September 28th, 2006 by James Omdahl
Richard Ball of Apogee Web Consulting dives a little deeper into the click fraud issue in this post on his blog. He talks about ways of minimizing click fraud in the Google and Yahoo! content networks, but interestingly, he points out that not all click fraud is coming from the content network.
It turns out that some of the content partners that Yahoo and Google distribute their PPC ads through are not considered “content” partners and are actually part of the search network. What does this mean? It means that some of these search partners have the same incentive (a revenue share on clicks) that content partners do - and with that incentive comes the temptation to drive fraudulent clicks.
Now I will say that becoming a search distribution partner is (and should be) a lot harder than joining the Yahoo! Publishers Network or Google AdSense - and you would think the search engines would guard the gates when it comes to search distribution partners since that is key to their core business. However, Yahoo! has proven that they are willing to work with potentially sketchy partners in the search network (as described in a sidebar of the print version of BusinessWeek). Also, if I understood correctly, Richard points out that the PPC ads on parked domains might actually be coming through the search network, and not the content network.
If this is true, and some of the search traffic advertisers are paying for falls into what most of us would consider a content page, the search engines are going to have some unhappy advertisers on their hands. When I place search ads, I want them to show up on search engines and search engines only.
So make sure you read Richard article and utilize his suggestions for minimizing content network click fraud. And next time you talk to someone from Google or Yahoo! see if you can get an explanation of why your search ads are showing up on sites that arent search engines.
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September 29th, 2006 at 6:56 am
James, thanks for featuring my blog post. I hope the information proves useful for your readers. Regarding the parked domains, Ive seen traffic from both the search network and content network coming from these bogus sites. Its quite amazing that Google caters to them:
http://www.google.com/domainpark/
Ideally, there should be a “parked domain network” much like theres a search network and content network. These sites dont really fit into either category and its quite poor that advertisers cannot control the distribution of their own ads to these sites. Seems to be contrary to Googles culture.
November 15th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I am an elderly woman and I am not sure this is the correct way to find out what I need but I feel like a site I went to has taken my money and I cannot get it back. It says that if you change your mind in 72 hours there will be a refund but I cannot get anyone on the phone. Can you tell me where to go??