Google offers ‘Pay Per Action’ ads to combat click fraud
Steve Safran March 20th, 2007
Google is now offering advertisers the option to pay only when someone takes action after clicking through an AdWords link. Google launched Pay-Per-Action keywords in Beta on Tuesday. The concept: Pay-Per-Click advertising has led to an unacceptable amount of click fraud. Pay-Per-Click would help ensure advertisers they are only paying for people who buy their products, sign up for their newsletters, or take some other action upon visting their site.
Adds Joe in comments: “…the hell with click fraud, I want to see Google taking care of advertiser fraud. Heck, I see a few scam sites in the Google ads on this very page. These things have become total junk mail.”
The man’s right. The permalink page with our story has Google ads that have keyworded “Click Fraud” and have AdSense ads for sites that offer, shall we say, seemingly shady deals. Good point.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Joe | March 21st, 2007 at 5:45 am
I run Google ads on my site, because it’s dead easy. But the majority of the text ads that I get (keyworded off of video game topics) are for those awful FREE PS3!!! websites that are total scams. So the hell with click fraud, I want to see Google taking care of advertiser fraud.
Heck, I see a few scam sites in the Google ads on this very page. These things have become total junk mail.
2. Corey Katir | March 21st, 2007 at 6:19 am
The Stigma of Click Fraud and Why You Should Eradicate It
The stigma of Click Fraud has become damaging to Internet Marketing. The truth is that advertisers are willing that the Internet Visitors click on their ads for any purpose. These clicks have powerful eBranding effects and other advantages even if visitors do not need the products being advertised at that particular time of visit. However, the scare of click fraud in the mind of the Internet visitor and not knowing what click fraud really is has had deep damaging effects. In stigmatic ways, now visitors believe if they click and don’t buy, they have committed fraud. This is the most damaging to the Internet Marketing and eMarketing strategies on the Internet as any past short-sightedness thinking. Remember the early times when people were afraid of Electric Poles in their neighborhood? What happened? Who really benefited? Not the electric companies, but the people.
I strongly agree with Google that Click Fraud, in terms of the huge magnitude it is projected now, does not exist. Google and Yahoo have developed powerful detection methods that either do not count the extra clicks as click fraud or they totally discount the clicks. Those who are trying to make a big deal out of this issue are either just plain stupid or jealous to Google and Yahoo success. If you ask me, these are the people who have committed click fraud in the past and now are angry that Google and Yahoo have terminated their accounts.
3. Joe | March 21st, 2007 at 8:04 am
Really? You’re just going to copy/paste a rant from your website? That’s not very cricket.
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