the moment. That’s no surprise, firstly because it was posted on Digg in the Apple category—so guess who is seeing it the most? Mac faithful. Secondly, Mac users, being the outspoken types they are, are much more inclined to vote on polls like this. What is most interesting though, and delightfully ironic, is that the site’s Google ads promote how to fix and maintain your PC. Here’s some examples: - Windows XP Errors? Free registry scan, fix errors and improve PC performance. - Repair DLL Errors. Fix windows DLL & other PC errors instantly. - Fix Blue Screen of Death. 2006 Highly-rated remover. Fix your computer. - Fix Blue Screen of Death. PC too sloow, crashing, freezing? Free scan and repair. 100% guaranteed. - Get MemTurbo 4 Now. Help increase the memory available to your Windows PC applications. - Your Computer Too Slow? Fixes slow PC. Prevents slowing and crashes. - Stop waiting, fix your PC. It’s easy as 1-2-3. Free scan and you’re away. Windows Shutdown Problem? Put an end to Windows shutdown problems. - PC Errors Repairer. Fix errors and registry problems. Inhance [sic] your Computers [sic] Priformence [sic] That last one tells me one thing their computer could do with is a spell checker. I also like that one with the 100% guarantee. How can I believe that when PC problems are so prevalent according to these ads? But there were a couple for Mac users and my absolute favorite of all the ads was this one: Run Windows on your Mac. Parallels Desktop now shipping. Yeah sure! Why would you after seeing all those other ads telling you how much grief to expect? Maybe maintenance is an issue with PCs It’s a funny thing how easy it is to find people who swear they never have any troubles with Windows problems. They tell you their PCs run fine with little attention. That may be so, but given the proliferation of ads on Google for maintaining your PC, you’d have to to think those people are as much in the minority of computers users as we Mac users are. It’s obvious a lot of those ads above are nothing more than spam, but if you look at the things spam targets most, it is the things people are most concerned about: Sex, Porn and having a PC that is working well enough to download porn. Those ads for PC repairs wouldn’t be there if many people weren’t desperately looking for help. Every time I get on a Windows PC I encounter one problem and then find others while trying to fix the first. I was asked to setup and install broadband for a friend who’d tried and failed and had a tech try who’d also failed. Upon booting her PC, it said it was missing files. Several reboots later (maybe it needed warming up), it finally started happily. The missing files magically reappeared. As I said, this wasn’t the problem she’d called me over to look at. I ran some tests but found no cause so told her to keep an eye on it and call me if it reoccurred. (Should I have said “when”?) I then installed her broadband without any problems. (I still got the mojo!) It’s hard to justify Macs to people based solely on my own experience of them. I guess people figure I’m a computer nerd so switching would have been easy for me, but they’d struggle. However, I have found a much more effective way of explaining the difference. I tell them my brother’s story. My brother and I don’t talk much anymore about computers. He bought a Mac. When he had a PC, he rang me every four to six weeks with some question or problem. In the 18 months since he bought a Mac, he’s called me twice. Once early on with a couple of questions, and once a couple of months ago when he had a problem with Word crashing. I fixed it by sending him a CD with the latest OS X Software Updates on it. (He’s not on broadband if you’re wondering why he hadn’t applied Software Updates.) I told a PC user this story recently - i.e. the two calls in 18 months - and she was flabbergasted. Obviously maintenance is an issue for her too. It always fascinates me when I overhear conversations between average people about virus checkers, slow and crashing computers, According to my friends, my family, people in the street and even Google ads, maintenance is a big issue for most PC users. I just don’t hear people having maintenance issues with Macs. I guess that makes it easy to know what computer I’d spend my $3,000 on, but with all those PC problems, it wouldn’t matter how much I had to spend, I’d still get a Mac.
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PC users I think for the most part also do not believe us mac users who claim we have not seen a virus, trojan or malware in 5 YEARS (highjack your search bar? What does that mean?*)
We might as well be telling them we rode on the back on the Loch Ness monster for an hour in that Scottish lake ... They just cannot convieve it and think we all got together as part of some mass conspiracy.
* My friend’s PC had 20 searchbars and 200+ items deemed as spyware after I helped him install a spyware checker ... and of course, this app he used insisted on using IE but as soon as IE launched, another 37 windows would pop up and pop under.
this app he used insisted on using IE but as soon as IE launched, another 37 windows would pop up and pop under. jbelkin
Hah…hah! Don’t we know that search bars are spywares and keystroke loggers? Poor thing. Good luck on uprooting those for many of them just self-regenerating. Two or more separate threads working in tandem to replicate each other’s parts in case they are deleted. Hmmm..nasty PC stuff that don’t exist in the Mac universe.
It’s a funny thing how easy it is to find people who swear they never have any troubles with Windows problems.
As if it’s not easy to find people who swear they never have any troubles with Macs?
And can’t the preponderance of ads aimed at PC users be more or less explained by the fact that 95% of the computers in the world are running Windows?
If one is blindly sending out misspelled SPAM ads, then Mac users aren’t a particularly lucrative target.
But that doesn’t mean Macs don’t have problems. All those Genius Bars in Apple stores aren’t there for their aesthetic beauty.
Beeb, I do agree with your first point and never suggested otherwise. But the second:
And can’t the preponderance of ads aimed at PC users be more or less explained by the fact that 95% of the computers in the world are running Windows?
This one though you miss the point. It’s my fault though, I should have made it clearer. It’s not the proportion of Windows maintenance ads to Mac ads I’m on about, it’s the proportion of windows non-maintenance ads. Compared to those 9 maintenance ads above, there were only 2 others for Windows non-maintenance stuff, and one specifically for Macs the Prallels one).
So it doesn’t matter who you are, you’d see maintenance ads running 9 to 2, so that has to send the message there’s something wrong with Windows.
So whether or not Macs have problems (and have Genius Bars - which is just superior form of helpdesk that all PC vendors provide) is largely irrelevant until you can show me a situation where ads for maintenance of Macs consistently runs 9 to 2.
OK, so I built my own computer. Ground up. I bought all the parts, assembled the system, partitioned the drives, then installed windows.
I installed windows on a six gig partition on purpose. I was to use that partition solely for windows and use diskeeper to keep it defragmented permanently(note, windows defragmentation app is a watered down version of diskeeper).
So I have my partition an around 3 gigs used when my system is finished. I installed all my software etc… all was good. But then I got this Windows warning telling me that i was running out of space on the drive. I couldn’t understand it, I was saving nothing there and all my applications should save in their respective home directories.
Want to know what I found? Quicktime had saved approximately 1.3 GB of folders and subfolders of videos, which I had deleted, in my user accounts application data section. I looked at the settings in quicktime… No place to change this. I just have to periodically delete all the useless files quicktime is holding onto.
Out of all the software I put on my system. I have no spam, no adware, but one annoying piece of apple software.
Karl Oscar Weber
So it doesn’t matter who you are, you’d see maintenance ads running 9 to 2, so that has to send the message there’s something wrong with Windows.
In one example. From one page. But is that true in general? When I watch TV, am I likely to see more ads for Windows computers or Windows repair? When I visit Digg, am I more likely to see ads for computer sales or repair? And does the ratio of these ads actually prove anything?
* My friend’s PC had 20 searchbars and 200+ items deemed as spyware after I helped him install a spyware checker ... and of course, this app he used insisted on using IE but as soon as IE launched, another 37 windows would pop up and pop under. tell your friend to install FireFox then.
And does the ratio of these ads actually prove anything?
It proves that the market for software that keeps windows from imploding under the strain of actually running a computer is large and profitable.
It proves that the market for software that keeps windows from imploding under the strain of actually running a computer is large and profitable.
From ONE example of ONE site? I went to the site to look at the Google ads, and here’s what I got:
*Free iPod Photo 60GB
*Unlock your iPod
*Weekly Mac OS X Tips
*iPod Accessories Store
*I Mac Computers
These ads appear to be randomnly generated based on page content. To use this as a basis to “prove” ANYTHING is dubious at best.
Beeb, these ads on their own don’t prove anything. As your demo shows they can change anyways.
But combined with other experiences, they reinforce the idea that PCs require a lot of maintenance.
As I said in closing:
According to my friends, my family, people in the street and even Google ads, maintenance is a big issue for most PC users.
Considering how Google ads work - i.e. context sensitive - then although on its own it proves nothing, it certainly raises a disturbing question about PCs need for maintenance.
Looking at it again today, of 8 ad: 5 are for maintenance of PCs, 1 for Macs (Parallels), 1 for a REALBasic plugin, and 1 for managing Acitve Directory and NTFS.
There’s only 3 words on the page that would trigger these ads. i.e. viruses x2 and crash x 1. So it’s not like those words would have any influence on the ads that appear.
But your experience Beeb raises a more interesting question about Google ads. Why are your ads so different? Does it have something to do with localization? Your ads are much more like I would have expected since the word “Mac” dominates that page.
I went to the site to look at the Google ads, and here’s what I got
OK so if it were true, that would be what it would prove
There’s only 3 words on the page that would trigger these ads. i.e. viruses x2 and crash x 1. So it’s not like those words would have any influence on the ads that appear.
That’s not correct. Google’s advertising system analyses the words on the page in a complicated manner in order to find the context via the use of related words, and thus what the actual subject is, in order to provide the most relevant results. On a page with “Windows” several times, “PC” and “computer” several times, the presence of words like “crash” and DEFINITELY “viruses” would certainly be very likely to be taken into account.
But your experience Beeb raises a more interesting question about Google ads. Why are your ads so different? Does it have something to do with localization? Your ads are much more like I would have expected since the word “Mac” dominates that page.
I got 2 PC maintenance apps out of seven. The others were related to “audio marketing experts”. No mac ads.
On a page with “Windows” several times, “PC” and “computer” several times, the presence of words like “crash” and DEFINITELY “viruses” would certainly be very likely to be taken into account.
But surely not enough to so heavily influence the ads that appear?
although on its own it proves nothing, it certainly raises a disturbing question about PCs need for maintenance.
Yes, and I guess the distribution and content of SPAM raises disturbing questions about the length of penises or hot stock prices.
Yeesh.
I got 2 PC maintenance apps out of seven. The others were related to “audio marketing experts”. No mac ads.
We have to wait for Chris’s in-depth analysis to tell us what this proves, for prove something it does; I’m sure of it.
Maybe it proves that people just aren’t interested in Macs.