Search and Web 2.0 - an Analysis: Why Some Web 2.0 Sites Will Never Attract Big Ad Dollars by Steve Rubel overlooks a fundamental point.  Websites that are "too commercial" don't do well in Search Engines, particularly Google, since 2003, I believe it was the "Florida" update - that determined that if your content was commercial - Google wanted you to pay to have your content ranked well via AdWords. 

If your content was non-commercial (IE: more educational, for example) that content had a better chance of ranking well in natural search results.

However, Steve Rubel got it wrong this time - he used AdLabs Online Commercial Intent tool to show that blogs and websites that would like to attract traffic, via Search Engines, aren't commercial enough.

But that's the whole point - the reason these sites rank as well as they do is their massive number of backlinks AND the fact the are NON COMMERCIAL.

If you want to blame someone for why that is ….. don't blame the sites, blame Google ….they're the one's who made up the algorithm that gives much more weight to noncommercial content over commercial content.

According to Steve Rubel:

"…My personal conviction - one that I plan to table - is that search should be the most important driver for how advertisers size up the influence of different community sites and the individuals who make them up. The problem is no one is thinking this way. Everyone is overlooking the organic impact of Web 2.0 on product-related searches in favor of quick and dirty old school metrics."

I venture to say that if Gizmodo or Techmeme looked to Google to be more "commercial" it's rankings would go way, way down.

The problem is most sites who run advertising are counting on major Search Engines (it's really Google and Yahoo…that's it) to drive massive traffic by organic search results that are then monetized via PPC ads.  Traffic itself, is it's own justification.   Were Consumerist showing up in the Commerical Intent tool as 99% Commercial instead of 49%, as Steve Rubel suggests, you could kiss that blog goodbye and quick death.

On another point, Steve says the "efforts like the one announced by comScore and Federated Media are fundamentally flawed"; he's referring to blog audience measurement that comScore is just starting with.  

The reason it's flawed, if it is flawed, is that the methodology details are so blurred over, I wondered what comScore is hiding… what they're not saying about how they'd come up with blog audience metrics.

While I agree with Steve Rubel on almost everything he's come up with, except maybe the fake Edelman blogs, and stuff like that, I don't agree with him on why Some Web 2.0 Sites Will Never Attract Big Ad Dollars … but that's just my opinion. 

However, I happen to be right on this one … I know it,  because I've worked with all the tools he cites and I know how Search works.  If anything, the LESS COMMERCIAL your site appears to be, the more likely it will rank higher in search engines and drive more traffic.

Oh well, some people look at a traffic light and see red, others see the same light as yellow….. I think that's what happened here.