| LED Digest 2253: Click Fraud - The Evidence Mounts |
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Two major news sources are running pieces on the growing evidence of click fraud across popular (and lucrative) contextual ad networks. Today David Yancey provides a thorough and useful post on the click fraud polemic. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. September 25, 2006 Issue no. 2253 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== AdSense and Competitor Ads ==-- ~ Nancy Cardinali "...can you also have [competitor ads] on your site?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Testing the Accuracy of Web Metrics Data ==-- ~ Nick Usborne "We recently wrote a research brief on this topic..." --== Are Meta Tags Unnecessary? ==-- ~ Chris Nielsen "My feeling is that meta tags are tools that we can use as offerings." ~ David Spahr "The more times some people say it the truer it is?" ~ Kym McLaughlin "My original post should have been more specific in regards to metatags." --== Dropping PPC ==-- ~ David Yancey "Burying one's head in the sand to avoid facing the reality isn't going to help." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Emails with Just Keywords ==-- ~ Yoon Chee Tuck ========== NEW =================================== From: Nancy Cardinali Subject: AdSense Hi All ... and thanks for all the great info lately! Question: If you have Google Ad Sense on your site, can you also have Yahoo's (or whomever's) "Ad Sense" on your site? Or how about Google on 'index.html' and Yahoo on 'about.html' (different pages, same web site)? I'm guessing a good look at the fine print will tell me no, you either Google or Yahoo or Whatever, but not on same page/site. (Yes, I'm lazy and figger someone out there knows the answer in their sleep. Would take me half a day to plow thru the agreement for the answer. I thank you in advance.) And then, say you have Google AdSense on a page as well as privately acquired links (ads), say in the left navigation area. Does this step on Google's (or GYM's, as used by Eric Ward in this digest) toes? I hope these questions are not too elementary. Nancy Cardinali The Belize File; Murder and Betrayal in Paradise http://www.flyinpenguin.com/belize.html ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Nick Usborne Subject: Testing metrics > What is the gold standard for traffic analysis? I pay > for web metrics. Wanting to check on its data I realized > there is nothing to compare it to... Is there any > independent check on web metric accuracy? - Shaun Johnston, LED 2252 Shaun, You raise some interesting concerns about the accuracy of the metrics you depend on to advise your clients. The same concerns are there for internal marketing teams trying to track and evaluate their own data. We recently wrote a research brief on this topic, which you will find here: http://snipurl.com/x2ig [marketingexperiments.com] As you read it, you'll see a link to a downloadable "Essential Metrics" Excel tool. There is no charge for the tool, and you may find it useful in tracking and validating your data. There is another complementary guide we offer: "How to tell if your Data is Statistically Significant". That one is here: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/validity.html I hope the combination of the two is of help to you. Best wishes, Nick Usborne MarketingExperiments.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Meta tags So the general opinion is that meta tags are useless and have no effect whatsoever? I was very impressed by one poster's "research" to prove that point, that if bloggers are not saying anything positive, then it must be true...! :-) I had forgotten about the title meta tag (not title tag). I used to use that for a long time. I remember on one site I had somehow deleted the normal title tag, and didn't catch it at first because the meta title tag was working as if it was a <title> tag. It's been several months now, and I don't have an example to show, but while doing some research for a client I found a site that was well designed and constructed, but a large percentage of the site was being treated as "duplicate" content or content that is considered all very much the same by Google. The only thing that I could find was that while the webmaster had taken time with title and description tags, they had used the same keywords tag for almost every page. While not conclusive, this indicates to me that the keywords tag does have at least some effect, and I think this is very true for the description tag as well. I wish I had the time to take an observation like this and do some scientific testing to confirm what I'm seeing is a real cause and effect, or if there is some other factor that is involved. You wouldn't think that something like having a duplicate (and worthless) keyword tag would have that effect, but then again why not? Checking for signs of "laziness" would be something I would do, and if a site owner is so lazy or clueless about having duplicate tags, why should I favor theirs over sites that either eliminate the tag, or make it unique for each page like it should be? If you should happen to look at the code for some of my sites that were optimized 3-4 years ago, you would see a large set of meta tags, about 30, that include some of the Dublin Core tags as well. I optimized quite a few sites this way because while I could not tell if they helped much, there was no signs that they hurt anything. Those sites are still doing well. Then about two years ago I only used title, description, and keywords tags on some of my sites, and had about the same amount of success, so I stopped adding almost all the other tags. My feeling is that meta tags are tools that we can use as offerings. Specific search engines may or may not use them, but if I ran a large search engine, I would look for some of these tags to get an idea of the person that created the site. Attention given to the code of a site may indicate that a site is professionally run by someone that cares. If the content of the tags seems to be abusive, then I would pay less attention to them, and of course they are highly suspect to start with. But if they content of those tags seems to follow what the site content presents, then why would I not use them? Who better than the site owner to create a page title and description? Why do most search engines "trust" what they find in title tags? So, I will continue to create unique title, description, and keywords tags for my sites, and those of my clients until such time as I have a proven reason not to. Thanks, Chris Nielsen www.domainincubation.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: Meta tags and keywords > It's long past time to stop wasting energy on that tag and > I hope you'll both spend your energies elsewhere in the > future. It's old news that keyword tags are worthless. - Mike Banks Valentine, LED 2252 A lot of people say this. Where is the actual proof? The more times some people say it the truer it is? Kinda like how we got our current President? In the cited article about keyword voodoo it says "If the keyword isn't in the page body text in the single page you are looking at, don't use it in any meta tags." http://website101.com/Search_Engine_Positioning/keyword-voodoo.html Fine, It might be good advice. "concentrate on the no voodoo meta tag." It sounds safe. The search engine simulator was interesting. Considering the differences between the searches I'm guessing they don't all "see" it this way. And if they do then what? You can see everything but the conclusions to be drawn can be a matter of personal interpretation. I do agree that Mike's "Title, Description & Keyword Meta Tags & Search Engine Rank" http://website101.com/metatags.html is still mostly relevant 6 years later. It does say to include keywords BTW. It takes so long to cook up a decent keyword list and put it in? Not for me. As a small business person I often can afford the time and the wear and tear on the seat of my pants required to do such a relatively small (and possibly very important) job. I don't know for sure if keywords work or not. I have not seen the proof. That said, I certainly have used them since 97 and I have no problems with my rankings at all. I certainly have never been penalized. I own the search engines for my best search terms. #1 and more. An anecdotal comment for sure but I certainly am not going to "fix/remove" them. I choose to "waste" that time putting them in. I think it is more dangerous rank-wise to leave them out than put them in. Just an opinion. No proof. As far as meta description goes, I showed actual examples a few months ago (on this list) of how MSN used them to describe one of my sites in their search results. I was certainly glad my meta description tag was carefully and succinctly written. The listing said what I would have wanted rather than picking up snippets of various text as is sometimes seen. I consider my good rankings to be the result of several very simple strategies. You've all read them on this list over the years. The dos and don'ts that keep hanging around. Just yesterday Nathan Holley said: > Good to be snappy and descriptive in the title (with your > keywords), but keep it unique to that page. And keep it > short - around 10 words or less - with your most favored > keywords coming early in the title tag. Also, try to create > a call-to-action in the description tag. Short, sweet, and > leave them wanting to find out / buy / know / subscribe to > your stuff. I'm surprised the description-meta is not used > to better advantage by so many sites... I couldn't have said it better. Also: > ... don't create your site for the search engines! > Create it for the user. I don't know Nathan but this is exceptionally good advice people! Website101 has good advice too. I'm just not bright enough to employ "stealthy" strategies like some smart SEO people do. But then I have nowhere to go. All 5 of my sites rank excellently. They are not all "been there forever" sites either. My last 2 sites took about 4-6 months to crack the top ten early last year. I used keywords. In a recent failure of imagination, Yahoo actually solicited me by phone to get into their PPC program. I was afraid that by explaining why I would not participate, my great placement might magically disappear. Sorry, not today. Thanks anyway. If it ain't broke..... David Spahr -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Kym McLaughlin Subject: Meta-tags This is in response to Mike Banks Valentine comment, > But then both backpedal on that statement > by saying other factors... - Mike Banks Valentine, LED 2252 I have never back pedaled on my comments at all. And I don't intend to. I think you need to read all of the prior posts before making a statement. Those "other factors" were listed in the original post and I have never stated in any of my post that I believe the "keyword" metatag to be effective. I was simply clarifying that I did agree with Jill Whalen's regarding the importance (or lack thereof) of the *keyword* metatag. My original post should have been more specific in regards to metatags. Bad on my part for assuming that everyone already knew that information. I very much appreciated the fact that it was brought up to those who are not familiar. I am sorry you have read more into this than there actually is. Kindest regards, Kym McLaughlin Advanced Internet Marketing http://www.top20promote.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Yancey Subject: Click Fraud -- The Evidence Mounts I've been reading the follow-up posts to Adam's original two-part posting of my long post re: our experience with and analysis of click fraud [see issues 2232 and 2233: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/5/28/55/20/20/ -ed.]. It turns out that, apart from the outstanding research in this and related scam areas by Ben Edelman of the Harvard Law School, other main-stream business publishers and organizations are finally waking up to the apparent breadth and viciousness of this problem. See the results of a major Business Week investigation here: http://snipurl.com/x2ju [businessweek.com] Those who want an easy-to-follow case history should see this major click fraud story in Sunday's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/technology/23click.html Thanks to the professional journalism of the NY Times, here is what has to be the clearest, briefest explanation of click fraud to date: ----------------------- "Click fraud most commonly happens when renegade (search engine keyword advertising and affiliate) partners, who get a portion of the fees earned by a search engine each time a paid link is clicked, deliberately generate excessive clicks with no chance that any of the clicks will result in a sale for the business that is paying for them. "The spurious clicks can be generated through automated programs or by paying people to spend time clicking over and over on a link." ----------------------- Now, we can be sure that some Google or SEM apologist will wail something like "Business Week? The NY Times? What do *they* know about tech issues like click fraud?!" Well, not a lot, actually -- which is why, as very high standards news publishers, they *have* to talk to the real experts, to get the story right. Think about it: if these major publishers are delving this deeply into the click fraud problem, we can be sure they have already determined that it is an issue threatening to seriously impact their *millions* of business and professional readers. In spite of such professional coverage and investigations, some, as represented by Mr. Motherwell [issue 2251], seem to think that the click fraud issue just isn't that important. The justification for this view by those who think CF isn't a major obstacle and promotional strategy problem for smaller and local businesses seems to be based on a mixture of: 1 Trust -- Some die-hard Google lovers would have us believe that Google would never knowingly allow CF to be a really serious problem. They are just "too smart", some think, and besides, they "do no evil". Anyone who accepts this kind of naive argument must have spent the last 15 years in a closet, and missed Enron, BP, WorldCom, and a dozen other cases where large companies knowingly engaged all too willingly in fraud. There is nothing especially saintly about the founders and the extremely sophisticated money people who control Google that would make them any less suspect. 2 "Real" cost -- Some argue that, even if CF is a real problem, adding as much as 20% or 30% or even more to the average per-click fees charged by Google, that is just a cost of doing business online. That is a non-argument, since it avoids the fact that, so far as Google (and the other PPC providers) condone or ignore or minimize estimates of fraud, they are violating basic ethical and business principles. Beyond this basic legal and ethical issue, I wonder if folks like Mr. Motherwell have a clue what it means to millions of smaller online and local businesses when they must pay perhaps 25% more per online visitor than they should be paying. It's fine to keep beating the drum for PPC, but it's totally beside the point: PPC fees inflated by CF are unwarranted, period. 3 Technical Disbelief -- I have experienced first-hand the challenges from those who simply cannot imagine how an automated click-fraud network can be operated at a cost per false click low enough to warrant the campaign. This is understandable, given the level of technical knowledge most have. But it's happening, folks, believe it or not. Read the above BW and NYT articles for starters, then go online and dig for the rest of the published evidence. 4 Presumed Paranoia -- Some think that those asking questions re: CF, and specifically of Google, are simply imagining baddie competitors out to get them. Well, that may or may not be the case with some who feel they have been victimized. But we are in a very competitive niche, and have seen how PPC campaigns are manipulated to drive smaller or less-sophisticated sellers down or even off the paid search link column. To know-nothings who allege that this sort of competitive gang warfare doesn't happen, do as we did: get several experts together (including in advertising economics and other forms of search) and then spend hundreds of hours and several months running your own controlled test of the "effectiveness" of PPC using Google. 5 Fear of An End to the AdSense Golden Era -- As a significant web publisher, I can understand that many thousands of online publishers tremble at the thought that keyword-based lead generation ads might decline as, and if, the click fraud problem is fully exposed -- these mostly small sites survive solely on the fruits of contextual advertising. But, like it or not, a smallish number, perhaps less than a thousand or two, so-called "publishers" have created millions of content-less, completely phony, useless pages crammed with AdSense and similar ads, then arranged for these to be spuriously clicked. This will, sooner or later, kill the contextual golden goose for all the rest of us. Burying one's head in the sand to avoid facing the reality isn't going to help. 6 Fear of a Securities Scandal -- Some fear that digging too deeply into the CF issue might lead to a situation where Google and others face potential exposure to a truly massive penalty or class action suit, going forward. This could result in a restatement of earnings, on such a scale as to seriously impact the Google share price. Indeed, fear that the CF problem is quickly getting out of hand seems to already be a brake on the share price. Whether Mr. Motherwell and a few others take CF for the serious problem it is, isn't important. Whether Google and the other PPC providers are truly ignorant of the scope and implications of click fraud as they would seemingly have us believe is a huge ethical issue, but the truth or absence of it is not material to the rest of us. Whether some, possibly the majority, of the major SEM consulting firms are turning a blind eye to click fraud, in order to keep their fees as high as possible, isn't relevant to the typical smaller businessperson, who cannot hire these big-time experts. Put the debating aside: what counts right now is the vital necessity of tracking your ROI closely for this ever-more-costly PPC alternative, versus the many other visitor and prospect acquisition alternative programs and strategies now available. If you have a total promotional and advertising budget of, say, US$25,000 per year, and it turns out that, say, $5000 of that is being wasted on fraudulent visitors, you'll want to start learning more about CF soon. David Yancey http://www.tootoographic.com "See us now in Amazon.com too, where tootoographic is quickly emerging as the leading *grown-up* humor shirt company in America!" ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Yoon Chee Tuck Subject: Email with just a whole bunch of keywords Hi LEDers, I wonder whether you experience this. Lately, I have been receiving spam emails that is not intelligent at all. They just consist of a whole bunch of words (I think they are keywords) that don't make sense. Sometimes, it looks like a story with some conversations but with no head or tail. I am wondering how the spammer will find this useful to send. Will the search engines somehow pick up the keywords from emails? (maybe HTML emails?) Rgds Thomas Yoon http://www.free-marine.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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