Re-Thinking Link Building Commentary
July 31, 2009
Readers respond to Sage’s last column, where he urged them to change the way they think about link building. …
How to Spam Blogs and Possibly Get Away With It
July 31, 2009
Posted by jennita
Ok, so you’ve all read about The Best Spam Submission Ever which was illustrated ever so eloquently (and if you haven’t read it, please read it now… uhm well ok after you read this - it’s awesomely funny!). As the post mentions, we sift through many YOUmoz entries every day determining which ones to post to the site. Most spam is easily detected; such as the body of the post only consists of 1 or 2 sentences, or the title is obviously nothing related to online marketing (buy gold and silver online!). However every now and then, there is a spark of spam brilliance that makes its way through.
The other day I ran across this entry that had an odd title, but it actually seemed to have real potential. I opened the entry and at first glance, I thought "YAY! I have a good contender." There were multiple paragraphs, headings and even bullet points… this had to be legit, right? Not so much. I found myself reading the entire entry because I was so dumbfounded by the sheer brilliance of the whole thing. If this person had posted to a blog that automatically checks for spam entries, and auto-posts, this one probably would have made it through.
So the idea is quite simple. Take an excerpt of a book (or anything written I suppose), and add keyword rich links throughout! Essentially, make the post look as authentic as possible, without having to spend time writing a blog post. I’ve taken the idea and put together an example for you below. It’s not perfect, but it is damn simple!
<!– Begin Example Spam Post –>
Her name is Esther; she is a war correspondent who has just returned from Iraq because of the imminent invasion of that country; she is thirty years old, married, without children. He is an unidentified male, between twenty-three and twenty-five years old, with dark, Mongolian features. The two were last seen in a café on the Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. He was reading: Buy Gold jewelry and diamonds direct.
Just the beginning
The police were told that they had met before, although no one knew how often: Esther had always said that the man — who concealed his true identity behind the name Mikhail — was someone very important, although she had never explained whether he was important for her career as a journalist or for her as a woman.
The police began a formal investigation. Various theories were put forward — kidnapping, blackmail, a kidnapping that had ended in murder — none of which were beyond the bounds of possibility given that, in her search for information, her work brought her into frequent contact with people who had links with terrorist cells. They discovered that, women love gold necklaces and jewelry in the weeks prior to her disappearance, regular sums of money had been withdrawn from her bank account: those in charge of the investigation felt that these could have been payments made for information. She had taken no change of clothes with her, but, oddly enough, her passport was nowhere to be found.
- He is a stranger, very young, with no police record, with no clue as to his identity.
- She is Esther, thirty years old, the winner of two international prizes for journalism, and married.
- My wife.
Next steps
I immediately come under suspicion and am detained because I refuse to say where I was on the day she disappeared. However, a prison officer has just opened the door of my cell, saying that I’m a free man. A man who reads Silver and Gold Jewelry.
And why am I a free man? Because nowadays, everyone knows everything about everyone; you just have to ask and the information is there: where you’ve used your credit card, where you spend your time, whom you’ve slept with. In my case, it was even easier: a woman, another journalist, a friend of my wife, and divorced — which is why she doesn’t mind revealing that she slept with me — came forward as a witness in my favor when she heard that I had been detained. She provided concrete proof that I was with her and with gold necklaces on the day and the night of Esther’s disappearance.
I talk to the chief inspector, who returns my belongings and offers his apologies, adding that my rapid detention was entirely within the law, and that I have no grounds on which to accuse or sue the state. I say that I haven’t the slightest intention of doing either of those things, that I am perfectly aware that we are all under constant suspicion and under twenty-four-hour surveillance, even when we have committed no crime.
"You’re free to go," he says, echoing the words of the prison officer.
Conclusion
I ask: Isn’t it possible that something buy gold direct and diamonds really has happened to my wife? She had said to me once that — understandably given her vast network of contacts in the terrorist underworld — she occasionally got the feeling she was being followed.
- The inspector changes the subject. I insist, but he says nothing.
- I ask if she would be able to travel on her passport, and he says, of course, since she has committed no crime. Why shouldn’t she leave and enter the country freely?
- "So she may no longer be in France?"
- "Do you think she left you because of that woman you’ve been sleeping with?"
- That’s none of your business, I reply.
<!– End Example Spam Post –> Creative! Right? But, just think about this… if these spammers took a few minutes to actually think through and write a relevant post, they would have not only received exposure but they would have some SWEET links from SEOmoz as well. Plus, if the post is well-written and is quickly getting popular (thumbs up), you may even get promoted to the main blog… talk about exposure! I encourage you all to submit well thought out, relevant posts to YOUmoz. Submit entries you will be proud of showing to the rest of the community, and make sure the content is unique.
Every day we receive many spam entries for YOUmoz, which slows down the process of publishing the real, legitimate ones. This is a reminder for all our spammers out there: Real people read and publish these posts! You can stop spamming us, because at least for now, we’re smarter than you are. 
With that, I’d love to hear some of your best spam submissions!
PS. This is my own made up spam example and was not taking from any of the actual spam we’ve received.
I used an excerpt from Paulo Coelho’s "The Zahir" and if you have never read his work, I highly recommend him.
Why Buy The Milk When You Can Get the Cow for Free?
July 30, 2009
Yahoo Had No Leverage…
In case you didn’t look at the stock market today, Bloomberg highlighted what investors think of the Yahoo! / Microsoft deal
“This deal was a big disappointment,” said Moran, an analyst in Boca Raton, Florida. “They needed this deal, and it shows in terms of how the negotiations were concluded.”
…Because Their CEO Did Not Grasp the Importance of Search
In the same article Yahoo!’s CEO justified the Yahoo!/Microsoft search deal as something that clears fog:
“The priority was not to do the deal,” Bartz, 60, said in an interview. “The priority was to get the fog away from the company. Yahoo got pegged as a search company and we’re not a search company. Search is only one aspect of what our customers do.”
To look at the highest margin and highest income piece of a business and call it fog is absurd.
How Search Sets a Baseline
Search is the most direct way to target ads at consumers. It is easy to establish a baseline values and measure change. It allows you to implement (and advertise) new product ideas at no cost.
The other important baseline evolving search sets is the difference between spam and value added content. If you have ever read any of Google’s leaked remote quality rater documents you would see that the search result itself is a lower threshold to force the evolution of media.
Web Search Holds Everything Together
A lot of Yahoo!’s properties are somewhat average, but not remarkable. Some of them succeed ONLY because they are a part of the Yahoo! family of websites. Web search is the glue that holds the pieces together.
Search is the most profitable online ad market and having a big stake of that market allows them to promote their other business interests in a cheap & targeted way. Selling off the search assets does not suddenly put them in a strong competitive position.
It does not suddenly make their thin content sites thicker and more valuable. If anything it will make it harder for their other sites to compete as it will require them to be thicker to stay competitive when they lose the subsidy they were getting from search.
And Microsoft bought Yahoo! Search for $0:
Besides better exposure for its Bing search engine by placement throughout Yahoo!, Ballmer said, Microsoft hopes to improve the quality of its searches by analyzing over a decade of data Yahoo! has on how people search. The data improves search quality for everything from correcting misspelled words to likely patterns of search behavior.
Danny highlighted how much worse this deal is for Yahoo! than the deal offered last year in a side by side comparison and wrote a search eulogy. Yahoo! spent a couple billion dollars acquiring Overture/AltaVista, Inktomi, and AllTheWeb. And they sold it for $0!
Deal Terms
From Microsoft’s press release:
- The term of the agreement is 10 years;
- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
- Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
- Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
- Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
- Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
- At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
- The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.
What is not in the deal terms is that Yahoo! will slowly erode search market share to Bing. By the end of the 10 year period Yahoo! could become AOL.
SEO Stuff Up in the Air
As far as SEO goes, a lot of stuff is still up in the air. If this deal goes through, what happens to…
- the Yahoo! Directory (a wonderful link source)
- Yahoo! link data (they are the best free public source)
- Yahoo! SearchMonkey & BOSS
- Yahoo!’s paid inclusion
There is a good chance all 4 of them go away.
Increased SEO Costs & Increased Barrier to Entry
For established marketers there would be some major upsides as well…
- anyone with a well established website has a bigger advantage over new sites, and
- with less public link data link buying might become less risky as reporting paid links might decline, and
- it would be harder for competitors to clone your link strategy
Bing SEO Tips
If you have not yet read Bing’s SEO Guide for Wembasters [PDF] then now would be a good time to get up to speed on it. When Bing launched we created a thread with a bunch of Bing SEO tips.
Does Hitwise Read SEO Book?
July 30, 2009
A couple days ago in a blog post we published this image.
And that image recently appeared in a copyright HitWise “advanced SEO” presentation
Whenever we share their data / research / charts on our site we try to attribute them. Not only did they offer no attribution, but they also cleansed our logo from our branded image. In the above image you can see
- they just happened to use the same scale and title and colors AND
- how the logo was removed AND
- how the line at 700 (where our logo was) is darker than the other lines AND
- how the line at the 600 level is broken slightly toward the right side slightly (like we accidentally did on the original image when we took the screenshot)
This sort of activity is from a marketing company that thinks our site is important enough to pitch new releases to.
Who is the guy working for a multi-billion dollar company that markets stolen content from recent blog posts from blogs with 30,000+ subscribers without expecting to get caught? I hope they get fired.
And if this sort of corner cutting speaks for any of Hitwise’s other business practices you are best off avoiding them.
Advanced Traffic Analysis Techniques with Google Analytics
July 30, 2009
Google Analytics is free highly reliable and provides a lot of information about your website traffic or website visitors behavior. You probably know this already. Today we re going to show you some interesting ways to use that data that you may not have known….
Free Access to SAP BI Resource Center Empower your users to discover how to explore business at the speed of thought.
Using Alibaba.com for B2B Leads
July 30, 2009
While Alibaba is described as an “Asian eBay” and credited with causing eBay to shut down its Chinese operation in 2006, it’s much more than that. And its global domination plan is being rolled out at astonishing speed. …
Yahoo, Microsoft agree on search
July 30, 2009
After a failed $47 billion takeover bid for Yahoo and many other failed attempts, Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached an agreement on a search deal that would give Microsoft what it wanted the most — Yahoo’s huge search traffic.
Top 10 Things the Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Changes for SEO
July 30, 2009
Posted by randfish
The search landscape is changing significantly this morning, and SEOs of all stripes need to pay close attention. I’m going to do my best to summarize the impact of these changes based on what we already know and interpret what’s going to change for the field of search engine optimization and what we, as representatives of our clients and our companies, need to know and do.
Background on the Deal
First off, a few background snippets from several of the sources on this topic - SearchEngineLand’s Live Blogging Coverage; TechCrunch; ReadWriteWeb; and the new MS/Yahoo! website Choice, Value, Innovation.
- The term of the agreement is 10 years
- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms
- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
In case that wasn’t quite clear, the big takeaway is that Bing will now power search on Yahoo! and Yahoo!’s salesforce will sell the premium (non-self service) search advertising for Yahoo!/Bing. Bing also gets access to Yahoo!’s core search technology and can, at its option, leverage that to help create more relevant results.
- Google has 78% of market share of paid search (direct quote on SELand from Microsoft)
- Bartz: Yes there are many Yahoo search employees who will be asked to take jobs at Microsoft. There will also be search employees who we look to help us on the display side. And then unfortunately there will be some redundancy in Yahoo. (Just a quick note; if you work in Yahoo! search, please email me - rand@seomoz.org - we’re hiring on the engineering team!)
- Bartz: Notes that when it comes to paid search, Panama is the provider in most international marketplaces for Microsoft already.
-
Danny Sullivan: What happens to other things search like at Yahoo? What powered Yahoo News? What happens to the Yahoo Directory? Is Delicious search? And what happens to Yahoo paid inclusion?
Bartz: We have full flexibility on what to do within our own sites. Paid inclusion, we’ll decide on that later. - AdAge reports that ComScore shows Bing will now have a 28% market share when combined with Yahoo! search, though.
- ReadWriteWeb worried about this large list of services from Yahoo! that are under "search services." Yahoo! PR called them to say that "this is a consumer facing list of search-related services, like News Search and Map Search, but most of those are not or are no longer formally part of the Search Department." So, probably at least some of them are safe.
Search Query Demand Market Share
The search landscape right now looks like something between:
Market Share from the thousands of accounts served by their hit counter/referral tracking software
(note: I don’t know why it says 82% on the left and 72% on the right, but 82% appears more accurate when adding up all the other figures)
AND
Based on data from Comscore’s June Release
We’re somewhere between a market where Google dominates 65-82% of all search queries. When it comes to referring queries that point out from the engine’s properties (Google/Yahoo!/Microsoft not searching or linking to their own content), I believe Google’s closer to sending out 80-85% of that traffic.
What’s Changing for SEOs?
Note that some of thse are speculative, while others are direct and actionable. However, until the deal actually goes into effect and is publically accessible (which could take some serious time depending on regulators), my best advice is to be prepared (and take those steps that can ensure maximum benefit once the changes go live). Remember that Yahoo! said full implementation may lag up to 24 months (2 years) behind regulatory approval (which itself could take months), so you’ve got some time.
#1 - SEO for Bing is Worth Your Optimization Effort
Even if the lowest numbers are accurate, 15% of search market share is worth the optimization effort. Bing’s algorithm, while certainly an upgrade from Live.com still has a few noticeable preferences, such as concentration on keyword use in subdomains and root domain names (Google loves exact keyword matches, but Bing really likes any keyword placement in the sub or root). Bing’s core relevancy sometimes suffers from manipulative link patterns more so than Google & Yahoo!, though, they often do a good job surfacing alternative queries and instant answers.
Bing’s results are, by default, "richer" than those of Yahoo! and Google. Although Yahoo! will be controlling the user interface on their end, it’s likely much of that "richness" will make its way into the Bing results inside Yahoo!. Bing also surfaces only the top 5 results for many queries, meaning a higher concentration of clicks on those top results.
Bing’s traffic is, in general, also more likely to convert and click on ads. Whether this is a result of demographics or of how the engine frames information isn’t clear, though we may get more insight on that soon.
We at SEOmoz will certainly be doing more work to provide insight into how Bing ranks results and where it differs substantively from Google. You can go play around with results here or here. I strongly suspect there will be more SEO focus overall on Bing in both R&D and active practice.
#2 - We May Lose Yahoo! Link Data
The largest two providers of link information to SEOs today are Yahoo!’s advanced search queries and Yahoo! Site Explorer. If these go away, which seems likely with Bing, since Microsoft removed the link query operator’s functionality a few years back (and Google torched theirs nearly 5 years ago), we’ll be left with very few sources of link information. Obviously, SEOmoz itself provides Linkscape, but we’ll be likely to offer a slightly deprecated, free version of that tool if/when this happens. Exalead.com still does provide link data, though not as richly as Yahoo!
This change would likely see the rise of more propietary link indices as well as the breaking of a large number of internal and external tools that rely on Yahoo! for their link data. We may not know for sure for some time to come, but it may make have a substantive impact on the link research landscape.
#3 - PPC Consolidation
Right now, many companies and agencies exclusively use Google AdWords. I think both Microsoft and Yahoo! are counting on a lowered complexity and barrier to entry with only two major search engines making a compelling case that one should, at the least, participate in the two leading platforms for search. I suspect more people will buy ads from MSN AdCenter, which is likely to increase ad relevancy, quality and competition. The days of low cost traffic via AdCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing may be nearing an end (unless market share slips so far that they become largely irrelevant, but that seem unlikely, at least in the short term).
#4 - Bing’s Webmaster Tools Are Important
If you don’t have an account with Bing Webmaster Tools, now is the time. Although not yet as robust as Google’s, Bing WMT is working hard to catch up and even surpass their rivals with features that will prove valuable for webmasters on all platforms. The data you get from Bing WMT will also be important for conducting better organic SEO campaigns on that engine and seeing how Google & Bing may view your site differently.
#5 - Yahoo! & Bing Local Become More Essential
We’re still not 100% sure of the status of local search - according the ReadWriteWeb piece, Yahoo! may consider this a "consumer service" and not part of core search. However, if Bing is serving up local listings in the search results (as they do now), Bing’s local registration is going to become very important for local businesses. Check out Bing Local and their local listing center in the near futuer if this impacts you.
#6 - Bing Will Get more Spam
With greater search share comes greater spam attempts. Google’s still a ways out in front in terms of catching and discounting manipulative practices, but Yahoo! has been a close second for some time. I’d expect that Bing will recruit a number of the staff and algorithmic work Yahoo! search has done on this front, but they should also expect serious spammer attention to be focused their way. The loopholes that Google’s closed will still likely be open on Bing for some time to come and spammers will use the chaos that comes from a merger to exploit these.
#7 - Bing Will Get Lots more Data
Bing’s going to know a lot more about you. Perhaps not as much as Google, but with Yahoo! analytics, Yahoo!’s database of profiles, Yahoo!’s behavioral targeting and their own research, Bing’s going to be a close second. This should, conceptually, help improve core search and may pave the way for greater advances on the personalization front, too.
#8 - Important Yahoo! Properties May Dissappear
As Danny Sullivan and ReadWriteWeb noted, we’re in some danger of losing stalwarts like the Yahoo! Directory, Delicious (which has often been seen as an alternative search play), Yahoo! Maps, SearchMonkey & BOSS (two of the best search apps out there). It’s still speculative, but by watching the activities inside Yahoo! over the next 3-6 months, we’ll probably get a lot more insight about who’s headed to the chopping block.
#9 - Yahoo! Maintains UI Control for their Search Experience
This means that Yahoo!’s results ordering, layout, sidebars and searcher focus may continue to be unique from Bing, thus requiring that SEOs still pay attention to the differences in the two engines and optimize accordingly. It will be tough to know the extent of Bing’s integration until it launches, but there’s a lot of room for variation, which means complexity for SEOs.
#10 - Yahoo! Will Become a More Powerful Content Competitor
With Yahoo! out of the core search business, many people, myself included, expect them to focus even more on the content side of the business. That means properties inside Yahoo! News & Media Group are going to get more attention and more investment. If you’re competing with Yahoo!’s content now, that battle may get tougher in the future.
I have no doubt that this quick analysis doesn’t cover every important aspect of the deal for SEOs, and definitely appreciate any comments you have that can help to provide further insight. Once again, the SEO field is proving that if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.
An Open Letter to Online Ad Networks
July 29, 2009
by Jonah Stein and Jonathan Hochman
The FTC recently announced guidelines for bloggers that requires that they disclose financial interests, freebies and paid reviews. This decision is seen as a shot across the bow of pay per post networks and bloggers who are monetizing through affiliate programs. The FTC has decided that compensation is the reason bloggers choose to write about a particular topic and that readers deserve to be informed about the financial relationship. The FTC logic is simple, “As much as those bloggers who receive these gifts would like to claim this isn’t the case, freebies like free laptops, trips, or gift cards are likely to influence a writer’s opinion of a product.”
On its face, the policy is defensible. As crusaders against Virtual Blight, we applaud the intent of this decision. Anything that raises the barrier to online scams, fraud and abuse even a little bit is a good thing. The FTC provides guidelines for responsible bloggers and theoretically eliminates a couple of the perks for bloggers, but it does virtually nothing to protect against fraud.
Going after bloggers’ compensation to fight online fraud is reminiscent of the RIAA attacks on individual file sharers and is just as likely to succeed. The absurdity of the power and inertia of a government bureaucracy combating individual bloggers is only matched by the ludicrous assumption the government could ever move fast enough to keep up with professional scammers who jump from domain to domain, host to host and country to country with a few mouse clicks. Prosecution could only be effective against mainstream bloggers with an established brand that are stationary targets, but these bloggers are not the right target.
Getting a proverbial free lunch in exchange for a presumably positive review may create the appearance that some bloggers are shills who lend their prestige and celebrity to their sponsors. That perception is not unreasonable, but the same charge could be made against almost every athlete, actor, musician or American Idol runner-up who profits from our celebrity culture.
Giving items to celebrities or other tastemakers in return for public exposure is a practice older than the printing press. If the FTC really wants to send a message about compensated endorsements and freebies, the answer is not to go after the mommy bloggers who get a free 42-pack of diapers. If the FTC were serious, they would begin arresting every actress wearing a designer gown to the Academy Awards and then round up the studio and network executives who rake in cash for product placements in movies and television shows.
Focus On Fraud
The statistics for online fraud are both staggering and predictable. Instead of being distracted by the sizzling, sensational charges of payola that re-appear every generation, the industry needs to focus on the billions of dollars of online fraud committed each year. According to the Center for American Progress, Internet-related consumer complaints are among the top ten in consumer complaints in 2008 and the number one complaint in four states. These complaints run from auction fraud and non-delivery of ecommerce items to reverse billing scams.
By any definition, the perpetrators of online fraud are not bloggers. If a review constitutes fraud because the reviewer was provided a free product or had some undisclosed relationship with the company who produced the product, then every journalist with a 401k full of mutual funds needs to hire a good lawyer. Indeed, if bloggers are guilty of anything it is tabloid journalism — writing low quality content with sensational headlines designed to attract visitors to their site in order to collect advertising revenue. This may not live up to the highest journalistic standards, but the only crimes are against facts and the English language.
Criminals are the people and companies who create pyramid schemes, networks of spam blogs to sell diet products like Hoodia and Acai Berry cleanse, Google money trees and the myriad so called “free” offers that create recurring charges on your cell phone or credit card.
Criminals are the people who target kids’ sites to distribute Trojans, spyware and adware that infects our computers and tricks people into buying phony anti-virus products. Most of us have either experienced malware nightmares ourselves or heard a friend’s sad story. When online fraud is so prevalent, predatory and destructive, why are government resources being committed to pursue advertorial content?
Ad Networks Are the Key
The biggest thing these criminals have in common is that they perpetrate their scams by buying advertising through ad networks. These networks have achieved the scale that makes it efficient for legitimate advertisers to reach millions of consumers and that makes them an ideal vector for scams, abuse and deception.
In an unregulated auction-based advertising market place, fraudulent offers can often pay the highest bids for keywords. In FTC Going After Bloggers – Epic Fail, Aaron observes that ad networks that syndicate ads based on “maximizing yield efficiency“ are well suited to syndicate fraud. Advertisers of scams can afford to pay top dollar for ads because their profit margins are nearly 100%.
Ad networks are morally responsible as collaborators in interstate and international frauds perpetrated upon hundreds of thousands of victims each year. Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and many others are far more culpable in consumers being defrauded than any blogger or network of bloggers.
In False and Deceptive Pay-Per-Click Ads, Harvard’s Ben Edelman estimated that as much as 70% of the revenue generated by some online scams actually wind up in the hands of the search engines. He estimated in 2006 that Google and Yahoo were making over $200,000 a month from advertisements for screensaver software which contained spyware. As of July 15, 2009, the top paid search results on Google for “screensaver” contain “add-on features” which include spyware, change your default browser settings, ad toolbars and otherwise aim to monetize by deceiving users. Adding insult to injury, Edelman observes that many of these adware tools monetize by sending traffic through AdSense and DoubleClick, making Google a silent partner for adware companies like WhenU and Smiley Central.
Fight the Problems that Be
Scams and fraud not only harm the consumer, they foster the perception that the internet is not a safe place, hindering the growth of online business and delaying the transfer of marketing dollars from old media. Instead of waiting for government agencies to step in and create regulations aimed at yesterday’s scams, as an industry we need to become proactive and develop a cooperative framework for mutual self-defense, a neighborhood watch designed to keep consumers safer while helping law enforcement focus resources on the most serious trouble makers.
The war on online fraud is going to be a huge struggle and one we are unlikely to ever declare victory. The issues are complex, but the industry could significantly reduce the problem by creating a transparent mechanism to collect user feedback about advertisers. Search engines and ad networks are quick to endorse behavioral targeting and social recommendations to boost earning per exposure. For some mysterious reason, they have not applied these innovations to getting user feedback about advertisers.
If the Internet is the cesspool that Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google says it is, one way to start cleaning it up would be to create a public reputation system for advertisers. This would simultaneously reward honest companies while helping consumers protect themselves against the bad guys. eBay created public reputations for buyers and sellers many years ago. Why are advertisers free to operate without scrutiny?
It seems straightforward to build an advertiser rating system to share relevant statistics and user feedback. Why not provide the tenure of the advertiser, normalized click volume, the percentage of users giving feedback and a ratio of clicks to complaints along with a link to detailed reviews that could surface fraud, misleading advertising and scams? If comparison shopping engines can do it, why can’t ad networks?
We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we see the problem and its sources. Government agencies need to ask the ad networks why they accept money for promoting fraud. Ad networks need to grow up and behave like responsible businesses.
Testing SEO Landing Pages and Improving Conversion
July 29, 2009
Testing has become a key online marketing discipline for increasing conversion rates and getting more out of search pay per click traffic. There are several books on the topic along with specialized software programs and companies that do nothing but help improve conversion rates through testing. If you think you need to start doing some tests yourself you re probably right keep reading….
Free Access to SAP BI Resource Center Empower your users to discover how to explore business at the speed of thought.