When NBC News Is Actually ABC News

The network-news ratings battles spilled over into Google’s Sponsored Links earlier this week.

WebNewser received an e-mail Tuesday that when a Google search was done on “NBC News,” the result in the top sponsored link contained the headline, “Nbc News,” but the URL said “ABCNews.go.com” (see first screen grab, from Tuesday afternoon). Buying your competition on a search is perfectly legitimate, but the link shouldn’t have been called “Nbc News.”

Google apparently agreed (see second screen grab, from Wednesday morning), as the situation was remedied by Wednesday morning.

An e-mail response from Google’s Deanna Yick:

The Policy team has informed me that the first line of the ad you pointed out did indeed violate our AdWords policy. The issue has now been resolved, which you’ll see if you do a search for the term “NBC News.”

While some ads may run on Google prior to review (since we have both automated and manual processes), we make every effort to ensure that ads which might violate our policies do not run. We appreciate you letting us know about that particular ad!

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