PPC Sub Engines - Garbage?

Garbage traffic

[glenv]

I hope that this post is not in appropriate. I apologize in advance if it is.

I am suspicious of some of the traffic I receive and occasionally find a spurious url that has sent traffic to my site. I am supposing (please correct me if I am wrong) that some of the PPC players are utilizing their affiliate sites for traffic, yet they do not monitor it correctly.

I present it that way because of this: I have a site dedicated to online education. However, one of the urls I just discovered that is sending me traffic is outrageous. I believe they have added this url to obviously draw generic, scum traffic to build their clicks.

Ok, here is the url that is sending me traffic and I am sorry for it's vulgornous:

<snip>

How on earth does this happen?

How can I find who they are associated with so I can scream bloody murder? I have to at least name one name I am suspicious of perhaps 2:

Ah-hA and Kanoodle

[edited by: NFFC at 10:48 pm (utc) on Feb. 2, 2003]
[edit reason] Specifics removed [/edit]

[redzone]

Kanoodle is more likely the culprit.

They have many affiliate partners all over the world.
Some of which generate "artificial" traffic, that does nothing but generate Kanoodle and them $'s...

[Pay Per Click]

Sir,

I know Ah-Ha.com has a partnership with SearchFeed.com, who has a partnership with Smartsearch Search Engines, which are for the most part 3rd level search engines. They do not get very much traffic, but, they do get traffic for a very low bid price.

I am a distribution partner with Ah-Ha.com, and they seem to very restrictive on things I can and can not do.

So, I was a betting man, I would not point the finger in the direction of Ah-Ha.com, but... that is just my opinion.

Garry

[glenv]

I am a little confused though. If you are implying that the traffic ( bad traffic ) is coming from a partner of Ah_ha, and I trust Ah-Ha to ultimately provide me quality traffic, ( they are the people I pay ) then in the real business world, I would hold Ah-Ha accountable. Just as in any General Contractor arrangement that subs out his work...

[Pay Per Click]

I never said the traffic they send is (BAD TRAFFIC), I think the Ah-Ha.com distribution is very respectable. I as well have an advertiser account with them, and I get pretty good return from them.

Just keep in mind.

There are 3 levels of distribution.

A $.12 bid on Ah-Ha.com means
A $.06 bid on SearchFeed.com which means
A $.03 bid on 3 level search engines.

So, your $.12 bid costs YOU the advertiser $.12 even though it might have recieved a $.03 click on a 3rd level site.

Just a little something to think about!

Garry

[linkshark]

Affiliate 3rd party clicks are rampant due to scripts and other affiliate programs that offer 3rd party "feeds" from Kano0dle, AHhA, spr1nks, etc..... One such script and affiliate program mentioned above. Usually the affiliate is offered a small percentage of the clickthrough bid which is cut at least 2 times between the players before the affiliate gets his/her cut. (usually like 10-25% of the original bid).

Some of this traffic is on target, but I have seen other programs that offer pop-ups etc.... that are way off base.

[Pay Per Click]

I agree, you do find alot of those... expecially ones offered via GATOR or something like that. I work with 529 smartsearch search engines, and I have never found any of them that are working unethically.

I did find a searchfeed.com distribution partner that was abusing the service, and within 1 hour his account was closed and within 12 hours his account was closed on Ah-Ha.com... so these engines do want quality clicks, or else me and you would not pay them.

Garry

[glenv]

My point exactly guys...

Whether it is good or bad traffic is no the point at this level of the conversation.

The fact is though if I give my money to Contractor A and he agrees to send me traffic and to monitor such traffic to meet his agreement, he alone is my " go to" guy. There is no way I am chasing his sub-affiliates, sub-contractors or whomever. Ultimately, he is responsible for the quality of the traffic regardless since my contract is with him.

I am not pointing to any one person or PPC Company, however I was just using Ah-Ha as an example because personally, I have had some pretty bad experiences with their traffic. Even with that being said, if one of their (Ah-Ha or Kanoodles, or Joe Blow PPC )affiliates is who sent me the "bad" traffic, you bet your britches the primary is responsible. In this example, I do in fact suspect Kanoodle or Ah-ha. Not trying to stir anything up but trying to come to the point that the outfit that actually takes the greenbacks from me is responsible for ALL traffic they sub-send to me...

[Pay Per Click]

I totally agree.

Garry