What Happend To Findwhat?

Noticed A Sizable Increase in Click Fraud

[ppcads]

I used to think Findwhat was "best of the rest" engines after adwords and overture but I've noticed the last few months a surge in fraud traffic. I've tried contacting my rep about it but they don't seem to care.

Now to me findwhat is the best of the garbage ppc's, just slightly better than Kanoodle and Ah-ha

7search seems to be the better engines of the tier IIs in opinion. Goclick I'm not so sure, not much experience with it, anyone have an opinion?

[GameMasterM]

The CEO addressed click fraud yesterday in his earnings conference call but never used the phrase "click fraud". He said they removed sites from their system that were low quality in a move to better serve advertisers. The move cost them $70,000 per day. He repeated this figure and addressed it again in the Q & A session. Pisaris-Henderson said the move was to attract advertisers. He mentions this year FWHT enters its second phase which is to improve advertiser returns. Last year (phase one) featured acquisitions.
The $70,000 per day loss of revenue is why they missed in Q4.
Time will tell if they are able to lure ad buyers in with this renewed attitude towards relevant traffic.
I am a custumer with their Pay-per-call program targeting my market through BizJournals.
I also hold some stock and am feeling the pain.

[GorgiasPR]

There could be many reasons why you saw a dramatic increase in click fraud - for example, an affiliate of a niche partner of Findwhat got click-happy. If you question the integrity of clicks, report it immediately to get yourself on the record and always ask about a refund.

7Search has very good fraud prevention. I received a credit a few months back that they attributed to a rogue affiliate - they were very nice about it and actually contacted me before I had a chance to check my logs. I think click fraud is just part of the business and it will always be there just like shoplifting pervades everything about retail.

I read that same article about Findwhat - I'll look for the link to verify. I think 70,000 a day was about them not allowing gambling related websites. Their initiative to cut off partners providing bad traffic starts now... it makes me wonder though what they were doing before.

[GameMasterM]

"I think 70,000 a day was about them not allowing gambling related websites. Their initiative to cut off partners providing bad traffic starts now... it makes me wonder though what they were doing before."

Gambling websites. I heard that in response to a question in the CC. Maybe the CEO was trying to piggyback the goodwill gesture on something they were to do anyway. In any case an it looks like they are the first of the second tier PPC providers to take such a dramatic stance. Time will tell if this is a sincere move

[keywordguru]

Quit complaining about $70,000 when they are making boat loads. Especially since thier network has spurts of fraud.

I would say every 3 months it is either doing well, or gone to the birds. I would still say FindWhat is one of the "better" second tier ppc networks though.

If you get the right tracking in place, you can easily spot problems and stop using those keywords. It just takes extra leg work.

You either pay higher cpc premiums and get better traffic with Overture and Google, or you pay a lot less and deal with fraud. Either way you end up spending the same:)
KG

[webzilla]

"$70,000 per day loss of revenue"

That's on current clients/listings.

One would wonder if they've considered the cost of attrition in their client base, both past and future. $70k/day is pocket change in that scenario.