Google’s Click Fraud Protection . . . . Woof

By Ian Magwire

So what do you do when you become a victim of click fraud?  Call the cops?  You call Google.  Who profits from click fraud?  Google.  Conflict of interest much?  I’ve read the Tuzhilin report, and I’ve never heard of someone with such credentials use the word “reasonable” as an excuse for a conclusion so often or so egregiously.

In a nutshell: Google makes a profit from click fraud, so their system of filters designed to prevent click fraud stay about as up to date as Google wants them to.  Google refuses to give over any details about, or the identity of, those who commit click fraud for fear of piracy.

Piracy in this case is being defined as someone using specific information about previous acts of click fraud to reverse engineer Google’s filters.

So then are we to believe that Google’s plan is to just keep the identities of the perpetrators quiet until they come up with a backup plan?  News flash, they’ve already got the backup plan, they’ve already figured out every
possible outcome.  They have filters to deal with the possibility of the reverse engineering of the filters they already have in place.

So don’t feel surprised if they don’t exactly send a CSI team to collect DNA swabs every time you get a “Click Quality Adjustment”.  So if you do happen to look at your itemized AdWords bill and see a “Click Quality Adjustment” just know that the phrase you are reading is a nice way of saying:

“somebody stole x amount of money from you (sorry we can’t tell you exactly how much or how often or when the fraud occurred) so here’s a sum we found reasonable to compensate you with.”

Go get yourself a hot dog.

Website Marketing Strategies

• SEO-Website Marketing Strategy

The strategy should really depend on your organizations objectives and your current positioning.  If you are just beginning to develop your online presence and website marketing strategy, you will be focusing on building and design.  If your website has been around for years and you are hoping to get better positioning before your competitors do, then you will be focusing on some of the fundamental elements of on and off page optimization.

• PPC Website-Marketing Strategy

Pay Per Click advertising is seen through many mediums across the internet.  One of the most commonly known campaigns is Google Adwords.  Yahoo has  a similar search marketing program and Microsoft has their version, AdCenter.  This is easiest way to get your organization to the top search results in many cases, but also one of the most expensive.  Depending on how competitive your industry is, you can spend anywhere from $100 a day to $5,000 a day.  Another benefit of using the PPC campaigns is that many websites incorporate these ads into their websites because they get paid for the clicks.  This helps drive more people to your site, but at a costly price.  If you engage in a PPC campaign BE CAREFUL.  Not knowing the proper way to optimize these campaigns can be extremely costly.

• Local Listings-Website Marketing

Local Listings are an integral part of any marketing mix.  If you have a physical location, it would be silly not to start here.  Sober Intellect has a partnership with the two largest distribution networks on the internet.  This means your business will propogate into sites like: Yellowpages, Bing, Google, Yahoo, Citysearch, Yellowbot, Urbanspoon, Superpages, Yelp, and many, many more.  This is an amazing opportunity for customers to leave feedback for your business and creates links to your website.  All of these can easily be managed and updated from one location on a monthly basis.  IF YOU ARE JUST GETTING STARTED, BEGIN YOUR WEBSITE MARKETING HERE!

• Site Architecture-Website Marketing

All of these elements are should be considered in your online marketing strategy.  Site architecture is important for several reasons.  First, when your website is being crawled by the search engines it, structure matters.  Second, utility for your consumers.  You want your site to be easily navigated and simple to customers to complete your funnel processes.  Your funnel process is the path you want your customer to take from entry to conversion.  For example, landing on your homepage and then filling out a contact form or making a purchase.  Its like if you build a house, you want people to be able to find the bathroom if necessary, right?  Maybe a bad analogy, but you get the point.

• Link Building-Website Marketing

Links to your site is probably one of the most important factors of achieving good organic results, especially in a competitive market.  This piece goes hand and hand with your search engine optimization strategy.  Sober Intellect offers SEO consulting services  and can help your organization get the results you are looking for.  Link building is often solicited in the form of directory listings. BE CAREFUL with this.  Google is well aware of the link directories that are associated with spammy sites, and will penalize your site if associated with these.  I have seen this happen so again, be very careful purchasing links!

SEO Consulting Services by Sober Intellect