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One of my sites gets 8 - 10 referrals a day from Overture. Isn't this almost certainly my competitors?
It's the same search terms everyday. I don't feel I should have to pay for these.
This may not sound like a big deal but it adds up to a few thousand dollars every year.
Do people actually use Overture to search?
Good luck.
I'm quite dissatisified with their methodology of denying everything no matter what.
Burden of proof is on you. Until you give them copies of your logs showing a bonafide cheater tromping through the your site, Overture will deny everything.
I know many people that will find a site they might want to buy something from, but not sure if it's legitimate or still in business, so will search for AdWords and at Overture to see if they are advertising, as this means they are currently in business.
As an advertiser you have to take the rough with the smooth, Overture are merely the facilitator of an introduction.
There clearly are measures in place to pick stuff like this up, but it's not foolproof.
If you don't have closed loop tracking in place, how will you ever know? We've had plenty of instances of sales being made on the back of Overture visitors, so if the theory of them being competitors of clients, then their competitors must be very nice people to place orders.
If you were running a retail outlet, would everyone that asks for a price list be a competitor? would everyone that walked into the shop be a spy?
I think 8-10 is a decent number, if it adds up to a few thousand dollars in cost and you can't track whether you made a profit on the 2500-3600 visitors that came in through the door, even allowing for the fact that some WILL be your competitors, then more work needs to be done on ROI tracking.
1-2% conversion would mean between 25 and 70 sales, and if your making even remotely decent profit you should cover the cost off.
Track, track, track and then track some more.
In my case, it's the same two terms every day from the same type of IP addresses (comcast EC). It's a visit to the landing page and then they're gone. Once in a while they'll cruise through the site a bit. But never more than a one minute visit. And not one sale!
I'm not looking for Overture to refund me in any way. I know that's not going to happen. I just didn't think Joe Public even knew Overture existed.
Do they really need a search box?
And do I have to pay for visits from the 'keyword tool'? I'm going to test this.
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So if a bona fide cheater is chomping through your site, why should Overture have to pay for that?
They don't have to PAY for it. Why should I?
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When we are looking for a specific product we will often go to Over as we know that the comapanies listed are interested in selling and are geared to it.
The worst referrals are from bidtool.overture.com
However, you do know that competitors will try and click on your links. I have better things to do with my time, like check my bids or find some more specific keywords with a better ROI.
