Yahoo - Overture Click Fraud

[bostonseo]

I'd start looking at your Yahoo-Overture clicks very closely. I manage a number of clients from a couple thousand dollars a month to the price a new Audi a month :)

I saw a huge spike on a single term 2 weeks ago for my smaller client that they now admitted than 1) a high percentage of click fraud occurred on the days I pointed out to them and 2) that their internal tools failed to indentify these fraudulent clicks.

Conversion percentages for my clients' have been declining steadily for the past 4 months. I expect this trend to get even worse.

Be on the lookout daily for click spikes and ask them to investigate. If enough advertisers put pressure on Yahoo-Overture, only then will they get more serious about policing click fraud on their partner sites.

[Tropical Island]

I have been warning for the last 12 months that the only path for Yahover is down. Their reputable traffic is declining and they are not a moral straight forward company.

Anyone who doubts this just ask yourself why the support link is in such invisible type. That just speaks volumes to me about their general attitude towards their advertisers.

Yes I still send them money every month however each month it's a struggle to justify doing it. The only reason I still do is due to the AdSense revenue that is paying all the AW & Yahover bills.

Our sites are for a B&M business so I need advertising but, like FindWhat, there comes a point when the return is not there.

[bostonseo]

Tropical Island I feel the same way. I'll still use them, to a much lesser degree, until it's just not profitable anymore. For my main client, I'd say that will happen when the MSN separation occurs.

They brought this on themselves.

[StupidScript]

From nearly daily issues with their ad management programming to the near absence of fraud detection to the amazingly crappy and broad range of "search partners" ... manymany of which are ONLY showing Y PPC listings and no other content ... Y has been ramping up the perceived value (i.e. on paper) of their company.

Why?

Does anyone forsee a "for sale" sign hanging on their door, anytime soon?

[bostonseo]

Who would buy them?

[StupidScript]

Anybody who likes to see the profit numbers (MSN? ... lotsa data they won't need to generate.)

Big and bigger income + low and lower tech expenses ... and very little expense attributed to customer support = nice earnings statement.

(Heck ... the infrastructure is already built, right? Why spend resources making it 'better' just because of a few complaints? Let's get those dollars rolling in for awhile then jettison this beast and let the mildly-deceived buyer handle the fixes ...)

[tsinoy]

i've seen this a couple of times the past few weeks..

there were a couple of keywords wherein I pay about $2 each.. and suddenly there would be days that I will get 30 to 40 clicks without conversion... its always the same keyword... looks like whoever is doing it is targetting certain keywords.

[skibum]

Haven't noticed any big spikes but have seen an overall downward trend in conversion, though SiteMatch listings are performing wonderfully.

If you can find a good experienced rep over there (sometimes easier said than done), they can provide an awful lot of help and support to navigate through various issues.

[bostonseo]

Experienced reps for good for understanding your frustrating and applying credits. I'm guessing any that 'good' is doing some serious job hunting though, Yahoo-Overture's days are limited until they become the next FindWhat.