Any luck getting Overture to drop Irrelevent listings

Irrelevant content still clogging listings.

[lgn]

Overture has come out with listing guidelines for relevant content. The only problem, is this
guideline does not affect existing (grandfathered) irrelevant content.

I have several psuedo competitors, how have no clue about relevant content and ROI.
Getting their listing removed would benefit:

the consummer: (less noise and clutter in the listings)

the pseudo competitor: (they are not losing money hand over fist bidding on irrelevant content)

you: (less bidding wars, you are competing against only true competitors)

Have anybody tried to get irrelevent content removed by Overture,
and had any luck.

[mundonet]

We did have a competitor controlling 2 URL's and after complaining 3 times in 3 weeks, Overture removed one of them. They were systematically overbidding us with a $.01 gap between the 2 sites.

We do have quite a few more or less relevant grandfathered terms for a penny or 2 and sure hope nobody complains about them :}

[Brett_Tabke]

From what I've seen, it's rare that Overture will remove a listing based upon a complaint.

[Mardi_Gras]

I complained to Ah-Ha about an inappropriate listing and it was gone in 6 hours. Of course, I still don't get any clicks from them, but their customer service is great:).

My experience with Overture is the same as Brett's - no response yet after a month and a couple of e-mails on a problem listing.

[Tor]

Have anybody tried to get irrelevent content removed by Overture,
and had any luck.

We have complained a couple of times without any success at all.

[mundonet]

Our listing spammer is back in business with a new URL and a new Overture account but still has the same admin & tech in whois (duh!) as his other sites so new complaint.

Seems that Overture does not penalize spammers, just merge the 2 offending URl's in one account after a few complaints.

So the spammer does it again, good for monopolizing the top listings for a week or so. I pointed this out to Overture. Should we do the same or will they ban the offender? Well the one who wins is Overture, it forces us to overbid his 2 listings, gets expen$ive!

[Mardi_Gras]

Update - just got a listing dropped!

Overture sent me an e-mail saying, in essence,
"We won't discuss other people's accounts with you but we have performed the review you requested. If action was required, it has been taken." (that's paraphrased, Brett, not quoted :))

I just checked the search term where the problem advertiser was and they are gone.

So it can happen.

[Tor]

Then there is hope for the rest of us as well Mardi Gras....

[mundonet]

Update - 8 days after our complaint, our (repeat) paid listing spammer is
still up there with expensive double bids and a $.01 gap between them (in
one case 3 listings for the same search term!).

Should we do the same? Our high season is approaching fast. A free ride
to take control of the top bids without any penalty from Overture?

Did anybody ever got banned by Overture for spamming with different URL's in separate accounts? Anybody?

[Mardi_Gras]

8 days

Patience, patience...read the postings above...NOTHING happens in 8 days. If you don't have results in 45 days start planning...

Why is this competitor a spammer? does the site not offer the info promised by a kw search?

[Zoron]

IGN...

I don't find the grandfathered bids to be as much of a problem (they're all under 5 cents) since they are not bidding me up/costing me more money, and ultimately their irrelevance doesn't cause a problem for me. I have some borderline issues myself with some of my grandfathered bids. I agree, however, by all rights these bids should be forced to conform or be removed.

My problem is sites that have somehow slipped through OV's editorial filters and then bid me up or keep other premium position bids from dropping. I have complained to OV about half a dozen sites which were flagrant violators of OV's relevancy rules, such as the keyword in question not even appearing on the loading page. In all cases, either the site disappeared or modified their page/site to conform. Unfortunately it took as long as six weeks and multiple followups for this to happen.

On a brighter note the last two I complained about were gone within two weeks.

If you're a gold or higher advertiser you'll probably get more attention.

[mundonet]

Mardi_Gras - See Overture's FAQ:

"Listing Guidelines Question : Why can't I bid on the same term if I'm using a different URL?

Answer : Advertisers may bid on search terms only once, even if they list sites using different URLs or through separate accounts. This policy helps ensure that users are presented with a variety of results, and it prevents a single advertiser from monopolizing a particular search result set."

My point is that you can do this repeatedly and when you are caught there is no penalty so you can do it again and take advantage of Overture's slow process to take over the top positions between complaints. 45 days is a hundred years in the tourism industry, I hope they will be a little bit quicker than that!

When you have to outbid multiple listings from the same competitor and the bids gets expensive, who gets the money? Could that explain the slowness?

[Zoron]

I agree Muldonet. I've had this happen and even though two sites appeared to be quite different it was pretty clear when you looked further - they both had the same physical address. If there's no penalty and you can get away with it, people will continue to do it.

I think the solution is to have a policy to ban sites that violate this regulation...like non-paid SEs do with spammers. But I doubt this is high on OV's priorities list, particularly since they're benefitting from the practice.

[mundonet]

Update - 16 days after our complaint, our (repeat) paid listing spammer is still up there with expensive double bids.

[Zoron]

Have you talked to OV by phone? A supervisor?

[Mardi_Gras]

Mundonet - I was speaking a little tongue in cheek in suggesting patience. I think the reality is that if Overture is going to do anything it will take a long time - as I mentioned, it took 45 days in my case. I understand that is frustratingly long - it certainly was for me.

In my case (also tourism) it was a relevancy issue - a hotel advertising in the Bed and Breakfast category (of course they were able to outbid everyone else). I was surprised we were able to get them bounced.

Contrast that 45 days to Ah-Ha, which handled a similar situation in six hours...

Good luck.

[mundonet]

Update - it took 22 days and 4 letters to get 1 of the double listings (from our spammer using 2 different URL's and 2 Overture accounts) removed on 12 search terms. He is still there with 1 listing after doing this twice, no penalty, with his 3 accounts merged. We are expecting that he will do it a third time. Why not, a free ride to monopolize the top bids for 3 weeks! Overture, for some rea$on$ won't ban repeat offenders.

[mundonet]

Well, we just got a new spammer with 3 different URL's for the same search terms, so new complaint (Grrr...).

Let's see how many weeks this time for Overture to apply their own TOS... meanwhile: $$$ (for Overture) to beat 3 listings! %?#%&!