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Monday, November 26, 2007

Google Click Fraud Update: Another Dissatisfied Customer

Google has another dissatisfied customer. Check out this comment left by Bill McMullin of TrueCheck.ca on my AdWords Team Sabotages Google Corporate Mission & Philosophy post:
I found this blog entry while searching for a disease I didn't know existed. The disease was 'distribution fraud'. We are an AdWords advertiser spending about $3K a month. While researching new domain names I directly entered a domain name which turned out to be a parked domain belonging to information.com. I then found (without searching) my AdWords ads on this site. I traced our log files and found a very large amount of traffic from information.com and many (many) other such sites. The key, as you point out, is that there were no keywords entered in a search bar. The other element of fraud here is that the referer data in the log makes it look like someone actually entered keywords, which is totally false.

This is fraud no matter how Google tries to explain it. We will be asking for a full refund on every click from the search network that they cannot prove originated from an actual search. I'm not holding my breath.
He states the problem rather succinctly. Google customers are paying for something they didn't choose to buy. Click on the image for more details on the kind of click fraud Google permits on its search network:

google click fraud example

C'mon Google! Solve this distribution fraud problem, already. Today.

Domainers should also be putting pressure on Google to solve this problem. Why? Their reputation is being hurt by this situation. Advertisers subject to this kind of click fraud become wary of all parked domains. Domainers need advertisers. Advertisers who knowingly and willingly place ads on parked domains. Not advertisers who have no transparency as to where their domain ads are running.

Maybe domainers don't need Google to find those advertisers, though. As Google enables a blocking feature for AdSense for Domains traffic (it's coming), perhaps this creates a bigger opportunity for companies like Sendori?

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