Michael @ SEOG

Member since: May 16th, 2006

Michael @ SEOG's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
Download Squad	1 Comment
Blog Maverick	2 Comments

Recent Comments:

Why I think ClickFraud is far greater than imagined. (Blog Maverick)

Jun 5th 2006 12:21PM I work at an insurance and financial services company that has been a major Google/Yahoo PPC spender since the beginning and clickfraud is a real issue. We have seen fraud spike on certain terms over the years and while it is clear to us, the search engines are not always so responsive to the situation. The issue is that Yahoo/Google etc make money when they allow bad partners into their network who send a lot of clicks. We watch the clicks realtime everyday and analyze the logs on the backend and even we have a difficult time convincing them to kick out bad partners in their network and we spend millions every year with them. They have gotten better in many respects, but it is still there. Eventually the search engines will have to clean up their marketplace for it to truly mature and grow. You wouldn't go to the grocery store and buy a dozen eggs and expect a few to be rotten each time -- so why should we expect that there will always be a good deal of rotten clicks? If what Google/Yahoo etc sells is quality clicks, then they need to do more working on that quality angle with their partners. Michael @ SEOG

Google Notebook goes live (Download Squad)

May 16th 2006 7:48PM Is that a picture of transformers? Right on, good example! I agree with you on the need for RSS feeds and a bit more of the polish with tags, but its still a good first offer.

What is click fraud ? (Blog Maverick)

Apr 25th 2006 7:25PM I manage a large PPC spend at an insurance and financial services company. We are on the front line of the click fraud issue because we are the ones who foot the bill. We have seen how much click fraud can consistently eat out of our ad budget and skew results. The big problem is not competitors clicking on the results -- its bad content partners in the search engines' network that throw junk traffic at our site. I think there is a difference between poorly converting sites and sites which are intending to defraud you. But to the advertiser it can look the same. If I know I convert 15 percent of focused terms from Google directly and other reputable sources and then I see a source that has sent me hundreds of clicks and not a single one converted or even stayed around and looked at the site, something is wrong. Further, when those clicks are costing $5-$10+ dollars a click, a few of them consistently can be *death by a thousand cuts* to an advertiser. It wastes a lot of our company time and money to have to always scrutinize click logs to see where the *click mafia* is taking money from our account. If I was a vendor buying eggs and found that 150 out of every 1000 eggs I bought were bad, I'd be furious. Why isn't the same standard being held to clicks? If what a search engine sells are clicks, they need to be able to guarantee quality and enhance quality control procedures and feedback mechanisms to improve the over all value and appeal of search engine marketing. It can't stay like the Wild West forever.