Forum Moderators: martinibuster
There are Adwords advertisers who are setting false landing pages that give the 404 (IE ) message.
EXAMPLE:
www.Bad-Sample-Search.com/Your-Country
www.Bad-Sample-Search.com/Your-Country-Deals
The Ads rank very well on popular country portals that have the keyword.
They have made false landing pages for all the countries or any other popular keywords and do their AdWords advertising campaigns.
So when a user clicks the Ad, the browser shows the 404 page, saying that you cannot connect to www.Bad-Sample-Search.com as a link.
There is a high chance that a user would again try to click the above link to check whether it’s working.
Then the Adwords Advertiser gets traffic for Free.
Most of the sites that I found were not MFAs.
They are directories with only Affiliate Banners and Affiliate Links.
What can you call them? AWB (AdWords Beggars)
PS: So if you find funny domain names and URLs on ads better test them on your browser and add them to your filter if they are AWBs.
it's late, and i'm tired, and of course stupid, but i dont get what you're saying..
There is a high chance that a user would again try to click the above link to check whether it’s working.
Then the Adwords Advertiser gets traffic for Free.
Please explain this for us 'less smart' folks..
-------------- 404 -------------------
The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Please try the following:
If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Open the www.Bad-Sample-Search.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
Click Search to look for information on the Internet.
HTTP 404 - File not found
Internet Explorer
--------------------------------------------------------
Advertisers Pay only if the connection to the page is established.
1) When the server is down, Advertisers are Not charged
2) When the Page is Not found (404), Advertisers are Not charged
1) When the server is down, Advertisers are Not charged
2) When the Page is Not found (404), Advertisers are Not charged
i just noted three advertiser on my site with this tactic.
I think Google needs to put a lot more time and money into cleaning up this sort of stuff.
Today I thought of letting you know because everybody talks about MFA and not about AWB.
I think this is a bigger problem than MFA, because we don't get paid at all.
Is that from Google?
[edited by: Scurramunga at 9:12 am (utc) on June 10, 2006]
Quoted:
----
Advertisers Pay only if the connection to the page is established.
1) When the server is down, Advertisers are Not charged
2) When the Page is Not found (404), Advertisers are Not charged
----
Is that from Google?
No,
It is obvious.
Google returns the money to the advertiser if there is a click fraud.
Then what makes you think that Google will charge Advertisers
1) When the server is down
2) When the Page is Not found (404)
And
Why do you think AdWords Advertisers are doing this trick?
I hope they are not doing this for fun!
As regards the 404 error code: 404 does not mean that server is down. 404 is a response from a server that is up and it means "Document Not Found". 404 is solely the advertiser's fault and he should be charged (and I suppose Google does so).
For this to work Google would be getting a record of multiple clicks ending in 404's that Google isn't making money off of. If this trick does work I'd guess it only works a few times.
I added 2 sites in the Competitive Filter few hours ago but the Ads are still appearing on my site. I know this would take time, until the next update.
May be, no one has clicked the ads, so Google still can't detect 404.
But it is very strange, because I get lot of clicks and those Ads are on the top of Skyscrapers.
Most importantly, even if the Google's system detects the 404 and disable the Ads,
Who wants to waist even a single click for nothing?
Imagine the impact of a high traffic site with loads of 404 Ads.
As regards the 404 error code: 404 does not mean that server is down. 404 is a response from a server that is up and it means "Document Not Found". 404 is solely the advertiser's fault and he should be charged (and I suppose Google does so).
It is not the problem of their Server or the problem of their page.
They purposely advertise a non-existing page.
Then why do you think AdWords Advertisers are doing this trick?
First I noticed 404 Ads 8 months ago and they are still doing the trick.
If they are being charged for 404 why do they need to advertise the 404 page instead of their domain home page or a valid link?
@2fast:
Sample-Search.com/Your-Country
Is this the landing page as per the preview tool, or is this the advertised URL in the ad (shown when hovering over the ad)?
I am asking this, because I have seen such misleading adcopy (i.e. wrong URL mentioned) on my sites. The landing pages, however, were always valid (MFAs, though, but at least valid pages). Only if you entered the misleading URL directly into the browser, you would end up in a 404. (One English advertiser is frequently using this techique.)
Why would they do that? I guess the MFA wants to provide the impression that the result of the click is very targeted and thus very much relevant for the end consumer, something he can not achieve with the domain name (too generic), and the script-driven garbage on his site is apparently unable to even have correct redirects implemented (just in case someone types in the URL - free traffic!).
Just compare
Sample-Search.com
and
Sample-Search.com/keyword
especially if the relevance is not apparent from the domain name.
If you are, on the other hand, talking about the real landing page (from preview tool) returning a 404, then we should really take a look at the full scenario and analyse it, i.e. why are they doing it, what do they gain by it, and how bad a problem is it?
Also, maybe we could add this wish to the (already very long) wishlist from the Adsense/Adwords product team? Advertised URL must be identical to landing page URL after clicking and may not return errors (404 or others). This would leave no doubt for end-consumers where the click is really directed.
not when it comes to advertised landing page (in ad copy) and the real landing page.
I guess Google do not want to check the advertised URL against the real landing page, because they get in trouble with some online advertising firms that manage campaigns for their clients. These usually use landing pages that point to their systems first and are then re-directed to the advertisers site.
This re-directing serves two purposes:
1) Counting the effectiveness of campaigns independently of Google's official statistics. This way the marketing firm does not require direct access to the advertisers log files.
2) Further disguising the real identity of the advertiser. For example, you may block eBay.com but you may not reach your goal of stopping ads showing up for (and finally landing at!) eBay.com. Only using the preview tool reveals that you are clicking on an ad by some-mfa-junk.com/redirect.php?morejunktotrackthead
Is this the landing page as per the preview tool, or is this the advertised URL in the ad (shown when hovering over the ad)?
I am asking this, because I have seen such misleading adcopy (i.e. wrong URL mentioned) on my sites. The landing pages, however, were always valid (MFAs, though, but at least valid pages). Only if you entered the misleading URL directly into the browser, you would end up in a 404. (One English advertiser is frequently using this techique.)Why would they do that? I guess the MFA wants to provide the impression that the result of the click is very targeted and thus very much relevant for the end consumer, something he can not achieve with the domain name (too generic), and the script-driven garbage on his site is apparently unable to even have correct redirects implemented (just in case someone types in the URL - free traffic!).
Mzanzig
I think you are right.
You have made many things clear.
The sites that I blocked are still MFAs anyway then.
But I still don’t understand how these MFAs take the top positions of Skyscrapers.
But I still don’t understand how these MFAs take the top positions of Skyscrapers
Uh, that's a widely discussed topic here. See all the other threads on fighting MFAs and their business logic to (try to) understand this. Due to the lack of insight into the Google algos there is still a lot of speculation going on though.
I'm not sure but what this thread should be linked or moved into the AdWords forum.
Anyway the 404s under discussion are not due to ad clicks anyway. they're due to curious webmasters typing in the displayed URL.
Ann
This thread is really an MFA thread.
I certainly got charged by adwords when my server was down once. G does not care if your server is down. They will charge you nevertheless.
Once in a while they may send you a mail suspending your campaign ( because of your server
problems). But that seems totally random and very rare.
Ann
Not very practical, isn't it?
Also, I see not good reason for Google to have this kindness on clumsy webmasters
Plus, there is god evidence that Adwords keeps billing you even if your server is down.....
not charging for a 404 would require a bot to spider the landing page every time an ad gets clicked to check if the page exists.
My idea. The 404 error code is sent to the visitor's browser, not to Google's server farm. Therefore Google wouldn't know the site is down, unless they visit the landing page every time the link is clicked. I just made a scan through my server log-files and I've seen not one single piece of evidence that Google is loading a landing page at or around the moment someone clicks on one of my AdWords ads.
Therefore Google doesn't know the page is down and will charge the advertiser for it.
It is obvious.
Google returns the money to the advertiser if there is a click fraud.Then what makes you think that Google will charge Advertisers
1) When the server is down
2) When the Page is Not found (404)
Advertisers get charged when someone clicks on their ad, it doesn't matter whether the server is down or the user gets a 404.
