Defining Clicks and Click Fraud 78
abb_road writes "Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have banded together and created the Click Measurement Group, with the goal of creating a standard definition for a 'click'. The group will have some access to the three companies' click data, although the access won't be unlimited. The move comes in response to advertisers who claim that click fraud is costing them almost $1 billion dollars a year, and who have hit Google and Yahoo with lawsuits alleging negligence in fighting click fraud."
Definition of a `Click': (Score:5, Interesting)
Do this to many links that appear like they're counted.
Wait for the page to load (don't view it!).
Right click on the tab. Click `Close Tab'.
Congratulations, you have just ``clicked'' according to their definition. You also have just cost a site some $$ (and made some $$ for Google/Yahoo/Microsoft).
Advertising rocks!
The solution is easy (Score:1, Interesting)
In tv or newspaper they pay for the impression of the ads not from people going in the shop.
Re:Oh FFS (Score:3, Interesting)
So joe visitor visits my site and clicks through to the advertiser's page. With Pay Per Action, Joe Visitor must purchase the product right then in order for me to recieve credit. If Joe Visitor likes what he sees but decides to come back later after talking it over with Mrs Visitor, I don't get paid because he will inevitably go directly to the site rather than reload my site a bazillion times to find the ad so I get the credit for the referal.
There are plenty of Pay Per Action programs out there. They benefit the merchant far more than the ad publisher. If Google ever goes PPA I'm dropping their program. I did PPA with Commission Junction to a tune of 63,000 impressions, about a 1% click thru and $0 in the course of a year. With half the impressions on Google AdSense I made hundreds in the course of a month.
Only on the net do advertisers expect a direct return for every click of their stupid little ads. That's not how advertising works. Most money that goes into advertising is "wasted." People see the ads or get a free pencil but fail to actually buy any product. The net result of PPC and programs like AdSense is that overall everyone benefits more. Publishers have more incentive to display ads. And advertisers therefore have a much larger viewing audience.
Advertisers that are whining about AdWords need to go somewhere else instead of trying to turn AdSense into yet another worthless revenue tool for site owners.
Google ADsense has MAJOR problems!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider this...
They give you an account and tell you NOT to encourage your website visitors to visit the sponsors. How stupid is that?
They give you a google search box and and tell you NOT to encourage your website visitors to use it. How stupid is that?
Isn't the entire reason for having ADs is that website users can click those ADs and view advertiser products and services?
The 1st time they suspended my account for "Invalid Clicks" I had to ask my website users not to click the ADs. Can you believe it? I actually had to discourage my website users to not visit the ADs or use the Google search because of fear of being suspended again.
After pleading my case with Google, I was reinstated. After another month, I was suspended again and simply gave up on AD-sense. They kept my money as well. It wasn't much because I don't have that much traffic. Around $50 or so..
If anyone was defrauded, it was me!!
What this tells me is that google's methodology for detecting so called "invalid clicks" is severely flawed. I know in my heart there was no fraud on my website and that's all that matters to me.
If google was really interested in eliminating fraud, they would suspend the accounts who were really involved in perpetrating frauds. Like the 1000s of websites that contain little or no content and trick you into clicking on the ADs. Those, along with the "click-monkeys" are the real villains here, not the average small time website owner like myself who never did anything wrong.
Since moving to yahoo for AD servers, I have not had any problems. They obviously can tell when fraud has been committed, and more importantly for me, when it has not.