Why Google?

[GateKeeper]

Someone emailed me today and asked why the websites have so many Google Ads on them. I thought this was a worthy topic for discussion on this board.

We put Google Ads on our website because we are convinced that the model we advocate is second to none. As such, we want visitors and members to check out the other websites offering their services and compare them to ours. Even if someone chooses to use one of these services, they are best served to also put an ad on this site since it costs nothing to do so up-front. Any contact information can be passed on to an agent or other resale company should it manifest itself first from this site.

Google Ads also serve as an indirect way of bringing other websites within reach for those looking for a particular resort or location and may not yet be listed in our classifieds ad section. Since Google uses a "content match" technique, the ads are focused on the content of the current page, thus the sites are likely to be relevant. Until other websites realize they can put their inventory on our site via direct RSS feeds or put their own ads online, we'll continue to rely on Google Ads to try to bring this information into focus here.

[Pappy]

Originally Posted by GateKeeper

Someone emailed me today and asked why the websites have so many Google Ads on them. I thought this was a worthy topic for discussion on this board.

We put Google Ads on our website because we are convinced that the model we advocate is second to none. As such, we want visitors and members to check out the other websites offering their services and compare them to ours. Even if someone chooses to use one of these services, they are best served to also put an ad on this site since it costs nothing to do so up-front. Any contact information can be passed on to an agent or other resale company should it manifest itself first from this site.

Google Ads also serve as an indirect way of bringing other websites within reach for those looking for a particular resort or location and may not yet be listed in our classifieds ad section. Since Google uses a "content match" technique, the ads are focused on the content of the current page, thus the sites are likely to be relevant. Until other websites realize they can put their inventory on our site via direct RSS feeds or put their own ads online, we'll continue to rely on Google Ads to try to bring this information into focus here.

I think you're on the right track facilitating the marketing of TS no matter who's effort it is, but understand why that might confuse some. Someone needs to take the step toward providing a viable market for TS. Cheers to Gateway for trying to do that.

The Internet in the beginning had lots of information all over the place.
Search engines accumulated the Web information making it more efficient for those desiring information to get it. The search engines provided a lot of service early on and gathered a few crumbs where they could. These days they're actually getting to eat cake. I'd say Google has done pretty well for itself by facilitating the delivery of information and I'm pleased that they have managed to get revenue from all my "freeloading."

However, Google does a little too well in supplying us thousands of sites for TS which then need to be searched individually. Everything we might need is there somewhere, but it is very difficult to come up with results without a lot of effort/time invested. That pretty much describes the way the Internet TS market is today, a lot of searching, a lot of empty resort pages.

I think Gateway's focus on delivering TS interests to users with less effort and time from any source should succeed. Hopefully those wanting to market TS will recognize this. The thousands of individual efforts are not marketing TS efficiently because they're all selling sites. We're all coming up losers by not being able to liquidate our TS interests. The big exchange outfits just accumulate our assets and give us little or nothing for them. They have an advantage holding a lot of inventory which appears in a searchable list, but individuals can develop a list also within the Gateway. All owners of TS interests need to look at the whole picture and cast their lot somewhere, even help build a marketplace by listing or linking. TS Gateway seems like the no-risk place to do just that.