But it's possible that one person took the exam for all of the others. How to tell? Google could look at the distribution of wrong answers. If ten people at an agency passed the exam, but there's a pattern of the same wrong answers (they all answered the same five questions wrong) that shows they are cheating.
Prof. Steven Levitt at the University of Chicago used this idea to develope a way to test for cheating on exams. His recent book describes how to do this.
Spend your time more productively.
If I am a big client, which agency should I choose: one with 1-2 GAPs or one with 10 GAPs? (assuming both have 10 employees).
Maybe AWA could have an opinion, because Google could be granting some "GAP logo" to people that in fact did not take the GAP exam.
Or maybe there is something we don't know...
And yet you're surprised? Even shocked?
The SEO industry has a terrible reputation right now - pretty much every client we see has been burnt in the past by at least one "SEO" firm, and in some cases two or three (or four!).
Look at it this way - as long as there are SEO's happy to spam Google and charge their clients for it do you think Google will really care that someone with a GAP accreditation cheated on a few questions? They are bringing in money. Spammers aren't.
MG
"You (...) (iii) must not practice any deceptive, illegal, unethical, false or misleading practices with regard to your participation as a Google Advertising Professional..."
[adwords.google.com...]
It would be very easy for Google (or the company that carries out the testing) to set up a filter that looks for clusters of common mistakes.
Maybe AWA could have an opinion, because Google could be granting some "GAP logo" to people that in fact did not take the GAP exam.
I'll be happy to pass your concerns on to the teams involved, and will do so later this week.
I can't really speak to exactly how this sort of thing is protected against, however, for reasons that are probably obvious. ;)
AWA
