google fraud ?

'Tis true.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/09/0015240

They just settled one case for 90 mil. My wild guess is that there will be more cases to come in the future.

Yes I found that too.

The web is for brave hearts and sharp minds too.

I think Google has been accused of having click fraud percentages as high as 30, though of course they deny that. I wouldn't get too hung up over the 90 million settlement; it's not necessarely an admission of guilt--they may have chosen to dish out money rather than risk the negative PR of a lawsuit.

While there is definately click fraud going on (and there always will be, no matter how good they get at detecting it), it probably isn't something that should discourage you from advertising. Any internet advertising program is going to suffer from fraud to one degree or another; Google is just getting hammered because they're in the spotlight, which may even be a good thing--unlike other programs, they now have a really good reason to crack down on fraud, rather than just continuing with the status quo.

Be wary of click fraud and continue to read up on Google's response, but accept that some fraud is inherant in any form of internet advertising.

Tom
TheGreatTrafficExperiment.com

Thanks Tom.

Astually I had a major major problem with Look Smart about a year ago. I got clipped really bad ....... (like thousands $$). Look Smart blamed it on everything and everybody but sadam ......... never refunded anything either......I finally dropped using them altogether..........

Joe

To me, this just reinforces my thought that you'd do better to go out and actually get real advertisers yourself. Sure, it's quite a bit more work, but you cut out the middleman. As long as you can provide some statistics and have a decently trafficked site, I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Not that I've ever tried it. Yet...

Click fraud is a problem, but usually minor. The best way to deal with this (since you can't really stop it) is to just consider it an expense of PPC advertising.

Also, never bother using PPC in search engines other than Google or Yahoo. If you read case studies or other people's trials, you just end up losing money.

I tried the AdWords "site-targeted" option once and spent $250 in less than two hours and got ZERO conversions. I don't even sell a product, it is just a landing page with a simple form for insurance quotes. Using AdWords "keyword targeted" and Overture has consistently converted at 30-40% (meaning that they fill out the form and submit) over the last 3 years. Something fishy going on there......

I heard this and decided to investigate it.
I sent a trace to 55 websites on there PPC service. And emailed them all there google PPC referers and exits on those links. They all matched there payments and bills

Honestly, I wouldn't even use consultants for this, unless they're someone who is well-known in your field.

The best bet for finding potential advertisors (and consultants who know about your field) is probably to start hanging out in forums they would hang out in as well. Be sure to actually contribute valid content to the forums (not just fluff), and then after you have more of a feel for who knows what they're talking about, start asking away.

To prevent fraud and get the most of your clicks, ONLY advertise on the Google Search Network. The Content Network is the one where you would most likely get fake clicks since unscrupulous websites can fake the clicks in order to get more money from their adsense accounts.