Google sued over click fraud

[Real Estate Forum]

have you guys seen this yet?
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh4906 4_2005-06-30_01-45-07_n6t198386_newsml

[Phoenix Realtor]

No I hadn't even heard about it until you posted it here.

[Real Estate Forum]

Has to do with click fraud. Normally we see whining webmasters on forums who complain that adsense kicked them out because they violated the TOS (of course they all claim they never did click their own ads).

But from what I have seen here and also heard elsewhere, it is becoming a huge problem. Advertisers get the clicks, get charged for them ... and of course those clicks don't convert into leads or sales.

Too many spam masters put up some free blogs and then get accepted into the program. Next thing you know, they are in AOL chat asking one another to click on each others ads (I have seen some dumbasses admitting to it openly in some webmaster forums).

Anyways, this seems to be way bigger than I thought. Those guys are pros. Of course Google normally catches on (late), but the damage seems to be done.

it's very hard to find a solution there. Just as with spam results in the SERPs.

With now 8 Billion pages indexed and who knows how many adsense affiliates, making sure that everyone plays by the rules is tough.

I actually hope that this will push Google into the right direction to come up with a solid solution :cool:

Mike

[Phoenix Realtor]

I think adsense is out of control and I'm not sure they'll ever get it back under control again. Not with the type of money I've heard some people make.

[Real Estate Forum]

A lot of webmasters make 50k+/month. The owner of digitalpoint makes way moe than that even. Now we have people auto-generate 1,000s of pages with adsense and mass spam any chance they get. As the article states, in some cases advertisers spend as much as $95 per click :eek:
I have heard of cases, such as when there is a class action lawsuit going on somewhere, attorneys (internet ambulance chasers ;) ) are paying it and it pays off :cool:


Now you have a lot of people get a free blogger blog, they put some (or steal some) legal content onto it, add their adsense code, and if the right ads get generated, they become eligible for that kind of pay.


I shouldn't be posting this (don't want to inspire the wrong people), but that is what I have seen being done. I have been hearing the adsense affiliates' side of the story mostly, but now it seems to become known that there is a much bigger issue. It hurts advertisers to the point where they don't get their money's worth and are starting to demand reimbursement.

Real estate on the other hand is far behind. Many lead-resellers advertise with adwords and they pay low. lawyers on the other hand are already there and who would be worse to cheat than a lawyer :)

[ConsiderThis]

that's really interesting.

A friend of mine (we used to share an office) has been helping me now while I have almost absolutely no money. So I'm trying to do some Adword ads for him. Plus, I'm trying to rent my property that's been vacant by advertising with Gooooogle.

I have hardly gotten any clicks, but the strange thing is that the clicks I have gotten don't show up on my web page stats.

So do you think that's because a machine clicked on it?

I only read it once, so I'm not sure I followed it, in case my question is off point.

I think this forum of yours and my site are the only two sites I've seen in ages that don't have Adsense ads. I was actually wondering if you knew about them (I'm also Polish).

I think it's cool that you have your own ads in that position.

I haven't used Adsense because I want people to read a few of the B12 pages... and I'm afraid that if they are tempted away they won't read enough to really understand how important it is.

But I was thinking that if I knew what from page they tended to leave my site, then I could put the ads there... and wouldn't people be likely to click on them if they were ready to leave anyway????

I can't wait to see if the signature thing works....

[Real Estate Forum]

(I'm also Polish)
lol what does that have to do with anything :)

I think it's cool that you have your own ads in that position.

I haven't used Adsense because I want people to read a few of the B12 pages... and I'm afraid that if they are tempted away they won't read enough to really understand how important it is.

But I was thinking that if I knew what from page they tended to leave my site, then I could put the ads there... and wouldn't people be likely to click on them if they were ready to leave anyway????

I can't wait to see if the signature thing works....
Your sigs working fine. I don't like adsense for real estate or mortgages. 25c per click is not what I call good. I was asking in here (http://www.realestateforum.com/showthread.php?t=858) how much targeted traffic it actually takes to sell a house (in the average) to determine how much sense adsense really makes.

Even though no one gave a clear answer (I didnt' really expect one, nobody wants to reveal to much inside info on his business), the estimates I've come up with were rediculously low. :cool:

[ConsiderThis]

Hi,
No, I don't think that's low at all.
Here's why: I knew a man who was major into researching things. He wanted to get into mail order. So he learned that 1-3% was the conversion rate -- from direct mail to orders.

When I was a Realtor and did direct mailings, that was about my rate.

Equally, when I was writing letters to try to reform IRS (I wrote a couple thousand during the mid-ninties) I got replies from about the same percentage of people, only these people were The Constitutional Scholar at Harvard, etc. that is, they were from among the people I was writing to.

The internet has me baffled, though.

Now, admittedly I didn't make my site to sell B12, I made it to provide information.

But then I added a page where people could order, if they wanted.

Okay, so in a day maybe a hundred people will read several pages of B12 information. Of those people, maybe 6 to 10 will look at the page where they could order if they wanted.

But then ... it seems like it goes back to the 1-3% of that small number who actually order.

But, I did go through a lot of trouble to tell people they could get it from Wal*Mart for pretty cheap because I was afraid that if people thought my site was created to sell B12, they wouldn't value the information. For me, it's just so hard to believe that I can have this much brain damage from the lack of a vitamin. (When I write - unless I'm stressed - you can't tell how much cognitive dysfunction I have. It's when I talk.)

So, what do you think, is it that you have to pay .25 to get a click? I'm not getting any clicks on the pages I did for my former office mate. I had hoped to maybe get some income by providing leads to him... but I only offered to pay .10 a click...

http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com/Fingernails.html
Your fingernails reflect your health --
Learn what warning signs to look for --
Karen Kline

[Real Estate Forum]

I think it all depends on where those ads are located. If the traffic is right and the ads are somewhere where visitors can access them easily, the clicks should be valuable and the conversion rate should increase.

Direct mainlings depend a lot on who is on that list. The likelihood of the recipients being interested in what you have to say.

I think that if you have adsense on a real estate related page that has visitors searching for terms such as "area + real estate", the clicks should convert pretty well.

If you have a site with information on vitamins, and adsense all over, I think that clicks on a page saying "order here" are the ones most likely to generate sales even though the others will as well.

What did you mean with conversion rate for real estate? Clicks converting into sales or leads? If it was sales, that would mean that if the advertiser sold a house, he would only have to pay $25 commissions :)

[ConsiderThis]

You have a lot of info in your post --

What I can remember is the thing about who's on the list.

I sold an historical property to a man who was part of developing the whole database related advertising that we know today. I forget the name of the agency he was with, but it was a major one.

So yes, the better the base, the better the return.

But in my IRS mailing, I just mailed to people that I could imagine talking to; people that I saw on Charlie Rose or the news... people like Greenspan's brother who's a photographer who likes to shoot the Olympics...

I mean, I heard back from Princess Diana's secretary... in about 9 days which is vastly fast.

So I think that in a hundred people about one to three are going to be interested.

But on the web, where access is so fast, it seems more like one or two in a thousand are interested... that was what I was trying to say.'

http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com/Fingernails.html
Your fingernails reflect your health --
Learn what warning signs to look for --
Karen Kline

[ConsiderThis]

Is the signature thing working? I was going to look at some of your pages again and the links aren't showing.

I've been manually putting mine in...

I checked the panel and it looks like it's working, but I don't think it is.

I LOVE your pages.

[Real Estate Forum]

It's working, but has been changed so your sig only appears once per page :)

[ConsiderThis]

Oh, that's pretty neat!

It gives a nice clean look.

Thanks.

[Shimmer]

$95.00 per click what kind of money they make..... unbelievable...

[kthor]

$95.00 per click what kind of money they make..... unbelievable...

Lawyers will recoup that when the lawsuit is done ...trust me they always do!

[kthor]

This is my new trick for google Adwords, I pay absolutely about .20C
for keywords now ( All 10 of the keywords are busy ), those that clicks on my ads are people who are serious and in need of buying homes, althought
I get less clicks (hey .20C !!!), the conversion rate are better.

before .20C, I paid up to $5.00 per keyword, spent thousands with same result as the .20C..most of the people that click on my $5.00 ads
I believe are click frauds.

now I feel better if iam a victim of click fraud with my .20c keywords.

ohh I think some of my KW are even at .05C..lol have to double on this
..

[Real Estate Forum]

Lawyers will recoup that when the lawsuit is done ...trust me they always do!
Lawyers won't spend a dime unless they know it's worth it :cool: :)

[iamsudhi]

Google with their solid TOS about click fraud still got sued for click fraud?! That is a pity to know. Actually I have seen such sites where free music and free movies are offered in return of clicks on adsense ads! They are doing it with such neatness that no can catch those frauds. In cases like this it is difficult for google to catch them and advertisers will lose a whole lot of money.