[Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea

[Michael Peel]

On 6 Nov 2010, at 17:43, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> On 6 November 2010 17:07, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ads there would be able
>> to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the
>> term being searched for)
> 
> That's a big problem. To use a somewhat clichéd example, we should not
> be showing adverts for either Coca-cola or Pepsi to people searching
> for "coke".

Precisely. Having adverts on the search page could have a serious impact on neutral point of view, even if indirectly.

Another point of view/consideration: if an article doesn't yet exist on a specific organisation/person, then being able to find its website by the Wikipedia search engine might encourage the creation of an article on that organisation - so people could effectively pay for creating new Wikipedia articles on their organisations. Ideally, WP:NOTE wouldn't let that happen though, so that might even be a good thing. ;-)

Mike