Google's shadow payroll not such a secret anymore

Some bloggers are paid through Google's AdSense program, but maybe not enough to buy Google stock.
The New York Times

The story "Google's shadow payroll not such a secret anymore" published January 15, 2006 at 10:25 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from The New York Times expires after 7 days.

[tom6a]

Click Fraud

If ad revenue is shared among site visitors it opens the door for major click fraud.

[BlueLaser]

I agree

When I first read that line in the story about a site that trickles AdSense dollars down to all site visitors, click fraud was the first thought that came to mind.

If you could go to a site and click on ads to earn money, you probably would click on more ads than normal to "boost" your paycheck. Neat idea for users of that site, but probably bad news for Google and the advertisers...

[tom6a]

Click Fraud

If ad revenue is shared among site visitors it opens the door for major click fraud.

[BlueLaser]

I agree

When I first read that line in the story about a site that trickles AdSense dollars down to all site visitors, click fraud was the first thought that came to mind.

If you could go to a site and click on ads to earn money, you probably would click on more ads than normal to "boost" your paycheck. Neat idea for users of that site, but probably bad news for Google and the advertisers...

[Cyrus_K]

Message has been deleted.

[Rusdude]

Spam

Not another AnooX spam :( Seriously, C|Net should just ban any post with "AnooX" in it!

FLAG Previous message as a spam / ad

Flag the above message as spam / ad by reporting it as offensive.. way to may of these "google is bad so goto my i mean uhh this other site called anoox"

[Rusdude]

Cookie-cutter sites

I thought this was interesting because just a few minutes ago I was reading an ad for a set of so-called "AdSense-ready" sites optimized for high-paying keywords. It's not a secret that there're many, many sites that are just a few pages filled with public-domain information (that matches some particular keyword) and AdSense ads.

Because hosting is so cheap, it's a neat scheme because if you put, say, 50 sites up that bring $5 a day, that'll be $7,500/month. I've always been tempted to do it, but I'm pretty sure one of these days Google will crack down on this.

[Cyrus_K]

Google is making 100s of Millions dollars of this Fraud

Keep on dreaming that Google will crack down on this fraud.
After all they are making 100's of Millions dollars off this fraud that they have created.
I mean a 10 year old could have seen that Ad sense would be the ticket to click through fraud.
But hey, it is not their money.
It is Advertisers money that they are stealing.
Like $1000s of dollars that we lost due to this and Google or Yahoo never credited our account when we reported it :(

For example there was one site in China that had our Ads in their pages and I think they had like dozens of people sitting there, clicking on Ads, then cleaning their Cookie cache and repeating the same all day long. After all what is $10 per day for salary of someone in China to engage in click through fraud when Google or Yahoo are charging $10 per click for some click throughs!
Hek even at 50 Cents per click through, someone out of a low waged country could run a very
profitable operation engaging in Google or Yahoo Ad sense fake click throughs.

[Rusdude]

Cookie-cutter sites

I thought this was interesting because just a few minutes ago I was reading an ad for a set of so-called "AdSense-ready" sites optimized for high-paying keywords. It's not a secret that there're many, many sites that are just a few pages filled with public-domain information (that matches some particular keyword) and AdSense ads.

Because hosting is so cheap, it's a neat scheme because if you put, say, 50 sites up that bring $5 a day, that'll be $7,500/month. I've always been tempted to do it, but I'm pretty sure one of these days Google will crack down on this.

[Cyrus_K]

Google is making 100s of Millions dollars of this Fraud

Keep on dreaming that Google will crack down on this fraud.
After all they are making 100's of Millions dollars off this fraud that they have created.
I mean a 10 year old could have seen that Ad sense would be the ticket to click through fraud.
But hey, it is not their money.
It is Advertisers money that they are stealing.
Like $1000s of dollars that we lost due to this and Google or Yahoo never credited our account when we reported it :(

For example there was one site in China that had our Ads in their pages and I think they had like dozens of people sitting there, clicking on Ads, then cleaning their Cookie cache and repeating the same all day long. After all what is $10 per day for salary of someone in China to engage in click through fraud when Google or Yahoo are charging $10 per click for some click throughs!
Hek even at 50 Cents per click through, someone out of a low waged country could run a very
profitable operation engaging in Google or Yahoo Ad sense fake click throughs.

Why I stopped advertising

I stopped using google's content advertising due to what I believed were overinflated click throughs. I wont call it 'fraud' because I dont know the motivation of the clickers - but it was a lot of wasted $ on my part. Too many of the sites that were receiving my ads were obviously not directly related to my advertising. And based on the fact that almost all site visits generated via click throughs ended up being just single page visits, and some sites had unusually high click thru rates, I concluded that they werent real visits - just visitors clicking the link to make their favorite site some money.

So I stopped using any of google's 'content' marketing, and stuck with their search engine advertising, which has always been very effective. The end result is that I saved hundreds of $, and it had no impact on sales.

So if you use content marketing, make sure you check your web logs and see how and from where those clicks are coming in!

[pedershk]

Disable them, then

You have the option of disabling the display of your AdWords ads on partner (AdSense) sites, instead electing to only display your ads on the Google network of sites (Google itself, Gmail, Maps etc).

Why I stopped advertising

I stopped using google's content advertising due to what I believed were overinflated click throughs. I wont call it 'fraud' because I dont know the motivation of the clickers - but it was a lot of wasted $ on my part. Too many of the sites that were receiving my ads were obviously not directly related to my advertising. And based on the fact that almost all site visits generated via click throughs ended up being just single page visits, and some sites had unusually high click thru rates, I concluded that they werent real visits - just visitors clicking the link to make their favorite site some money.

So I stopped using any of google's 'content' marketing, and stuck with their search engine advertising, which has always been very effective. The end result is that I saved hundreds of $, and it had no impact on sales.

So if you use content marketing, make sure you check your web logs and see how and from where those clicks are coming in!

[pedershk]

Disable them, then

You have the option of disabling the display of your AdWords ads on partner (AdSense) sites, instead electing to only display your ads on the Google network of sites (Google itself, Gmail, Maps etc).

[Lolo Gecko]

... at no time ...

did their hands ever leave their arms

[Lolo Gecko]

... at no time ...

did their hands ever leave their arms

[jwarren.carroll]

C'mon People...

At what point and time did corporations become a victim here? Do you really think that they haven't done their homework? A wonderful concept of marketing and business that runs everything is cost-benefit analysis. Believe me; businesses know how sticky advertising is. How many AOL cd's have ended up as coasters or frisbees at their expense? How many telemarketers have you hung up on in your life, and at their expense? Google is not screwing anybody, they are selling a service. The service is not perfect, but if it didn't work at all, then companies would not use it.

How is it that everyone these days has been brainwashed by horrible liberal ideology. If a business doesn't understand the risks involved when they decide to spend money on a service/product, then they will not be in business for long. It's called "Social Darwinism", and it has been the rule of economics for quite some time. I suggest you get acquainted with it.

My guess is if you asked any well managed business about their internet advertising and click fraud they would be well aware of the problems associated with it, and understand the liability. I doubt they are blaming Google for anything, because they live in a real world where people take responsibility for their own actions. Or would you rather start putting car and alcohol manufactures in prison because they enabled a lot of morons to do stupid things.

[jwarren.carroll]

C'mon People...

At what point and time did corporations become a victim here? Do you really think that they haven't done their homework? A wonderful concept of marketing and business that runs everything is cost-benefit analysis. Believe me; businesses know how sticky advertising is. How many AOL cd's have ended up as coasters or frisbees at their expense? How many telemarketers have you hung up on in your life, and at their expense? Google is not screwing anybody, they are selling a service. The service is not perfect, but if it didn't work at all, then companies would not use it.

How is it that everyone these days has been brainwashed by horrible liberal ideology. If a business doesn't understand the risks involved when they decide to spend money on a service/product, then they will not be in business for long. It's called "Social Darwinism", and it has been the rule of economics for quite some time. I suggest you get acquainted with it.

My guess is if you asked any well managed business about their internet advertising and click fraud they would be well aware of the problems associated with it, and understand the liability. I doubt they are blaming Google for anything, because they live in a real world where people take responsibility for their own actions. Or would you rather start putting car and alcohol manufactures in prison because they enabled a lot of morons to do stupid things.