Warning About Ppc! Fark.com reference

[Chez 0]

When you sign up for PPC advertising, make sure your rivals in the business aren't @ssholes:

reference link

Clicking hell: the Google way to bankrupt your rival

 

January 20, 2006

Page 1 of 2

 

Advertisers on the internet's most popular search engine can face devious opposition, writes Charles Miller.

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JOHN Carreras was once a contented Google advertiser. He used text advertisements that appeared alongside searches to bring people to his trade exhibition website. He happily paid Google a few cents for every referral, believing that anyone who clicked through to his site from Google was a likely customer. But then he attended a conference in Las Vegas, and he noticed something strange: the number of Google referrals he was getting dropped dramatically, only to rise again once the conference was over.

 

Carreras became convinced the "missing clicks" weren't from customers but from his competitors, who had been in Vegas with him. He believed his unscrupulous rivals whiled away their office hours clicking on his Google ads, knowing that every tap cost him money.

 

If you add in a second kind of scam, where people earn themselves a little money from Google by <- snipped -> they're hosting on their sites, you can see the potential for malice. Click fraud, as it's called, is acknowledged by Google as a problem: last year, Google's chief financial officer, George Reyes, described it as "the biggest threat to the internet economy".

 

While Google Labs, as the company calls its development division, turns out new products at a cracking pace, Google remains largely dependent on just one source of income: advertising. Google would never admit to being uneasy about that reliance. Why should it? Advertising is doubling the company's revenue every year, and is expected to generate almost $10 billion this year. But for all the undoubted strengths of its pay-per-click system, some worrying vulnerabilities have emerged.

 

Marissa Mayer, the company's vice-president of search products, is reassuring. She calls it "a serious problem for us, but also a very solvable problem".

 

In principle, the company will not charge its advertisers for clicks that aren't from genuine potential customers. Typically, Google is hoping to use technology to detect suspicious click patterns.

 

Which brings us back to Carreras. As a result of his experience, he got out of the trade exhibition business, believing that click-fraud detection would be a more lucrative field. He now sells software under the name Who's Clicking Who? that promises to solve click fraud for Google advertisers, first by sending "we know who you are" messages back to fraudulent clickers, and then by compiling click dossiers to help fraud victims reclaim their money from Google.

 

For the company, click fraud has the potential to become the kind of technological arms race that has been a drag on Microsoft in its battle against ever-changing security threats. Nobody knows the exact extent of it. But, says Google-watcher John Battelle, "right now, advertisers are getting such a good return on their investment that it doesn't matter to them whether [click fraud] is 5 per cent or 30 per cent". But he believes that as Google advertising becomes more competitive and the level of fraud grows, "eventually the rubber will meet the road and we'll see how much fraud there is in the system".

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[OpaQue 15]

If you have read this topic and seen the video at the BBC site.
http://forums.xisto.com/topic/32696-the-world-according-to-google-watch-full-bbc-documentary-online/

You will understand that, The people who are investing in PPC (Pay per click Advertising) are also earning a lot of profit. So, They tolerate a 10-15% of spam clicks.

However, according to one case, where the competitors are trying day and night to bring him down is really shocking. I would rather suggest that people who have lots of competitors (especially those who advertise themselves on the web) beware. In such cases, its 1000 times more preferable to use the Google Pay per impression model that PPC model.

And other major companies like fastclick which run on PPM (Pay per 1000 impression) basis.

[B4ND1T 0]

If you have read this topic and seen the video at the BBC site.http://forums.xisto.com/topic/32696-the-world-according-to-google-watch-full-bbc-documentary-online/

You will understand that, The people who are investing in PPC (Pay per click Advertising) are also earning a lot of profit. So, They tolerate a 10-15% of spam clicks.

However, according to one case, where the competitors are trying day and night to bring him down is really shocking. I would rather suggest that people who have lots of competitors (especially those who advertise themselves on the web) beware. In such cases, its 1000 times more preferable to use the Google Pay per impression model that PPC model.

And other major companies like fastclick which run on PPM (Pay per 1000 impression) basis.

realy?

[Plenoptic 0]

That is pretty amazing. I think it is really sort of sad that people would do that just to get rid of a rivalry between them and another business. Wouldn't you think though that if it is too much to handle the people would put an end to the PPC ads if they aren't getting money off the customers that come to their site? Really interesting how far people will go today and what they will think of. I am glad Google has the 10 - 15% forgiveness rate because that is the only one I would use for my web site.

[FLaKes 0]

Well, this was really good information to know, because I was just thinking about using googles services in the future to promote a web service. I will have to be aware of this now. Thanks.

[techclave 0]

i think this is THE biggest problem internet has to face. people should try to respect each other. competition should be dealth with performance and quality and price reduction etc etc .... it is clearly un-wise to use such dirty practises to put down the competitor. i really feel shame for those people....