Search Engine Land » Google: AdSense

Class Action Lawsuit Against Google For Ads On Parked Domains Turned Down

Barry Schwartz — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:27:46 +0000

paidContent reports the lawsuit brought against Google in 2008 over quality of ads showing on parked or error message web pages has been thrown out by the court.

On Thursday, January 5th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila turned down the class action suit brought against Google. He said he would not allow the suit because “it was more appropriate for companies who had bought the ads to show any alleged harm on an individual basis,” according to paidContent.

Here is the 25-page court document with the ruling:

Google Parked Domain Class Action

We covered the suit back when it was first filed in July 2008.

No Looking Back for AdSense Users: Interface Change Becomes Permanent

Pamela Parker — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:30:46 +0000

The old AdSense interface is gone for good, as of yesterday, so holdouts clinging to that version are being thrust smack-dab in the middle of the new AdSense. Users had previously been able to toggle back and forth between the old and new versions of the interface.

Publishers have certainly had plenty of warning. Google began testing the interface as far back as November 2009. It was released to all publishers in November 2010, and Google warned in September that the old version would soon be sunset.

Still, some in the Webmaster World forums complained about the change, while others said they’ve grown accustomed to, and even like, the new version. Over the last two years of testing, Google has continually made tweaks to the interface in response to user feedback. Here’s the latest official guide to the new interface.

AdSense Publishers Get Display Reporting By Network

Pamela Parker — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:53:22 +0000

Google has long allowed approved third-party networks to serve inventory into its AdSense display network, and now it says publishers will begin to get reporting on impressions served, earnings and performance by network.

The third-party networks in AdSense are enabled via Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and the system aims to let publishers to serve the highest value impression with each pageload, therefore earning the highest amount possible. Publishers can block by network via the AdSense interface. Networks participating include Rocket Fuel, Dotomi, Quantcast, Turn, AdRoll.com and [x+1].

Google cautioned that comparing networks may be difficult because some networks may be targeting particularly high-value inventory — making their CPMs higher, but their overall volume likely lower.

The new report can be found in the Performance report tab. Click “Ad networks” in the side navigation. The data available today will only go back as far as September 27, 2011.

Google Puts A Price On Privacy

Danny Sullivan — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:35:23 +0000

Earlier this week, Google made a significant change purportedly to better protect the search privacy of users. In reality, it specifically — and deliberately — left a gaping hole open to benefit its bottom line. If you pay-to-play, Google will share its search data with you.

Google’s a big company that goes after revenue in a variety of ways some critics feel put users second. However, I’m struggling to think of other examples where Google has acted in such a crass, it’s all-about-the-revenue manner as it has this week. The best comparison I can think of is when Google decided to allow Chinese censorship. Yes, this is in the same league.

It’s in that league because Google is a company that prides itself by doing right by the user. Yet in this case, it seems perfectly happy to sell out privacy, if you’re an advertiser. That’s assuming you believe that Caller ID-like information that’s being blocked (except for advertisers) is a privacy issue.

Google doesn’t, as best I can tell. Instead, the blocking is a pesky side effect to a real privacy enhancement Google made, a side effect Google doesn’t seem to want to cure for anyone but advertisers.

If it had taken a more thoughtful approach, ironically, Google could have pushed many sites across the web to become more secure themselves. It missed that opportunity.

I’ll cover all of this below, in detail. It’s a long article. If you prefer a short summary, skip to the last two sections, “Why Not Get Everyone To Be Secure” and “Moving Forward.”

Default Encrypted Search Begins

Let’s talk particulars. On Tuesday, Google announced that by default, it would encrypt the search sessions of anyone signed in to Google.com. This means that when someone searches, no one can see the results that Google is sending back to them.

That’s good. Just as you might want your Gmail account encrypted, so that no one can see what you’re emailing, so you also may want the search results that Google is communicated back to you to be kept private.

That’s especially so because those search results are getting more personalized and potentially could be hacked. The EFF, in its post about Google’s change, pointed to two papers (here and here) about this.

Encryption Can Break Caller ID

There’s a side effect to encryption that involves what are called “referrers.” When someone clicks on a link from one web site that leads to another, most browsers pass along referrer data, which is sort of like a Caller ID for the internet. The destination web site can see where the person came from.

When someone comes from an encrypted site, this referrer information isn’t passed on unless they are going to another encrypted site. That means when Google moved to encrypted search, it was blocking this Caller ID on its end for virtually all the sites that it lists, since most of them don’t run encrypted or “secure” servers themselves.

This is a crucial point. Encryption — providing a secure web site — doesn’t block referrers if someone goes from one secure web site to another. Consider it like this:

Unsecure >>> passes referrer to >>> Unsecure
Secure >>> passes referrer to >>> Secure
Secure /// does NOT pass referrer to /// Unsecure

Google’s Referrer Problem

If everyone on the web ran secure servers, aside from the web being a more secure place in the way that Google itself wants it to be, the referrer hypocrisy that Google committed this week wouldn’t be an issue.

The vast majority of sites don’t run secure servers, of course. That posed a problem for Google. Referrers from search engines are unique. Since as long as we’ve had search engines — over 15 years — those links people click on from search engine results have contained the search terms people have used.

For publishers, this has made search marketing incredibly powerful. They are able to tell exactly what terms were used when someone found their web site, at a search engine like Yahoo, Bing or Google

Moving to secure searching meant that Google was suddenly, dramatically, no longer going to send this information to publishers, because as I’ve covered, virtually none of those publishers were running secure servers. As a result, Google almost certain realized there was going to be backlash.

Putting A Price On Privacy

Google could have endured the backlash, saying that if publishers still wanted this data, they could move to secure servers. Instead, it deliberately chose to override how referrers are passed, so that they would continue to be provided to just its advertisers.

Backlash, Google would endure, but it seems apparently not from those who made Google nearly $10 billion last quarter alone.

To solve this, Google changed from the standard way that referrers are supposed to be passed to its own unique system, which works like this:

Secure /// does NOT pass referrer to /// Unsecure unless…
Secure >>> passes referrer if ADVERTISER to >>> Unsecure

Let me be very clear. Google has designed things so that Caller ID still works for its advertisers, but not anyone else, even though the standard for secure services isn’t supposed to allow this. It broke the standard, deliberately, to prevent advertiser backlash.

The PR Plan For Publisher Backlash: It’s A Tiny Loss!

Google still knew there would be backlash from another group of publishers, those who have received this Caller ID referrer data from Google’s “free” or “organic” or “editorial” or “SEO” listings. What was the solution for that problem?

Here, Google seems to have a three-fold approach. First, suggest that only a tiny amount of data is being withheld. Some scoffed at Google’s estimate that I reported, that this would impact less than 10% of query data. But so far that seems to be holding true.

For example, here was our second most popular keyword sending us traffic from Google yesterday, according to Google Analytics:

“Not Provided” is what Google reports in cases when it now blocks referrers — or technically, it still provides referrers but is specifically stripping search terms out of them.

Our number two keyword! And yet, we received nearly 15,000 keyword-related visits from Google yesterday. These terms that were withheld amounted to only 2.6% of them.

On my personal blog, this is in about the 2% range. SEOmoz reported around 2%, as well.

These low figures will makes it easier for Google to gloss over publisher concerns, especially when they’re almost all being voiced by those in the SEO industry. The industry has a bad name, so if it’s against something, that can almost seem like a ringing endorsement for good.

Ars Technica had some comments like this, in response to its story on the Google change:

I’m playing the saddest song in the world on the smallest violin in the world. Poor, poor, SEO leaches

I AM completely unsympathetic. The sooner these SEO leeches, parasites, spammers and scammers die die die the better off the web will be.

Don’t make this mistake. This is not just an SEO issue. This is a user privacy issue. SEOs are simply the harbingers spotting Google’s hypocrisy around privacy.

The Data’s Still Around!

The second bit of PR messaging was to reassure that plenty of search data can be found in another way through the Google Webmaster Central service.

This is true. Google does provide search query data through this service, and it’s warmly welcomed by many site owners.

However, Google also provides search query data to its advertisers through the AdWords system. That’s the publisher equivalent to Google Webmaster Central.

Since advertisers can get data through AdWords, just as publishers can use Google Webmaster Central, why does Google still need to deliberately override how referrers would normally be blocked just for advertisers?

Google argued in its blog post that advertisers needed referrer data “to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.” Outside of conversion tracking to the keyword level and retargeting, that doesn’t hold up, to me. I’ll get back to these.

Google Said Referrer Data Was Better

By the way, Google is on record as saying the data in Google Webmaster Central for publishers is not as good as referrer data.

This comes from an online exchange between Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team and who acts as a liaison on many publisher issues, and Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of tiny Duck Duck Go search engine who was challenging Google over providing referrer information.

Weinberg wrote:

So now that we know what is going on, why allow this personal information to leak? As far as I can tell, the only reason is so Webmasters can do better at Google SEO. And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Cutts responded (and I’ll bold the key part):

Google’s webmaster tools only provide a sampling of the data. We used to provide info for only 100 queries. Now we provide it for more queries, but it’s still a sample.

Please don’t make the argument that the data in our webmaster console is equivalent to the data that websites can currently find in their server logs, because that’s not the case.

In January of this year, data from Google Webmaster Central was deemed inferior to referrer data. In October, it’s repositioned as an acceptable alternative to blocking referrers.

Referrers Are Private!

Google’s third and most important method of countering backlash is to make out that referrer data is somehow so private that it can no longer be provided to publishers. If you read closely, however, you understand that Google never actually takes this position. Rather, it’s implied.

Google’s blog post on the change made no mention — none — that this move was done because referrers had private information that might leak out. It was only about protecting the search results themselves:

As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver.

Remember those studies I mentioned? Those were all about search results, not about referrers.

Referrers only get mentioned in Google’s post as a heads-up to publishers that they’ll be lost, and not because they’re also private and need to be protected but rather — well, Google doesn’t explain why. The implication is that they just have to go.

As I’ve read stories in the broader press, I’ve seen the assumption that Google is blocking referrers because it considers them to be private. Heck, I came away from my initial interview with Google when the news broke thinking the same thing.

It’s no wonder. Because Google has deliberately broken security to pass referrers to advertisers but not publishers, it had to lump that qualification into the overall security story. It made referrer blocking seem like it was done to protect privacy, rather than the troublesome side effect it really was.

But You Didn’t Say They Were Private Before

To emphasize how not-private Google has viewed referrer data, consider two issues.

The first was in 2009, when Google made a change to its search results that broke referrers from being passed. Publishers were upset, and Google restored referrers.

Cutts — who keep in mind is one of the people Google had talk about this week’s encryption change – tweeted “yay” about the restoration. Clearly, he didn’t see any privacy issues being lost by it then. He was happy Google went out of its way to bring referrers back.

Think 2009 is too far back? OK, at the beginning of this year, Duck Duck Go — aside from buying a billboard to attack Google on privacy grounds – launched an illustrated guide to alleged Google privacy issues, including concerns over referrrer data.

In reaction to that, Cutts pushed back on referrers being a problem:

Referrers are a part of the way the web has worked since before Google existed. They’re a browser-level feature more than something related to specific websites.

When he was further challenged on the issue by Duck Duck Go’s founder Weinberg, Cutts specifically did not include referrers in a list of things that seemed to be private:

That was the same day we announced SSL search, which prevents referrers to http sites….

The fact is that Google has a good history of supporting privacy, from fighting overly broad subpoenas from the DOJ to SSL Search to creating a browser plugin to opt out of personalized advertising.

On a personal note here, I like Matt Cutts. I’m not trying to single him out unfairly by citing this stuff. He’s just a Googler extremely close to the issue, knowledgable about it and even when speaking in a semi-official manner, it reflects back on what’s true with Google.

Personally, I get the impression he might not agree with the referrer blocking for publishers but is going to put the best spin he can on a decision that his company made. Just my gut feel, and no special knowledge here. I could be wrong. Maybe I can get him to share more later.

Google Change Benefits Google

I think it’s fair to say that Google has not agreed with the view that referrers are private, nor has it clearly said referrers were blocked to protect privacy.

So why do it? One reason is that it makes Google more competitive. If someone lands on your web site, and you know the search term they used, you can then target them in various ways across the web with ads you believe reflect that search interest. All you need is the initial term.

This is called “retargeting,” and Google’s a leading provider of retargeted ads. When you cut the referrers out, except for your own advertisers, Google makes it harder for its competitors to offer retargeting services. Search marketers already understand this. Wait until Google’s anti-trust enemies clue in. They’ll be swooping in on this one (and we’ll have more to say on it in the future).

Another benefit is that it prevents anyone but Google’s own advertisers from doing keyword-level conversion tracking. With search referrers, you can determine what someone who searched for a particular term later did on your site. What further pages did they go to? Did they purchase a product or service? Without the search terms, you can’t do this degree of analysis.

That is, of course, unless you buy an ad. Conversion tracking at the keyword level turns into another sales feature for Google.

Didn’t Think Or Don’t Care?

I think the biggest reason Google hasn’t fixed the broken referrer problem is either that it just didn’t care about publishers or didn’t really think through the issues more.

Either is bad. The latter has some weight. Consider the last time that Google broke referrers, Cutts explained that the impact just hadn’t been considered:

[Cutts] says the team didn’t think about the referrer aspect. So they stopped. They’ve paused it until they can find out how to keep the referrers.

Surely someone had to have thought about the impact this time? Someone decided that it was a good idea to keep passing referrer information to advertisers. Someone decided that for whatever reason — and it wasn’t privacy — that publishers couldn’t keep getting this information. But what that reason is remains unclear.

Why Not Get Everyone To Be Secure?

What I do know is that Google missed a huge opportunity to make the entire web much more secure. Google could have declared that it was shifting its default search for everyone – not just logged-in users — to be secure. Privacy advocates would have loved this even more than the current change which, using Google’s own figures, protect less than 10% of Google.com searchers.

Google could have also said that if anyone wanted to continue receiving referrer data, they needed to shift to running secure servers themselves. Remember, referrers pass from secure server to secure server.

Millions of sites quickly adopted Google +1 buttons in the hopes they might get more traffic from Google. Those same millions would have shifted — and quickly — over to secure servers in order to continue receiving referrer data.

Better protection across the web for everyone, while maintaining the unwritten contract between search engines and the publishers that support them to provide referrer data. That would have been a good solution. Instead, we got Google providing protection for a sliver of those searching, withholding data from the majority of sites that support it and solving problems only for its advertisers.

Moving Forward

I’m expecting to talk further to Google about these issues, which I raised with the company right after writing my initial story. I’m still waiting for them to find anyone appropriate higher up in the company to respond. Fingers-crossed. The best I could get so far was this statement:

We’ve tried to strike a balance here — improving privacy for signed in users while also continuing to provide substantial query data to webmasters.

To conclude, I think the move to secure searching is great. I’d like to see more of it.

As for referrers, there are some who do believe that they are private. Chris Soghoian is a leading advocate about this, and I’d recommend anyone who wants to understand more to read the blog post he wrote about an FTC complaint he filed over the issue. Read the complaint, too. Also see Duck Duck Go’s DontTrack.us site.

In terms of Google blocking referrers, it already blocks tons of stuff it considers private from its search suggestions. Conceivably, it could use the same technology to filter search referrers, to help publishers and protect users.

But aside from that, if Google thinks this needs to be done for privacy reasons, then it needs to block referrers for everyone and not still allow them to work for advertisers. That move is one of the most disturbing, hypocritical things I’ve ever seen Google do. It also needs to take the further step and stop its own Chrome browser from passing them.

If blocking referrers isn’t a privacy issue, then Google needs provider referrer data to all publishers, not just those who advertise.

Related Background

And Yet More Background

Google Display Network Begins Showing +1s With Ads Today

Pamela Parker — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:33:19 +0000

Visitors to Google Display Network sites will begin seeing +1s and annotations on display ads for the first time today, according to Google. The initiative, announced nearly a month ago, is aimed at adding social cues — recommendations — to display advertising.

The addition of social cues at least partly takes its cues from Facebook ads, which can be targeted to “friends of fans.” If a friend +1s an ad, or the landing page URL associated with an ad, the ad will get a boost in the auction, giving it a higher chance of displaying on the page. It’s thought the ads with +1s and annotations will be more successful in getting users’ attention than those without. Though Google hasn’t released specifics, the company says search ads with +1s associated with them have a significantly higher click-through rate.

Advertisers or publishers who don’t wish to participate in this program may opt out in AdWords or AdSense, respectively.

Old AdSense Interface To Be Retired in November

Pamela Parker — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:12:09 +0000

Google has worked the most-requested features from its older interface into its new one, including creating scheduled reports and viewing channels on the Home tab. Now, it’s getting ready to sunset the old interface, as of mid-November.

So, Google is urging AdSense publishers to take the time now to familiarize themselves with the new interface, though they’ll still be able to toggle back and forth for the next few weeks.

Image provided by Google

The new AdSense view includes multi-dimension reporting, reporting by country and platform, and the addition of search functionality in the Ad Review center. Users can also edit and schedule reports.

Google originally released the new AdSense interface in November of last year, after beta-testing it for a year. Since then, it has been tweaking features in response to user feedback.

Google +1s On Ads Added To Google Display Network, Will Influence Auction

Pamela Parker — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:00:29 +0000

Search AdWords have had +1 buttons since late May, and now the +1 functionality is coming to the Google Display Network (GDN). Additionally, +1 data will, for the first time, serve as a signal of relevance in the AdWords auction — for display only, for now.

As with the +1s that accompany text ads, people who see ads on the display network will be able to see whether someone Google knows to be connected to them has +1ed the landing page associated with the ad. The total number of +1s could also be displayed. The +1s could have been done on the marketers’ Web site, in organic search results, or in the ad environment — they’re all aggregated by landing page URL. To determine connections, Google looks at things like people’s Gmail contacts, who they’ve added to Google+ Circles, and who they follow in Google Reader. To +1 something, a user must be logged into their Google account.

+1s Affecting The Auction

If a person +1s a site or ad, display ads in the network associated with that URL will have a better chance of being displayed when their friend visits any page in the network — so long as all the advertiser’s targeting conditions are met. In a blog post, Google refers to it as an “extra boost.” So, in addition to bid price and quality score, robust +1 activity will be rewarded.

“When an ad is personally annotated, there’s a positive impact on click-through rate,” Christian Oestlien, Lead Product Manager for Social Advertising, told me. “You get this great win of users becoming advocates for your product…you can take advantage of social and you don’t need to come up with new metrics. All of this is baked into all of your existing ad campaigns.”

Comments like Oestlein’s make it clear that Google is aiming for Facebook with this social targeting, imitating, and trying to go beyond, “friend of a friend” on the social networking giant.

And, although the auction boost applies only to the GDN for now, higher click-through activity generated by +1-ed ads will raise the account’s overall status with Google, perhaps influencing search ad auctions, as well. Eventually, +1s could more directly impact search ads.

“It’s something we’re watching. Obviously, the quality score is an important dynamic to search ads,” said Jim Prosser, a Google spokesperson. “Any changes done to that is done in a careful and deliberate way — display is a different world and a different beast, and we use different methodologies.”

Hopes To Increase Participation By Users

Google hopes that adding +1s will also encourage users to engage more with advertising on the web in general, given that nearly every web user encounters the GDN likely every day, if not multiple times a day.

“We think that’s an incredible win for the end user and will motivate people to proactively participate in advertising,” says Oestlien. “Their friends start to see more of those quality creatives and people become more engaged with ads on the internet.”

It will also likely motivate more advertisers to incorporate +1 buttons on their own Web sites, hoping to garner some of the +1 boost to their display ads.

The new display ad +1 buttons will be available for image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and certain mobile inventory. Advertisers may also include the +1 button on DoubleClick Rich Media ads, whether they are running on the GDN or elsewhere. Advertisers may also opt out of having +1s with their ads altogether, and, as of today, they can opt out of +1 at the campaign level. Additionally, end-users and publishers can also opt-out of seeing +1s or displaying them on their sites.

The changes won’t appear immediately. To give advertisers and publishers time to opt-out if they’d like to, Google is rolling the changes out in a couple of weeks.

Google Tightens Review Process For New AdSense Publishers

Pamela Parker — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:34:58 +0000

Google has added a new review step to its process for adding new AdSense publishers, presumably to better eliminate abuses and improve the quality of the AdSense network for advertisers. In the new process, publishers’ sites will be reviewed after they’ve placed the AdSense ad code on their sites, and real, paying ads won’t run until after that review.

“We’re continually evaluating our AdSense application process in order to ensure the safest possible network for our advertisers, as well as the best possible experience for you, our publishers,” Max Cohen, AdSense product manager, wrote in a blog post.

The new application service will involve two different review steps. The first occurs after a prospective publisher fills out the application on the AdSense site, when Google staffers check the site and the information submitted. If the site passes that level of scrutiny, publishers get access to their account and the ability to create ad code. The second review occurs after the ad code is placed on the site.

When publishers place the ad code, but before the account has been reviewed, temporary “blank ads” will show, rather than live, paying advertising. Google says these ads will “blend in” with the background of the site and won’t impact the user experience.

Once the account and ad placement has been reviewed and approved — Google says this will occur within about a week — live ads will begin to show.

The new review process could likely be circumvented by folks who initially place the ad code on a site that’s compliant with Google’s policies and then, after approval, place code elsewhere on non-compliant pages. Still, the new reviews will likely have at least some deterrent effect.

French Company Seeks $421M From Google For “Blacklisting”

Greg Sterling — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:08:50 +0000

Perhaps sensing “blood in the water,” a French company called 1plusV has sued Google in the Paris Commercial Court for the equivalent of $421 million. (The civil complaint was orginally filed on February 22, 2011.)

An operator of vertical search sites, 1plusV is the corporate parent of legal search engine Ejustice.fr, one of three companies (including Foundem and Microsoft-owned Ciao) that filed formal antitrust complaints against Google with European Commission last year. Those complaints led directly to the EC’s decision to pursue an antitrust action against Google, which is now in process.

The civil case doesn’t really involve a new set of claims but is a kind of follow-up to Ejustice’s earlier complaint, this time for substantial money damages. 1plusV wouldn’t be entitled to any damages from the EC antitrust action if there were findings against Google.

1plusV claims its sites were “blacklisted” by Google and lost most of their traffic over a period of several years, suffering “irreparable” harm. According to the company Google’s blacklisting clipped the wings of 30 promising vertical search sites operated by 1plusV:

Between 2007 and 2010 no less than 30 vertical search engines created by 1plusV were “black-listed”, some of which showed significant business potential. A few or these 30 vertical search engines have been recently “white-listed”, i.e. indexed again by Google’s robots (without any content change nor explanation) but irreparable damage has been done; if all 30 search engines created by 1plusV had been allowed to compete on their merits, yearly sales would currently amount to more than €30 million

In addition, the company detailed what it said were Google’s anti-competitive or “unethical” behaviors:

suffocation of technological competitors through a bundled access to ads revenue for the exclusive use of Google’s technology. 1plusV had to get rid of VSearch early in order to be granted access to AdSense real time.
unfair competition in referencing Editors websites through the listing in Google results of sensitive and private data, including data from Government agencies’ extranets which explicitly ban these practices.
manipulation of “natural results” through (i) the artificial pushing up of Google’s own services to the first page of search results without giving Internet users any chance to differentiate from real organic results and (ii) the discriminatory application of so-called “quality criteria” between competitors and own services.

I wrote a lengthy post yesterday arguing that the US Federal Trade Commission was unlikely to find evidence that Google engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the US market. The case in Europe I believe is much tougher for Google.

Whereas Bing and Yahoo combine for 30 percent of the search market in the US, Google controls 90 percent (or more) of the market, depending on the country, in Europe. This makes it much more challenging for sites to be found by users if they don’t rank on Google and for Google to claim that there are alternative ways to find properties.

Under normal circumstances Google might be inclined to settle a civil case like this, although the alleged damages are very substantial. Doing so however would probably give a “green light” to other would-be litigants that have similar grievances against Google.

Updated: Google Embroiled In Political Controversy Over Cost-Per-Lead Ad Test

Pamela Parker — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:19:26 +0000

The Obama campaign ad that started it all — a display ad on Real Clear Politics that requested a user’s e-mail address — wasn’t even a Google ad. But someone from the Republican National Senatorial Committee (RNSC) thought it was, so she called her Google sales rep and asked about getting something similar for the GOP.

(Publishers that run Google’s AdSense ads aren’t barred from running ads from other networks, so ads from Google can appear next to, or subsequently to, ads from other third-party networks, or even those sold by the sites themselves. )

What happened next is at the root of all the confusion, as reported in POLITICO, among other outlets. The Google salesperson told the RNSC staffer that the cost-per-lead ad type wasn’t yet widely available, leading many to conclude that the Obama campaign had gotten special early access.

Here was the text of the email, as reported by POLITICO:

“This is a pre-alpha product that is being released to a select few clients. I’d be happy to get you into the beta if you’re interested.”

As you can imagine, this sparked all sorts of outrage that Google had given Democrats access to a product test that wasn’t being equally offered to Republicans. News outlets trotted out the fact that Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt sits on the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.

In fact, Google says, the salesperson wasn’t aware that the ad in question was not a Google ad, and just assumed it was part of an early test — because teams selling to Republicans and Democrats are kept separate and information is not shared between them. A Google spokesperson, talking to POLITICO, went so far as to say that the salesperson had engaged in inaccurate “puffery.”

“As our clients know, when we experiment with new products like this, our sales teams always has, and always will, offer the exact same opportunity to both sides of politics, at the same time,” Google spokesperson Rob Shilkin told me. “Our Democratic and Republican sales teams are strictly separated from each other and are charged with offering the absolutely best online ad solution for their respective clients.”

Google isn’t saying much about the pre-alpha experiment other than to say it is a display ad, rather than a search ad.

Note: a previous version of the story failed to note that the ad in question was a display ad test, rather than a search ad.