Click Fraud Click Fraud Click Fraud

Clickity click click click...

In the past few days there have been a great number of articles, posts, and threads about click fraud. Today I woke up with an inbox that had a few emails about click fraud.

[update: Fantomaster found a blog about ClickFraud]

eMarketer says Click Fraud Is Starting to Scare Marketers

Advertisers should be able to opt in or out of advertising on specific sites.

Joe Holcomb, SVP at BlowSearch, recently wrote these articles:

Scott Blum, of Buy.com also has some type of click fraud patent.

News Losing Ad Revenue:
Despite the claims of PPC fraud Wall Street Journal was hit by lower ad spend, and yet financial ads account for 20% of online ads.

[update 2: Gary Stein found this 15 minute real audio file about the death of mass media advertising.]

This Wall Street Journal article (sub req) talks about Yahoo's small and nimble new search service which is outpacing most of the giants. Even Rupert Murdock knows he is behind the curve.

Other PPC News:
Yahoo! Buys Brazilian PPC Search Network

Google is testing placing a third ad in the premium position. BAD CALL. Andrew Goodman also feels their bid optimizer is a bad call.

ThreadWatch finds sites about cheap clicks and expensive clicks.

The Dow Jones Industrial average is down 4% in the last 3 days. Yahoo! will be announcing quarterly results Tuesday & Google will be announcing their Q1 2005 results Thursday.

.JOBS & .TRAVEL Domain Names, Spam Research Papers

.JOBS and .TRAVEL:
to come late 2005

Cheap Promotional Technique:
throw some political ad on Google. after you get a ton of press coverage say it was an accident.

Direct Answers:
Google adds direct answers to SERPs.

Keyword Research:
Statistically Improbible Phrases (found by Ploppy)

Words which rarely occur in a search index likely are more likely to be more descriminant than common words and thus likely have greater term weight.

Search Research & Spam Papers for AIRweb:
Intallment #1
Gary Price also stated that A Taxonomy of Web Spam (PDF) was recently updated, and they covered that in the forums here. Here is a list of some of the newer Stanford research papers.

Tailoring Technology:
Jeff Weiner, VP of Yahoo! Search, chats about search and customizing software.

Webmaster Radio:
Audio archives now online. thanks to StuntDubl

Good Forum Thread:
about Google's new patent.

Encarta:
accepts user feedback and editing, although I can't imagine it is as appealing to add content next to their ads.

Oil & You:
The Long Emergency

Cool:
Stor Troopers are back :)

Google Screwing with SEO Search Results?

Recently SEO Inc stopped showing in Google for the term search engine optimization.
As stated on the Stepforth blog, allegedly several SEO firms received spam emails trying to get people to three way link exchange with SEO Inc.

Not sure if that was part of the problem for them, or if they were behind it, but if they were they really need to get a grip on the whole risk vs reward concept.

SEO Inc also rented a ton of links and may have hit a filter there. I think they were probably more aggressive at link renting than any other SEO site, and if you are risky with that eventually it eventually catches up with you.

Surely a bad deal for SEO Inc as they likely will now get to pay $15 a click for search engine optimization, a term which Google itself is also advertising on.

[update: NickW noticed that SEO Inc has a new forum and the CEO said they were not behind (and know nothing about) the link spam emails.]

Why do Sites Rank for "Search Engine Optimization?"
I look at the search results in this space a good bit, as a hobby and to see how creative others are as much as anything else, but these are some of the reason I think the top ranking sites are ranking where they are:

  • by just being old. Some still see significant benefit from ranking there a long time ago (that whole filthy linking rich thing).
  • some of them provide bonus link to me stuff that some .edu sites love to point links at. like "submit your site to 1,000,000 engines for free". There generally is no value to it, but it is an effective link building technique.

  • some of them created link to me type stuff that other consultants or SEO nubs might link to. like the Bruce Clay code of ethics. For a while when I was all new I linked into that.
  • SEO Chat rents links from some sites but they also get a ton of support by having a good number of seo tools and a community that also links back at their site.
  • Jill Whalen's High Rankings has one of the stronger brands in SEO and lots of friends who link at her. Writes articles for other sites and has a large number of subscribers to her newseltter. She also is known as "the content seo" or "the seo content writer" which of course helps her get a bunch of links from people who agree or disagree with that position.

A few sites on the first page, and more as you get down into the second and third pages you see a few more sites that really ring the bell for things like:

  • Wired is an amazingly respected authoritative site.

  • There is an SEO organization site. Bound to get many links from it's supporters.
  • Google's official SEO guidance.
  • Lots of reciprocal link trading.

  • Renting a ton of links.
  • Placing links to the SEO firm on clients sites.

Is there Value in Ranking for Search Engine Optimization?
I tend to think that there is too much competition to justify the opportunity cost of actively trying to rank for that term in Google. You need to get a good amount of linkage data and build up over an extended period of time. Significant investment both in time and money.

If you are close to ranking for it then it might be worth trying to capture it if it has little additional cost, but many sites that optimize for highly competitive generic terms end up getting filtered out of the search results in the process.

The whole concept of optimization is to get the most bang for your buck and if your site gets filtered out from ranking for the more targeted terms because you were trying to rank for such a generic term then that cuts deep into the return on investment numbers.

Additionally many people are inclined to want to beat down an SEO firm when they are down. I saw a decent number of hate threads about SEO Guy and my site when our sites were filtered most likely based on link text and run of site links. Of course now that my site quickly ranks again those people are silent waiting for their next turn to attack.

In any case I hope SEO Inc comes back soon. If an SEO site does not rank for an extended period of time eventually that can start cutting into brand value.

Affiliate marketing, profit share partnerships, selling services on a per click basis, and personal branding seem to be the best ways to build profitable SEO service business models.

When most of the market is hype and hucksters its hard to be properly compensated without a strong brand. Since the services are invisible until the results show and most clients do not undersand the process brand in SEO is HUGE! Brand is probably the top reason I have done well so far.

On a related note:
I like the Google search results for SEO. 20 of the top 30 ranking sites are not in English. < goes off to learn Japanese to rank better :) >

Google AdSense Tracking Referrals

Google's recent temporal and behavioral patent talks a decent amount about tracking advertising and site visitors.

With AdSense they can also track the referrals which gives them another way to understand percent of market share and who your leading referals are if you display AdSense ads on your site.

their ad code shows:
google_referrer_url = document.referrer;
google_append_url_esc('ref', w.google_referrer_url);

Google could likely use this data for their AdSense SmartPricing, fraud detection, and might even use it as an additional quality check on linkage data and sites.

If you link to a site participating in AdSense and nobody ever follows the link does that mean the link, page, or site could potentially have little to no value to humans?

If you have links from a ton of sites all using the same AdSense account could that be suspicious? If thousands of sites link to you and none of them dispay AdSense could that be suspicious?

It seems as though Google is trying to financially incentivize various webmasters in the concept of building its web of trust. Maybe it is part of the reason they don't mind having shoddy sites in AdSense, as it helps them track relationships?

It is mind boggling how much traffic data Google has access to. WMW has a thread covering the topic of AdSense price based on referral data.

Google Shows ODP Info, Google Maps Integrates Keyhole, Google Steals Customers from SEMs

Google Showing Dynamic Titles:
If exact search query matches a relevant site's ODP details Google may use ODP data in the search results.

Google Maxi:
Google adds more definition languages, and adds KeyHole satelight images to their maps product.

Google Mini:
So cheap everyone should buy one ;) that is of course, unless

Excuse me, I'll Take That:
rumour of Google stealing large AdWords clients. WTF is that?

Danny Sullivan also wrote an article (sub req) about how some large advertisers get additional SEO support from search engines.

Google is known to tell some large advertisers that it is OK to do things that are against their official webmaster guidelines.

If you selectively boost some sites it has the same net effect of manually penalizing or filtering others, which goes counter to that "democratic nature of the web" "we don't manually..." "don't be evil b/s."

Google AdWords Launches Budget Optimizer

What's the Google Budget Optimizer(TM) tool?

The Google Budget Optimizerâ„¢ campaign management tool automatically adjusts your keyword Max CPCs on your behalf. All you need to do is set a target budget, and the Budget Optimizer will actively seek out the most clicks possible within that budget.

The Budget Optimizer helps you reach your target spend every month without requiring a lot of work on your part. You can save time, eliminate the guesswork related to setting your CPCs, and enhance your return on investment.

(Please note that the goal of the Budget Optimizer is simply to help you receive the highest number of clicks possible within your budget. The Budget Optimizer will not help you achieve a specific ad position.)

They certainly are going out of their way to make the ads as "self serve" as they possibly can. I do not manage many AdWords campaigns so I probably am not the best person to test this out, but it would be interesting to hear what effect this tool actually has on ROI.

With how far off Google is with day to day search volume / ad clickthrough suggestions it is interesting that they think people will trust a system which automatically adjusts bids for them based on a metric other than ROI. Of course some marketers do not want to share ROI data with Google.

I also believe that if a campaign is self funding there is no reason to put an arbitrary budget cap on it. Buy as many ads as you profitably can.

I am guessing that if you enable this feature you will want to enable it in ad groups where the keyword max CPCs and lead values are similar.

Mikkel spoke out against the use of budgeting tools recently (as older ones overspent on CPC), so it will be interesting to see if this one actually delivers on its claims.

A while back Danny Sullivan said search engines want to sell traffic on a per lead basis more than a per term basis, and clearly this is a step in that direction.

Google AdSense Real Time Channel Stats

Real time channel stats and other fun stuff now at AdSense.

Also improved reporting: ad unit impressions vs. page impressions, & 2 new languages: Russian and Hungarian.

Click Fraud Class Action Lawsuit?

From the WSJ (sub req):

A group of advertisers quietly filed a lawsuit in February against Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and other Internet companies in a potentially important legal test of those companies' liability for a form of online-advertising fraud.

The plaintiffs, led by Lane's Gifts & Collectibles LLC, a Texarkana, Ark., retailer, allege that the Internet companies knowingly overcharged for advertisements they sold and conspired with each other to continue doing so. The plaintiffs are seeking to have their suit, which hasn't received widespread attention, certified as a class action.

The also named AOL, Ask, Disney, Lycos, LookSmart, and FindWhat in the suit.

The search engines have antifraud systems and sometimes issue refunds for bogus clicks. But they decline to comment in detail on the scope of the problem, exactly how they are fighting it, and any specific instances of click fraud, in part because they don't want to tip off fraudsters. That has fed some advertisers' fears that the problem is bigger than the search companies acknowledge. Estimates of click fraud run as high as 20% of all clicks on search ads.

Yahoo! has been making a strong run in the stock market for the last week, and Google is valued at 49 billion. Nobody has really challenged this issue yet. If this gets pushed it could get rather ugly quick for search stocks. Google makes 99% of their income from ads.

Writing, Fearing Change, & Google's Offline Ads In Japan

Paul Graham:
on Writing, Briefly

Amazon:
buys BookSurge

And the Times They are A Changing:
The Annotated New York Times

Seth Godin:
on God's Time (and our inherent fear of change)

Google Battles the Pink Robots:
Google recently started advertising in Japan.

The launch of the campaign was timed to coincide with the beginning of the Japanese financial year, said Saito. April 1 is typically the day that large Japanese companies take in new employees. It is also close to the beginning of the school and university year, so many people are starting "new lives" at around this time of year. With the campaign, Google wants to promote itself as a way for people to get information relevant to their new lives, said Saito.

One of the biggest benefits of search engine marketing and creating your own content is that you can create products, content, and ads based on when you expect people to be at inflection points in their lives. (link found from SearchViews)

Google TV

New spin on reality television, see what people are actively searching for. Once every half hour.

I want my GTV...cheesy post title mate, but I like it ;)

[update: Google also may soon allow people to upload home videos to Google]

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