getting scammed by the search network

throw me a bone here....

[mwilliams]

we have a certain keyword that usually gets a handful of clicks a day at about 2% CTR. one day in march the impressions, clicks and CTR skyrocketed-- went from about 100 impressions daily to over 7,000 with a CTR of 13%. we reported it as click fraud and got a refund. as soon as i turned that adgroup back on (the second week in april), the same thing happened again. i reported it again but google said that they found no evidence of click fraud this time around. mind you, it's the same exact keyword as last time, and the same increase in impressions, clicks and CTR. i did a little research and realized the same thing had happned for a week in february too (SAME keyword) but i hadn't noticed it.

then i went on HBX and realized that for every day we had this weird activity, the page that the keyword leads to got a BUNCH of referrals from a particular site that seems to be part of the google search network. all of the ads showing on the site are the same ads that show when i do a google search for the keyword in question. on other days, when that keyword was behaving normally, we have NO referrals from this site at all. so obviously this is the site that was sending us all those clicks. the same site shows up under a couple different URLs, too.

what should i do now? google doesn't seem to recognize this as click fraud but it so clearly is. any suggestions on how to proceed from here? has anyone else had the same problem? how is this site managing to do what they're doing and not get caught?

[by they way, i can't even figure out what kind of site it is... looks like pure spam...something about domain name parking (the word "parking" is even in the URL). and there are bunch of different versions, each with a different URL and the phrase "this site is for sale!" in the title bar. when people type in a URL that is not in use, does this site pop up and somehow redirect to our site through our ad and get paid for it?]

[jim2003]

Hello,

While your situation appears different, I have had similar experiences.

Google allows its search partners to do something called a "hot search". If you look on AOL search for example you may see on the right hand side a list of "popular" searches. Every person logging on the AOL search site sees the same list. If one of them happens to be your keyword, then you will get tons of impressions, and a bunch of clicks (unfortunately for me no conversions though), from people who didn't go the search engine to search for that term, but became intrigued once they were there. I have found that the only thing I could do in that situation was turn the ad off. I was bummed, and have no idea how Google can justify that as legitimate search activity. But they do and I try to be on the lookout for it.

Regards,

[mike_ppc]

I think I am in the same situation.....

One day, I spotted for a KW a much bigger traffic than usual. More than 90% came from a Search Partner with "parking" in URL.
Even more interesting, all clicks had different IPs, but all in the same range (200.#*$!....) - from UY.
And I don't have UY in my targeted countries list.

Anyone had the same experience?
I think we should at least write Google. If we could not trust Search network, or targeting a group of countries... what else can we trust? (except God, of course!)

[eWhisper]

This could be park of the domain parking program:
[google.com...]

Origional domain park thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[nyet]

Boy it gets worse and worse. I consider ads on "parked domain" pages to be ad spam. What value could those content-less clicks be?

[mike_ppc]

I don't think I made myself clear enough.
That traffic did not came from Content!

Ah, and anybody can explain why I'm getting clicks from a country that's not in my list? And not only one - via this "sedoparking"!

[sailorjwd]

Is it possible to use negative keywords on that site? Or, is it really a 'search partner' site?

[mwilliams]

thanks for all your replies. i feel a little bit less confused now, especially after reading about the domain park program or "adsense for domains" as google calls it... which i had no idea even existed. what a sham.

i am still a bit confused though because our clicks in this case are defintely through the search network, not content. hm. maybe adsense can affect the search network too. news to me.

i guess the only thing to do is contact google and see what they have to say. maybe if we all complain about "sedoparking" they will drop it. not that that will really change anything in the long run. some other junk site will materialize.

i'd love to hear from AWA on this topic. maybe there is something else that we can do about it?

oh, i had one final question: does anyone have an opinion on whether all these clicks are legitimate? or do you think the site has rigged something up to make more money.