Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

Written by Karl L. Baldwin
February 7, 2006

Caution To My Fellow LEDers...

I have been quite successful at generic SEO since 1997. I have also utilized PPC, starting with GO-TO.com (aka: Overture; aka Yahoo! Search Marketing). Watching several of my campaigns with multiple PPC “organizations” I observed unrealistic spikes periodically (normal 20 to 50 clicks per day suddenly jumping to 800 or 900 for a day or 2) and after reporting, I was getting absolutely no credible response or refund from any customer support.

So I recently set up a filtering sever (AdWatcher.com). It works like this. They give you a web address to use so that when your PPC link is clicked on, your “sponsored” key word link goes through the filtering proxy server, which records the pertinent clickers information, then serves up your actual website to the searcher. This all happens unnoticeably to the searcher, who then sees your website. If the same IP address clicks on your advertisement PPC multiple times in a short period of time, you receive an email report that a person has most likely performed fraudulent click activity. From these reports one can generate a “Fraudulent Click Report / Refund Request” and send it to the particular PPC provider.

Therein lies the rub. I have many PPC accounts with various search companies, but only 2 such PPC accounts that I have subscribed to the AdWatcher.com service; MIVA and Yahoo! Search Marketing. In all fairness, Yahoo! has responded, with what seems to be minimally diligent and but appropriate responses, but only after a 2 or 3 day delay. MIVA, on the other hand, has consistently thrown up road block after stalling road block in responding to my “Fraudulent Click Report/Refund Requests.” I’ll abbreviate this, yet provide but one conversation thread I recently had with MIVA after submitting a click fraud report. As of today, I have not received any satisfaction on this or any of the other fraud reports I have sent to MIVA.

MIVA Said:

What is the Dates/Time in Question?

What Keyword(s) are the ones that you notice more clicks on?

Did you have any Conversions on PPCs during the dates in question?

Did you make any changes in bid amounts?

Were any additional keywords added to the account during the dates in question?

Did you do any status changes on any of the keyword ads?

Did you make any title and description changes during the dates in question:

Do you have any emails that you can send us with your Server log files to view your traffic and compare it with our results?

We will wait for your response to our questions mentioned above and then we will run the traffic review request on your behalf. We usually wan the ads to be place to offline status during the review but as you had mentioned before at this point your ads are in offline status already. It usually takes 24-48 hours in order for us to get a resolution to the traffic review and then we will email you with the results.

Karl Baldwin answered:

I already told you the time and date in the report. Why do you keep asking me the same questions over and over?

1. 01-28-2006 12:22:30 PM until 01-28-2006 12:22:38 PM. 12:22:38 minus 12:22:30 equals 8 seconds, sequentially, on the same day. Sheeeeesh!!!

2. They landed on my Georgia ad so if they used one of my 2 keyword phrases, it would have been either "georgia cabin rental" or "north georgia cabin rentals."

3. I already told you, my website does not monitor conversions because there aren’t any.

4. No, I have not made any changes to bids, keywords, status, title or description.

Below [is 1 of the 2] fraud alerts I received today from my AdWatcher server.

1st alert - Subject: AdWatcher Fraud Alert - 01-28-2006 12:22:30 PM

Dear Karl,

AdWatcher has detected suspicious activity going on with your Miva - GA campaign. Please review the details listed below:

Campaign: Miva - GA

Total Clicks: 5

IP Address: xx.xx.xxx.xxx

Browser: IE 6.x and above

Time: 01-28-2006 12:22:30 PM

Warmest Regards,

The AdWatcher Support Team

My final message; click fraud is running rampant with very little protection from those PPC providers. Their incentive is to let the fraudulent clik$$$ go through. Get a PPC filter as it is every bit as important as a firewall. If you have a data trail, your court claims for a $75 refund or a $750,000 will be obviously valuable.

PS ­ I have no affiliation with AdWatcher.com other than being a very happy subscriber.

Best Regards,

Karl L. Baldwin

MountainLodging