Forum Moderators: martinibuster
A check of the first few shows this little request right above AdSense ads.
Some are trying to be clever by having the "Please Click the Ads" request on a separate website which links to a site with AdSense.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this will be the downfall of PPC if more isn't done.
Google really needs to crack down.
For those of you who will argue "Who cares, it has nothing to do with us," sites like these eat up daily and monthly Adwords budgets. They have everything to do with us and should be reported to Google.
Plus, the worse it gets the more the advertisers will bail out of PPC advertising and allocate money elsewhere.
you think google is not aware of this? they aren't stupid and sooner or later those people in violation of TOS will be dealt with, whether tommorrow or next month.. spend all this energy improving your site rather than get all worked up over someone else business.. i am pretty sure google looks at each and every single site often.. they aren't going to just send people checks without checking up on them.
they aren't stupid
I won't use the word STUPID....
They are PhDs which in some medical journals they (nerds) would be described as high functioning autistics, yet I digress ;)
high functioning autistics
you think google is not aware of this?
Of course they are, that's the whole point of the thread.
Having spent some more time looking at this it does appear that some of the sites found using this search have had the ads removed but there are still quite a few to be found. I mean there is even a radio station that does this. time. There are other sites using less obvious enticements to click and less obvious phraseology.
Look, the point of this is not the extent of the problem but that the problem is evident at all. If Adsense were my program I would be doing my utmost to ensure that sites like this were very hard to find. It's not good for Adwords publicity and confidence to view this, is it? Google has plenty of money and resources to do this. They also have the inside knowledge and data to make it easier so it should be getting dealt with in a more obvious way.
If they need someone to run their Adsense Quality Control department I am available. If they already have one then I hope the guy in charge is not getting a xmas bonus ;)
It's not good for Adwords publicity and confidence to view this, is it?
You still don't quite have a perspective on this imo.
I'll take a guess that you're not an AdWords advertiser. Let's have a look at what the only AdWords advertiser posting in this thread (a clue in itself) has to say:-
As an advertiser, any campaign where I'm bidding more that 15 cents a click is disabled for the content network. I have campaigns that run over $1 per click. As a publisher, when I look at my pages and then look at what's running in Google SERPS, I can see the top ads are also bypassing the content network.
So what's the problem? AdWords advertisers have the control they need to deal with an incredibly low proportion of fraud.
Is it reasonable to expect Google to achieve a 100% rate of success in eliminating fraud, or is it more reasonable to let smart pricing do it's job?
TJ
Is it reasonable to expect Google to achieve a 100% rate of success in eliminating fraud, or is it more reasonable to let smart pricing do it's job?
It is reasonable to expect them to strive for this and where their shortcomings are so obvious it's obvious they have a wee bit to go. Why allow this to go on? Why don't they just drop these sites, keep everyone happy and increase public confidence and goodwill? That's not asking too much is it?
Why don't they just drop these sites, keep everyone happy and increase public confidence and goodwill?
Yes, I do take your point, but I don't actually think that public confidence and goodwill is low to the point that it needs increasing.
Personally I'd prefer to see their time and resources going into the continued development of smart pricing. From the financial perspective (the important one) that achieves the same thing, and more.
I would hazzard a guess that's what most AdWords advertisers (those that use the content network) also want.
That's not asking too much is it?
If it's taking time and resources away from other areas of the program that are more important, then yes it is asking too much.
TJ
It is reasonable to expect them to strive for this and where their shortcomings are so obvious it's obvious they have a wee bit to go. Why allow this to go on? Why don't they just drop these sites, keep everyone happy and increase public confidence and goodwill? That's not asking too much is it?
No, I don't think it is reasonable. I think it's already been established in this thread that google can't currently solve this problem by way of automation, and trying to do so manually is what google is already doing to some extent. You can't expect google to throw fistfulls of cash (manpower) towards solving an issue that is a very small problem to the majority of advertisers.
What ever the case, no one on this board really knows how much google is doing to solve this problem, and being that their 80 billion dollar stock valuation is riding on the success of advertising I think we can rest assured that google has a better idea of how to allocate capital towards solving fraud than most of the posters on this board, right?
and trying to do so manually is what google is already doing to some extent. You can't expect google to throw fistfulls of cash (manpower) towards solving an issue that is a very small problem to the majority of advertisers.
Small problem? Fistfulls of cash? Sorry, but this is simply not true.
First, I assume that the problem is only "small" if you ignore existing complaints from advertisers. It's like a pyramid scheme - as long as new advertisers come along who are unexperienced, they will not ask too many questions. Maybe after a while they deactivate content network for their campaigns. This is where publishers are losing money (then again, maybe Google gets even more because they go just for search results).
But is it feasible to have manual checks?
Let's say it takes an employee about 10 minutes to work on a spam report (he has to read and understand the report, open the offending page, lookup the Adsense history associated to the publisher ID, make up his mind, and possibly deactivate the account - doable in ten minutes), then this single employee can handle six potentially foul publishers per hour or 48 per day, or roughly 1,000 per month. Assign 25 guys to this task, and they can handle roughly 25,000 requests per month. 25 guys should be not too much for a company valued at 80 billion dollars. No, the labour cost for this is -almost- zero.
Sure, maybe the bright heads have to implement a system that helps the 25 guys to get the priorities right, e.g. some kind of automated pre-qualification. This is not rocket science and could be done easily through the feedback function. Work on those accounts first that get a truckload of complaints =and= are making a lot of money. Easy if you have all the data available.
And boy, once the word gets out that Google is enforcing its quality guidelines, the offending pages/publishers may rethink their Adsense strategy, and there will be less complaints.
But is this what Google wants?
-- M.
And boy, once the word gets out that Google is enforcing its quality guidelines, the offending pages/publishers may rethink their Adsense strategy, and there will be less complaints.But is this what Google wants?
This may be the real question. If your system openly permits fraud then clearly there is a fault in your system. Petty fraud is still fraud and resources are not the problem here. I think we can forget about that as an excuse, particularly when Google have never tried to use it as one.
Where is the problem?
Of google's massive database of adsense advertisers only a tiny % abuse the TOS.
mzanzig
Looking at the number of results returned it would take 1 person 2 months to go through those 80000 offending results. They would then be unemployed.
I think this is a tiny tiny wee problem that is beginning to get blown out of proportion.
Who would prefer Google put their efforts into producing good quality SERPs rather than preventing a few webmasters (term used loosely) from earning a couple of extra cents from sites that obviously make very little from adsense anyway.
Us webmasters are getting a little petty don't you think? Just because someone needs to entice people to 'click the ads' to make a couple of bucks.
Forget them!
Lets go make some real money.
Ska
Looking at the number of results returned it would take 1 person 2 months to go through those 80000 offending results. They would then be unemployed.
Well, we should not forget about the scrapers and other dubious folks that might actually require attention by the G anti-fraud team. Oh, and all those fishy advertisers that are around. I guess such a team would have plenty of work. They wouldn't go unemployed after two months. :-)
-- M.
I generally agree with you, and am not particularly obsessed about this kind of fraud. But if so many advertisers are turning the content network off, as noted in the quotation you made, then isn't there a problem? Can we really assume that improved smart pricing alone will solve the problem?
I just feel like search engine users that searched for one of my targeted keywords would be more likely to be looking for what my site offers than someone that navigates to my site from another website that google may or may not have targeted correctly with its algorithsm.
Even fraud aside, genuine adsense publishers discuss on this website all the time on how to improve click through rates. One of the ways people suggest is to make the ads look as much like the rest of the site as possible. This would inevitably end up with a small amount of users navigating to my site my accident.
I just feel like search engine users that searched for one of my targeted keywords would be more likely to be looking for what my site offers than someone that navigates to my site from another website that google may or may not have targeted correctly with its algorithsm.
Yes, but clicks from many of those searchers are likely to convert poorly if the searchers are looking for information (not to make an immediate purchase or other "business action"). In contrast, a lead generated from, say, a product review has a good chance of being a prequalified lead.
Some advertisers may be leery of the CPC content network, and that's where Google's new "site-targeted CPM ads" are useful. Instead of taking potluck with the everything from scraper sites to parked domains, advertisers can select high-quality sites in their niches just as they've long been able to do in offline media.
But if so many advertisers are turning the content network off, as noted in the quotation you made, then isn't there a problem?
My quote noted one advertiser turning off the content network in respect of particular ads (not all of them).
I'm not sure where you got the "so many advertisers (are turning it off)" data from? Do you have that data?
As far as I can tell (based on my revenue from AdSense, that of others and the plethora of AdSense ads I see all over sites I visit - that's where my data is from) there is no problem. The content network is being used. Extensively.
Yes, I believe that smart pricing is the answer. It's not perfect, but it's clearly sufficient.
I don't believe there is a problem that's large enough to warrant spending any time worrying about.
Not that I'm an adwords advertiser (soon to be adsense publisher so maybe i should say this), but if I were I thikn i would chose to block googles publisher network right away
Maybe at first, out of sheer panic perhaps from reading threads like this. But when you gain a little experience with online advertising, what you really learn is what's important. And what's important is ROI (profit).
Once you've learned that, you'd probably start experimenting with the content network (maybe selectively on a few ads) to see if it's profitable for you. If it is, you'll be advertising on it.
For many advertisers, it is profitable (I'm sure in some part due to Smart Pricing).
If you run an eCommerce store, would you not setup a merchant account for fear of fraud and charge-backs? Even if you knew that with the increase of sales you could achieve you could cover that cost of fraud as an overhead and come out making more profit than if you didn't have credit card processing?
How many online stores do you see that have credit card processing? Do you think they don't ever get any chargebacks/fraud?
Think about it. These are the basic building block concepts of running a business.
TJ
As far as I can tell (based on my revenue from AdSense, that of others and the plethora of AdSense ads I see all over sites I visit - that's where my data is from) there is no problem. The content network is being used. Extensively.
Of course it is being used. Content network represented about 46% of total revenue at Google (in Q1/2005). The real question is whether they will be able to keep or increase revenues from content network in the future. The next quarterly report will be very interesting with regard to
- the absolute revenues of Google content network
- the share of total revenues of Google content network
- the absolute payouts towards publishers (aka "traffic aquisition cost")
- the average revenue share with publishers in general (in Q1 Google kept about 21% of revenues)
At the end of the days, the financials tell it all.
But even if they manage to keep/increase revenues, there still is a problem with dubious folks ("click the ads", scrapers, made-for-Adsense only, etc.) - any advertiser who has been cheated by these folks without sufficient ROI will turn off content network. Or stop advertising on Google at all. But then again, I am sure that Google reps will call any big advertiser and give him tips on how to spend the money on Google without content network. Remember: an ad in the Google SERPs is almost 100% profit while the content network returns just 21%...
-- M.
I wonder how much of a discount smart pricing will impose? If a "click the ads" publisher has a 0% conversion rate, would smart pricing ultimately lead to a 0 cents per click payout?
If you run an eCommerce store, would you not setup a merchant account for fear of fraud and charge-backs? Even if you knew that with the increase of sales you could achieve you could cover that cost of fraud as an overhead and come out making more profit than if you didn't have credit card processing
... this is not a good analogy. The credit card companies don't sit back and allow known fraudsters to continue because they are only stealing small amounts ;)
The credit card companies don't sit back and allow known fraudsters to continue because they are only stealing small amounts
I beg to differ. There are numerous threads here about how pathetic credit card companies and banks really are when you do report an attempted fraud; they just don't want to know. As a merchant who's been taking credit cards for decades I can also confirm that they are getting less interested in doing anything about fraud and more interested in fobbing the responsibility onto merchants (I do read every word of the small print).
The only people who can show even less interest are the police. I believe TJ's example was spot on.
[edited by: oddsod at 3:22 pm (utc) on June 30, 2005]
Content network represented about 46% of total revenue at Google (in Q1/2005). The real question is whether they will be able to keep or increase revenues from content network in the future.
Online advertising still represents only a tiny fraction of the total advertising market. The search/contextual ad networks like AdWords/AdSense are merely a segment within that market. So there's still plenty of room for growth.
Plus, Google can increase revenue by offering product extensions that ultimately should boost the network's effective CPM. Site-targeted CPM ads are a case in point: They should make Google's content network far more attractive to mainstream advertisers who are used to paying more for leads or brand exposure than are traditional PPC advertisers such as e-commerce sites and affiliates.
The credit card companies don't sit back and allow known fraudsters to continue because they are only stealing small amounts
Actually, that's exactly what they do ;-)
But it maybe a bad example in the sense that it's a one-off "crime" for each perpetrator.
Whether it's one-off or continuing makes little difference though, it's an overhead that eCommerce stores must swallow. And they will, if it's profitable for them to do so.
TJ
If you are looking for the guns in AdSense posts, I split it into its own discussion here:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Emailing adsense-abuse@google.com address - don't bother with clicking on the ads by gooooogle as they don't seem to respond to that
