Keywords are not false advertising

From: Innfogra_at_aol.com <(Innfogra_at_aol.com)>
Date: Sun Dec 13 19:03:37 1998

In a message dated 12/13/98 3:21:31 PM Pacific Standard Time,
dastar_at_ncal.verio.com writes:

> With regards specifically to the auction in question, the item was listed
> as a "S100 BUS IMSAI ALTAIR Z80 EMULATOR". This item has nothing to do
> with emulating the S-100 bus. That is deceptive.
>
I agree that the listing is deceptive, poor English also. I doubt any court
would convict on the listings of the title box alone, they would rely on the
description to decide deception.

When I originally searched by category I got 50 pages to wade through. Like
most others I switched to keyword searches. This makes keywords much more
important than the actual description.

Lets take my gold 8080 for example. (It is over 10 years old so it is on
topic). While I would list it under CPUs my title would say something like
"Beautiful Gold Intel 8080 Microprocessor, Rare!

'Gold' and 'Intel' for the search engines. 'Beautiful' to get you to look at
the picture, a nice close-up larger than life size (with size disclaimer). The
quality of the photo is very important. It would be plugged into anti-stat
foam in a clear plastic box. I know some of the list would quibble over the
term 'Rare'. I have no real idea of the rarity. However after working with a
scrapper for years my guess is they 'are' rare.

My intended market, obviously is the jewelry collector or someone interested
in gold items, not a computer collector. Old gold electronics are very
attractive.

Whoever sold the emulator asked themselves who might buy this item and how do
I connect with them. They obviously thought that people searching for S100,
Imsais and Altairs would be interested. You don't have much room in the title
box. In my example above I might not have room for 'microprocessor'. It is
unfortunate that English gets left behind in the process. This also comes from
the poor job that schools today are teaching English.

The unfortunate part of this is that poor English is becoming more acceptable.
The Internet and it's use of keywords only contributes to this.

Paxton
Received on Sun Dec 13 1998 - 19:03:37 GMT