'click fraud' Category

• Privacy and AdWords Extended Search Query Reports

  Good news - Google is allowing more insight to be gathered from AdWords Search Query Reports, by exposing more search queries to scrutiny. This reduces the need to use third party click redirectors or web analytics tools to extract search queries. However, there’s strangely spurious logic - or I’ve failed to grasp a fundamental point [...]

  May 23rd, 2009

• Search Engine Marketing 2009 Projections

  The main trends that will be visible in 2009:

  Google will struggle to retain revenues using a variety of techniques
  Searchers will spend more time browsing and convert after more clicks
  Online revenues will generally increase - but business margins will be squeezed
  Internet Theft Scandals - Click Fraud, Phishing and Account Theft

  Details and the consequences? Read on…
  Google Will [...]

  January 5th, 2009

• Google Throws Away The Rules, Again

  Google’s user base may be built on high reputation with organic search visitor volume, but that doesn’t prevent the search giant from leading users a merry dance in the pursuit of profit. Here’s a real world example. I’ve taken this from a real Google Account, with real web analytics data. I’ve concealed the precise search [...]

  October 29th, 2008

• Google’s Approach To Click Fraud - 2007

  Well, I’m a year late finding this PDF about Click Fraud, ROI and Advertiser Response by Kourosh Gharachorloo of Google. I was doing a periodic scan to see if anyone else has published how to interpret the autotagged gclid in AdWords. It’s nice to see that my old article anticipated many of the arguments - [...]

  October 18th, 2008

• AdWords Phishing - Another Type Of Click Fraud?

  I now know what at least one of the scammers are doing. Screenshots of the fraudulent activity signature of this scammer are shown below. If you’ve clicked on a URL in an email apparently from Google, recently, then you might want to check your AdWords History - as shown below. If these international fraudsters have [...]

  July 2nd, 2008

• Malware Detection Breaks Web Metrics?

  The Register has an article about web analytics problems caused by the malware detection of an anti-virus package. This may have implications for advertisers and SEO, too. I have not downloaded and tried this anti-virus package, yet. I didn’t see any white papers or clear explanation for the AVG LinkScanner technology on the AVG site. [...]

  June 15th, 2008

• Is AdWords Search History Permutation Fraudulent?

  Update
  2009/02 I can no longer detect Search History Permutation using the diagnostic tests that I previously used - I believe that this is no longer operating, or it has become more subtle in its effects.
  Original article
  My first article on Search History usage was experiential; you can do the searches yourself and see the strange [...]

  March 17th, 2008

• AdWords Search History Permutation - Short Form

  Update
  2009/02 I can no longer detect Search History Permutation using the diagnostic tests that I previously used - I believe that this is no longer operating, or it has become more subtle in its effects.
  Original Article
  Are you suffering from a lower CTR recently? Have your conversion rates declined? Have your impression rates declined, or [...]

  March 17th, 2008

• Automating Content Network Management - Part 1

  About three years ago (2005), we started efforts to automatically improve performance of the AdWords Content Network, for advertisers. We were hoping to develop a product, but we were also doing some research to see how things worked and what lessons we could learn. This is intended to be part 1 of a multipart article, [...]

  February 12th, 2008

• AdWords Search Query Reports

  Quite a few people have written about using the fairly new Search Query Reports, and the sometimes surprising ways in which Google can extend Broad Match. Here’s another insight into AdWords. Look at the first two clips of screenshots, and notice that the impression volume reported is radically differently on keyword search.
  This first screen [...]

  January 14th, 2008