Can Overture and Google results be inflated

Possibility of attacks from Open Proxy Servers.

[lgn]

I was recently amazed by the amount of public open proxy server ports there are out there.

On one hand these proxy servers are useful, to bypass censorship, in certain countries. However, this can be a dangerous double edge sword.

I can see someone writing a robot to scan for all public proxy ports (they change daily), and use this information to create a automated web browswer script to attack the competition on a PPC site, by creating thousands of false clicthru's from apparently random sites.

Hopefully, both Overture and Google has its own robot to keep track of public proxies on a daily basis, and has statistical tools to flag abnormal PPC clic-thru's.

Has anybody ever been attacked this way, and has anybody had successfull legal recourse?

[redzone]

While Overture claims to have the most sophisticated fraud protection available, I hardly think they go this far.

Also, though Overture has credited a few of our accounts, without us informing them of possible fraud activity, most conversation I have seen indicated that Overture will usually only investigate fraud, if the advertiser brings it to their attention.

IMO approx. 30% of PPC bid engine clicks are fraud.. Higher in some engines...

[Nieder3d]

Where do you get that # from? 30% is not a number to laugh at when spending my CPC dollars...!

Plus there are a few engines out there that do filter spider and robot traffic as effectivly as possible. Always check the filters that an engine has in place.

[redzone]

We get that number from testing 100+ accounts in the major PPC engines over the last 4 years.

Our test list included:

Goto/Overture
FindWhat
Sprinks
Kanoodle
Ah-ha
ePilot
eSpotting

The biggest fraud problem we have seen to date is Kanoodle feeding results to Hotbar. Stay away from "broad" keywords there. Kanoodle also has some questionable affiliates. The list is too long for here, if interested sticky me.

[WebStart]

Redzone: a 30 percent or higher fraud rate is very meaningful. I have had my own suspicions about the PPCs and raised questions on specific days when hits (and charges) went through the roof. OV and FW always replied : they investigated my clicks for the days in question, they have sophisticated tools to detect fraud, there was no fraud.

But your comments raise really valid concerns that many of us may be wasting a great deal of money. However - I don't see a way out. I know if I lower my bids or quit bidding, my hits go down, my sales go down. What a mess. I guess I have to accept that my $ buy only 70% of what I thought I was getting.

Do you have any sense for fraud rate on Google Ad Words Select?

If I am not too bold: Do you use PPCs?

[WebStart]

Should have added to my last post, this comment to : LGN author of the original post: I believe I was attacked in August for about 7 -10 days on OV bids. Wrote OV and pointed out the statistical abnormalities. They investigated (they said, in a rather lengthy reply) the days and clicks in question, and found no fraud. There is not much one can do, I think, to prove fraud, if the attacker has some sophisticated means of disguising his means. It really is a scary proposition because if Redzone is right, we are paying for a lot of nothing.

I had pined my hopes on Google AD Words, as they seem to watch things very closely, even thought of stopping all my OV and FW bids in favor of massive Ads on Google. But have not so far. But Redzone has given my inclinations more food for thought. Plus, search engine watch is reporting that more and more users skip over the paid listings and go for the "real" returns of the engine itself. That should give some PPCs a scare. I suppose that is one reason both Google and OV have become ever more stricter on the relevancy of keywords. Much stricter than FW & Sprinks, both of which are fairly liberal about relevancy.

[redzone]

Webstart,

I think that once some legislation or "FTC" control is put into action in the US, that click rates will begin decreasing, as more consumers are "clearly" aware that PPC listings in portals, are in fact advertisments.

Sponsorship and "Sponsored" are such "smooth" words in place of "PAID ADVERTISING"... :)

I doubt that CTR's will approach the average CTR for banner ads.

On the fraud issue, a lot depends on keywords and bid amounts. We found that "less" horizontal verticals, such as "injection molding", experience a signifigantly lower fraud rate, then verticals such as marketing, or clothing and jewelry. Even where the bids are higher on average.

Just because Overture/Findwhat said there wasn't fraud, doesn't mean it didn't happen? :)

Usually Overture will concede there is some fraud activity, when the # of clicks during the timeframe in question, is well above the average click activity.. They have always been good about crediting fraud clicks, when there is a signifigant increase in activity.

We have been over the Hotbar.com issue w/ Kanoodle, and their blanket response is, if you don't want to show up in Hotbar's system, stay under the radar (7th position), on very broad terms such as: advertising, travel, books.... We got nailed on the term "shoes"... Since decreasing the bid at Kanoodle, the hotbar clicks have diminished..

With FindWhat providing the system (back end only) for Lycos' new Insite PPC system, it clearly spells the beginning of a trend where portals will eliminate Overture. Though Overture listings will run along side the Lycos PPC ads for the next few months, until the Overture contract expires.

For a long time, Findwhat had a far superior administrative bid management system, than Overture, so it makes economic sense for them to take contracts where they might only be supplying "back end" technology. After all, it hurts Overture...... And there is no "love loss" there... :)

[mosley700]

Overture - the interactive stock. It was $10 and after losing AOL it goes up to $20. Why? Because it's interactive. You could buy stock in Ford, but if you want it to go up you'll have to buy a car every month. Not so with Overture. Just go to Overture.com and start clicking. The IDEAL work from home stategy.
Here's a nice one:
Gambling - (Advertiser's Max Bid: $16.58)

Ever notice that your traffic increase sharply ( say, 100% ) when you sponsor all your relevant keywords, but your clickthroughs increase only marginally? ( 20% )

And most people know how many emails and phone calls you'll get from marketing folks when you sponsor a $2 per click keyword on Overture.

"Hi, we see that you're paying Overture $2 per click for such and such keywords. We can get you on our search engines for half of that" is how it goes.
"Um, no thanks. One question: Did you click on it?"

"Well, uh, we needed to see your site to see if it is compatible with our search engines"

"Okay, no problem. Just send me the $2.15, made payable to ..."

Now think about it, you got marketing folks clicking on them, you got Overture stockholders clicking on the listings, and you got your competitors clicking on the listings. ( Why do I see CompetitorsServer.com on my stats? Visiting my site 90 times in that last week? )

Sorry if I sound a bit cynical about Overture - I sold way too early.