Many of these ads do not make any sense at all. If you search for a popular
author you will see ads like "AuthorName for sale" and "Buy your AuthorName here"
Does this type of advertisement detract from the user experience? I can not
see any value added by displaying them. If anything they might teach the user
not to read the ads at all...
What do you guys think?
we have found our best strategy is to speed up their exit from AdWords as fast as possible and to make them pay G as much as possible in the meantime.So, if they choose to bid up the prices so as to gain first place position, then we will directly target them to STAY IN THAT FIRST place position but at the most expensive possibility for them.
Since we are normally first and the other "friendly" site is normally second, the neat little "secret" is that the price we pay IS THE SAME when the "regular" sites are newly moved down to "second and third" positions respectively (because of the new self-publisher coming in to first pushes the regular sites down one position). As long as the "friendly" site does not change its bidding (which it does not), then we will still only be paying the same price the site pays normally when in first or now when in second after a self-publisher comes in.
And that is what gives us the room to bid up the Max CPC while not increasing our own price.
Here's the method...
For me, it comes down to user choice - if they click on my ad rather than someone elses, they picked mine for a reason. If we were both promoting the same domain, so what, mine got their attention and I win.
However, when these clicks do not convert to sales, I lose and cut the ad. Natural selection by ROI.
But when one in an affiliate army fails, they leave. Then another fool in the "big corporation's" affiliate army tries it and they fail. Then another and they fail. And another and another and another. They all fail -- in this example. But they continue to distract the user always being the same army of the "big corporation."
Or others who only want to do a quick "drive by bid attack" and not have to identify themselves use the affiliate system to hide.
If advertisers had to have an act of proven commitment to the keyword, as having their own real domain, then they would make sure that they really are offering value to the user in the keyword and also no one would want to expose themselves in fraudulent "drive by bid attacks."
In that other thread, I was simply helping other WebmasterWorld members here with an insight from experience. I received thanks from many for my help there.Like everyone always says here about webmastering, "Know your market." In that thread, I used an example of knowing MY market. In MY market (meaning the particular keyword of my focus), it is an experiential fact that the self-publishers will not succeed. They never do. That's because searchers in this keyword are not using the SE's for finding books. But even so, that never stops the would-be heroes from trying to self-publish their book. Eventually, they will always leave because the market of this keyword is NOT looking for such books --especially given how such self-published books are also usually filled with mis-information anyway. In that thread, I merely pointed out how annoying they are, and how experience proves that they will eventually leave anyway because they will always fail in this keyword. So, to help others here at WebmasterWorld with an insight, I explained how we help nudge a self-publisher's exit form the AdWords a little faster, while actually also helping G$ make even more $ in the process. They're going to leave anyway -- we just help speed it along. I used that anecdotal example to help others at WebmasterWorld understand how to apply that technique.
That was not anti-competitive. And it even helps G$ get more revenues than it would have otherwise earned.
But not once did I say that G$ should go about banning such self-publishers. That's because such self-publishers are at least attempting to be specificly relevant to the keyword -- notwithstanding their misinformational basis.
And I also made it clear that I do not participate in any collusion. Nor do I contact other advertisers. (Besides, I would have nothing to gain from doing so.)
Clearly, therefore, that thread and that issue are quite different from the issue here of affiliate ghosts not being in the same adspace as real site domains.
At least the self-publishers had their own real domain sites.
It is amazing how truly thin a straw some will grasp at in order to try to attack me in this thread.
I am thinking of promoting some clickbank products and I am not really happy with the way they offer it.
Surely, I would like the products to be sold from my own sites instead of those hop.click links, but it seems they don't provide that option.
As a test I have tried some 301 redirections to the affiliate links, but apparently, the clickbank self treats it as abuse and provides "network abuse policy" page, instead of the link.
If anyone knows some good legitimate way to do this properly in combo with either Adwords or Overture, I would appreciate his/her pm, e-mail to activeco at home.nl or reply here, if allowed. Thanks.
