Comments on: Yahoo Admits Problem Clicks Reach 15%, Appoints New VP to Tackle Click Fraud

By: Pay Per Click Recovery » Blog Archive » Yahoo Click Fraud Czar Position Filled

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:47:03 +0000

[...] All of the usual bloggers have been all over this.Â But what I haven’t seen is commentary about the role being filled by an attorney.Â Not to mention, an attorney who was already involved in defending their shady practices. [...]

By: KevinG

KevinG — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:27:40 +0000

I have been caught in the ppc fraud problem. With all the big PPC companies Yahoo,Google,Miva,Kanoodle opening up their search experience we are all going to get over clicked, maybe not by fraud but the PPC’s company urge to drum up more traffic. For example, I had a search term of “boat equipment” on Miva. My ad is being shown anywhere anyone is looking for “equipment” including “exercise equipment” which was driving hundreds or thousands of clicks my way. This all makes money for the PPC’s but not a dime for me!!!

By: Richard Ball

Richard Ball — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 03:45:59 +0000

Thanks for the response, Andy. I see your point. However, I’m not convinced copying the Google ad ranking algorithm is actually a better solution. The old algorithm that would display Standard matches before Advanced matches, IMHO, often resulted in more relevant ads than on Google. Because ads went through the cumbersome editorial review process, Standard match ads that were custom written for the precise search phrase were clearly relevant for the keyword search. That’s gone.

Yes, the new back-end is less cumbersome. An infrastructure upgrade was necessary. I wonder, though, if the ads the new back-end spits out to the front-end are really that much better, if better at all?

More importantly, where are those ads being shown? I’m more concerned about the quality of the ad distribution network than the quality of the ads themselves. Do you see a problem with their ad distribution network? Do you think the quality of traffic from Y!SM is as good as Adwords? (Let’s assume we’re talking about search ads only, i.e. AdWords content network off and Y!SM content match off.)

By: ExposureTim

ExposureTim — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:59:38 +0000

Agreed, unfortunately this is not a battle that’ll be won via better ROI or etc… it’ll be won (or lost less) by which network appears to be being more proactive and forthcoming about the problem rather than hiding from it or claiming its no big deal. At least I hope, in leiu of 3rd-party oversight, that the above is a better alternative than it just coming down to who we trust more based on historical reputation.

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:20:07 +0000

Exposure – I think the perception of click fraud is the biggest battle to win, not the actual number. It will be interesting to see who wins.

Richard – I don’t think Yahoo is intentionally targeting cheap traffic. Panama was an improvement to the back-end and algorithm. That’s key in increasing the average earnings per search – then they’l get the bigger deals.

By: Richard Ball

Richard Ball — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:25:37 +0000

Andy, what’s your opinion on the quality of traffic from Y!SM? I think it’s been decreasing over the past few months (years?). Y! seems to be too cheap to make the important ad deals (AOL, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, etc) so is losing the ad distribution battle. There’s so much talk about Panama but an improved back-end doesn’t help fix the ad distribution problem on the front-end.

I wonder if Y! is being cheap and has chosen to shun the big ad deals in favor of distribution deals using parked domains and second tier search engines. If that really is the case, this has got to hurt them in the long run. I find it amazing that there’s no option to run pure Y! ads (akin to search network off and content network off on Google).

By: ExposureTim

ExposureTim — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:52:09 +0000

Maybe Yahoo is just being more honest about it? 15 vs 15%??

I also appreciate that they aren’t trying to hide it or otherwise justify it by saying things like G has pushed on us in the past. We know better and I appreciate Yahoo for recognizing the problem rather than trying to hide behind the “trust us” statements that come out of Google.

I fear some will now start writing blog posts and article that “Google is better” at fraud, now, based on these numbers. But the numbers that I have tell a different story.