| LED Digest 2226: Is Google Underestimating Fraud? |
|
|
|
The click fraud issue reveals the crux: with such massive financial
incentives, Google faces a direct conflict of interest. Read on for more...
==================================================
========== NEW ===================================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 ............................................. August 16, 2006 Issue no. 2226 ............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== The Click Fraud Saga ==-- <Moderator Comment> "Is Google underestimating fraud?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Hijacked by a Porn Site ==-- ~ Liz Ross "Once we contacted the ISP it was determined this was one of their employees..." ~ John Smart "Ahh hacking, such wonderful memories!" --== Site-wide Keywords & Include Files ==-- ~ Ivan Jimenez "...you'll want to take advantage of every page in your website..." ~ James Miller "The main trouble with keywords is that they promote your view of the site..." --== Good Bot... or Not? ==-- ~ Cheryl Berry "Has anyone else ever heard of spoofing bots?" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Content Management Systems ==-- ~ Nathan Brings <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, First came the report on "paid to read" gangs of clicking fraudsters. Then came the settlement of two large class action click fraud suits against Google and Yahoo. The stage was set for a coalition, and the IAB and all of the large SEs were assembling a united front. So one would hope, anyway. Surprise! Google dropped a shifty move on the industry last week at the SES conference... You can read about it here: http://directmag.com/news/google_clickfraud_surprise/ The gist of it is that Google is already departing from the third party monitoring services that are so linked with the industry. This whole affair reveals much about business, power, and money. Google is a business after all, and their AdWords and AdSense programs represent very large incomes for the company. IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers released data on Internet advertising recently: $3.9 billion in first quarter 2006. Google's share? A fat 58%. With such massive financial incentives, Google faces a direct conflict of interest between eliminating click fraud and hurting their bottom line. So what's Google going to do about the turmoil - be it real, imagined, or somewhere in between? Detlev Johnson reported today in SearchReturn that Google prepared and delivered a report "from the stage at Search Engine Strategies last week [that] took panelists completely by surprise - and without time to respond." Google called the methodology of third party monitoring services "very, very flawed." http://directmag.com/news/google_clickfraud_surprise/ Detlev doesn't have today's copy of SR up yet, so I'm going to quote a block from it here: ---------------- "Google stopped short of saying there was intentional wrongdoing, but using a live platform without informing other panelists and sharing the report ahead of time did not allow the proper discourse about the problem as the room needed. Panelists could only offer a delayed response after the chance to read the paper. The truth is somewhere in between. What is true is that search engines take fair measures against click fraud, and the problem is far worse than they think. "For example, Google produces a statistic that 800 clicks reported as fraud converted at nearly the same rate as 24,000 clicks that were not in dispute. A conversion does not automatically disprove fraud. Conversion tracking may be designed to calculate signups, and fake signup numbers can exceed what Google reports as fraud. The most pernicious type of click fraud from PTR (Paid To Read) gangs of clicksters is well suited for actually completing the signup conversion process with completely fake information. "The search giant either discovers bad clicks and doesn't charge the advertiser for suspicious clicks - even those that lead to conversions, or they wrongly assume a conversion is automatic proof of a good click, even when it certainly is not. The thing about conversion fraud is that it really is fraud. PTR users that take the time to complete a form to show fake conversions are those that do so specifically to fool the search engine. When calculated together, these fake clicks and conversions at times can total to high click fraud estimates that Google criticizes." http://www.searchreturn.com ---------------- Is Google underestimating fraud? The SES incident makes me wonder if "don't be evil" includes "don't be equivocal" in this case. If so, that kind of closed authority is only going to widen the gulf between publishers and the ad giant. It doesn't just have to be about Google, of course, but they are always going to be the poster child of the industry... and the most influential. -Adam ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Liz Ross Subject: Porn Site Hijacking > I opened the two [folders] and found a full blown > porn site with thousands of links on my server. - Peter D'Aprix, LED 2225 Peter, Many moons ago, we also had something similar, but not to the extent it affected position. Our site had also been hijacked by a porn site. The only way we knew this had happened were the "exceeding bandwith" emails we were receiving daily. For three days in a row, we purchased additional bandwith to cover the problem. We were a new site, adding material daily and were truly newbies to the internet. After day three we knew we had a problem. Once we contacted the ISP it was determined this was one of their employees and the problem disappeared immediately. Since the problem disappeared nearly as quickly as it appeared, it did not affect our position. If it is determined that an ISP employee is responsible in your case, you may be able to get the ISP to assist with the correction at Google or have a nice talk with your attorney. Hope this helps, Liz Liz Ross http://www.theperfectsolution.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: Hijacked Ahh hacking, such wonderful memories! Of course, when my interests went that way - it was to see what those big computers could do from my 16k computer with its 300bps modem <sigh> We had an issue on an earlier server of ours that was a redeveloped Linux Red Hat box (A Cobalt Raq Server) that had a security flaw in the BIND area (okay, this is a little out of my league, my understanding is that there was a hole in the DNS management that allowed antisocials to put stuff on my server, even though they did not have valid usernames or passwords). Their software replaced every index.html with a much nastier index.html. That was the week we decided that a tape backup drive was worth the money. The point of this is that it may not be a password hack, but of course, it may be.. Peter, your name is not hidden, so did your username and password consist of any / all of: GourmetVoyageurs Gourmet Voyageurs Peter Etc - if so, could just be a lucky guess. Want to find out? Go to Alta Vista (the seediest of the search engines) and search for your old username and password - see if you find anything. If you find a site / message board sharing that, then you know how they got in. Of course, most hacks are not guesses / brute force. Have you any upset (ex) employees? Did you complain strongly about someone at your ISP? Do you have your password written on the screen of your home PC, and have upset someone who has access t your house? Did you misplace your Palm Pilot? Did you take your PC in for a service (you can download programs that will show you all the passwords stored on your windows PC - scary stuff) And a note for everyone else - if you have a password area on your server, or password access (ftp) to your server do NOT use: Username: test Password:test Username domain.com Password domain.com You would be amazed how many places do that - it is the 1st thing a hacker will try. Stop reading this for a minute, and go and change your password right now! John Smart InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Ivan Jimenez Subject: Keywords > Our web master wants to build an include file with > our keywords in it and then the same keywords will > be on every page. Will this be considered spamming > or have a negative impact on our [rankings]? - Andy Johnson, LED 2224 Hello Andy, Using an include file to paste keywords to every page of your site is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Every page of your website offers opportunities to introduce new keywords that will attract targeted traffic to your website. For instance, I am working on a project right now for a liquidator. Suppose her general keywords were 'liquidation goods', 'surplus goods' and 'closeout goods'. While those keywords would be suitable throughout her site, we'd be throwing away extraordinary chances of ranking well for keywords like 'surplus makita power tools' and 'liquidation costume jewelry' if I used the same (main page) keywords throughout the site. Andy, you'd probably be surprised by the sheer number of relevant keywords people are using to search for the type of product(s) you offer, outside of the super competitive terms like 'software', 'small business software', 'enterprise software', etc. Don't feel bad, most website owners are! For obvious reasons, you cannot optimize a page for 100 keywords without spamming and most importantly, without being useful to the actual site visitor. It's primarily for this reason that you'll want to take advantage of every page in your website to offer valuable content while making great use of your tags, source code and keyword choices. Ivan Jimenez http://www.smarterclicks.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: James Miller Subject: Keywords Whether it is considered spamming or not, I think it is pointless as I don't think it helps at all. The main trouble with keywords is that they promote your view of the site and what your customers should be. But how many of your customers use your products in a way it was not intended. One of my products was written for a bookmaker and I have just sold several copies to the US Army in Iraq. Often setting up the list of keywords takes a great deal of management time, as everybody argues about what should be on the list and what shouldn't. I was in one meeting which reminded me of the discussions held in the Middle Ages about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Keywords also make all of your pages appear the same to the search engines. Now if you have a variety of products, this might mean that someone looking for something you do sell, will end up on a totally unrelated page. So if you do use keywords they should be relevant to the page. For instance the Contact page on the site, should only contain the keywords "Greenleaf Software contact", if it contains any at all, as these words should be contained within the page. I have always found that the best keyword pages are case studies, where you describe how your products are used. These are obviously linked to the actual product pages, and your home page. Again do they need keywords. James Miller Daisy Analysis: http://www.daisy.co.uk -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Cheryl Berry Subject: Good or bad bot > I understand from our tech support that although > the IP address looks like an MSN bot it can be forged... - Sarah Hayes, LED 2225 Sarah, Is your site, bromleynet.co.uk, the one you blocked from MSN or was it another? I searched "bromleynet" on MSN and your site is number one indicating that MSN still sees you. Has anyone else ever heard of spoofing bots? Is there a way to know if a bot is a spoof or the real deal. Is anyone else getting hit by the Hotmail bot? I regularly block IPs either at the firewall or in the Windows security directory from site scrapers. Would it be a crime to block anything remotely related to MSN? We have great visibility there and surely don't want to shut the wrong door. Cheryl Berry ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Nathan Brings Subject: Open source CMS > What would you recommend as good picks > for open-source [CMS] software? - Gwen Chambers, LED 2225 We actually just had a discussion about this -- see issue 2205: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/414/55/. The post from Nathan Holley (first in the issue) has some good information about Joomla and Drupal. Joomla actually runs the LED Digest site - check out how Adam has configured things to get an idea of the possibilities. Best of luck, Nathan Brings
-------------------------------------------------------
The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:
pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains
© Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few
drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
- Mahatma Gandhi
|
