Program Shareware? Oatmeal Cookies?

[Astrotrain]

If you could trace the IP somehow, send a message to their ISP letting them know they have a spammer.

[Syneryder]

I think I've fully solved the mystery - it turns out that "oatmeal cookies" is an example search provided in the Fluid Dynamics Search Engine (FDSE) that I use on my website. If you click on the User Interface tab of FDSE, and scroll all the way down to "Linking Directly to Search Results", you'll see that oatmeal cookies is given as the example. So the Program Shareware spider was just following one of those example links (along with every other link on my site). I'll have to search my site to see where that link might be.

Disturbingly, while researching this "oatmeal cookies" thing at Google, I got a sidebar affiliate ad for:

Oatmeal Cookies
Discount new & used items. affil
Search for oatmeal cookies now!
www.eBay.com

Euugghh. I'm not sure which is more insane, that someone thought they could sell used cookies, or that someone thought they could make affiliate money reselling used cookies on eBay...

[Randall]

I'm not sure which is more insane, that someone thought they could sell used cookies, or that someone thought they could make affiliate money reselling used cookies on eBay...

I told you oatmeal cookies were evil.

Randall

[Webmarm]

Putting chocolate chips in an oatmeal cookie is like dressing a turtle in a tutu. You may be expecting Swan Lake, but all you're gonna get is an annoyed turtle. In pink!

Hrrrrrrrmph, hrmph. I love chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Not used, but warm out of the oven.

As for ebay, there is quite a selection of results for a search on oatmeal cookies . Evidently more than one person thinks they can sell (used) oatmeal cookies. According to Wordtracker, "oatmeal cookies" is expected to get about 75 searches a day on Google, with broader phrase matching yielding 1416 searches a day. So it's not outrageous to target the keyword phrase.

My problem understanding that ad is that eBay consistently runs an EPC (earnings per 100 clicks sent) of about $1.50. You'd have to be able to bid about $.01 per click to make any profit on sending traffic to ebay for (used) oatmeal cookies. I have yet to see AdWords allow that low a bid. So I think I vote for someone thinking they can make affiliate money reselling used cookies on eBay as being slightly more insane than someone thinking they can sell used cookies.