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Clickcease.com is an Israeli company that helps prevent this. It’s a common tactic in high cost keyword industries like lock smiths. Sorry to hear about your e

by jraby3 7y ago

Clickcease.com is an Israeli company that helps prevent this. It’s a common tactic in high cost keyword industries like lock smiths. Sorry to hear about your experience. That sucks.

jussij 7y ago
So if Clickcease.com can help prevent this, why on earth can't Google itself help prevent this?
- hydrox24 7y ago
  Google almost certainly can, but probably has no incentive to do it for whatever reason.
  - macNchz 7y ago
    > Google almost certainly can, but probably has no incentive to do it for whatever reason. This has been my conclusion several times after digging deep into some weird data and discovering one of these...'grey areas' where it seems like if they cared about their customers they'd be doing something about it, but presumably they prefer having revenue from unsophisticated ad buyers. Some of the things they turn on by default are straight up rackets, "Search Partners" for example. Companies like ask.com are arbitraging keyword traffic by buying ads to their own search results pages. These are "Search Partners" that show the ads you're paying Google for, but they're full of dark patterns to make you click the ads, and cost the same as a click directly from the Google results!
    - pier25 7y ago
      > Some of the things they turn on by default are straight up rackets, "Search Partners" for example. Could you elaborate?
      - macNchz 7y ago
        I realized I should have elaborated and edited the post with more information.
- teddyfrozevelt 7y ago
  Clickcease has an incentive to prevent this, as it's their entire business model. Google has an incentive to let it happen, because it makes them more money by forcing people to keep outbidding each other. As long as Google ads are so ubiquitous that it isn't very feasible to just stop using them, then Google has no reason to stop this abuse.
  - halflings 7y ago
    Google has a very strong incentive to stop fraud and has entire departments dedicated to fighting ad fraud. Rampant fraud = lack of trust in your product/service, which can destroy your whole business. The internet fraud you hear about is only the tip of the iceberg, and there's much more of it that is prevented by various companies (either Google, Cloudflare, etc.)
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
      The problem is that they don't have time or will to help the small guys.
    - mceachen 7y ago
      I think you're overselling how much Google cares (or needs to care) about trust. They dominate search traffic (in the markets/countries they exist for). Businesses don't use AdWords because they "trust" Google. They suffer through using AdWords because it's the only game in town.
      - halflings 7y ago
        This article is from 2015: https://adage.com/article/digital/inside-google-s-secret-war-ad-fraud/298652 https://adage.com/article/digital/inside-google-s-secret-war... "If advertisers believed the company's operation were fraud-filled, they could take their money elsewhere and the business would falter." That's it, in a nutshell. (and if they had 100 people working on this in 2015; you better believe that number is much higher now)
- pier25 7y ago
  According to ClickCease: > Doesn't Google prevent click fraud? > Google does detect click fraud, but does not prevent it. Instead, Google will give back credit to your account days after the fraud took place and only after you claim it. The immediate result would be that your ad budget would be exhausted and your ad will not be online for hours or even days. In addition, Google's click fraud characteristics are identical for all advertisers. While 10 clicks from the same IP address in a period of a day is completely normal for one advertiser, another might see this as nothing but click fraud. ClickCease will keep your ad online and will configure the service to best suit your business needs. http://docs.clickcease.com/en/articles/101633-doesn-t-google-prevent-click-fraud http://docs.clickcease.com/en/articles/101633-doesn-t-google...
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    While this might be true a percentage even maybe a majority of the time, in my experience they don't just send money back to you. I had google's adwords people tell me it's not certainly click fraud, there are all kinds of possibilities where actually different people are clicking on the ad like if an article goes viral lots of people could be clicking over from there.. These were clicks I knew well, as we ran groups of ads from several businesses in the areas that all did the same thing. I knew by the pattern, there was no way 200 people from 8a -9a clicked over to this business's ad, and could also tell by the lack of calls / appointments. The real kicker was these ads are limited to only show basically along a 5 mile path of highway, very few rooftops in that area - as to get mobile searchers on that side of town - so they were convinced hundreds of people driving down the highway had all clicked over for info and no appointments while driving. They said no proof, no refund, have a nice day.
jaaames 7y ago
https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7520318?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7520318?hl=en Locksmiths are now a restricted business as grey hat marketers figured it was an industry with a high ticket price and autonomous demand, and the search term was always "locksmith <city>" - so they set up sites that would flood the results, demand payment upfront for a call out, and then have a virtual assistant forward the business on to an actual locksmith in the city - essentially scooping hundreds of dollars for doing nothing but obfuscating who the real locksmiths are and forwarding the leads on them.
- donmcronald 7y ago
  Even the real locksmith businesses are pretty shady. CBC Marketplace recently had a story about fake locksmiths in the GTA. Flowers are the same as you describe. It's depressing to see how easy it is to make money if you're a total scumbag.
- kortilla 7y ago
  So I get that this is sleazy, but why is it google’s job to stop this? How is this different from any other type of middleman living on referral fees?
  - mitchdoogle 7y ago
    Is it really that sleazy? Any service-based company is built on charging their customers more than what it costs to actually do the service. In this case, the service is finding a locksmith and directing them to your location. If someone can find a way to get in front of customers for that, then more power to them - that's the business model for any directory. Google itself is doing much the same thing and profiting from it. They have become the go-to source for many people looking for a locksmith, when there are other ways to find them. Maybe there's more to this than has been described, but on the surface, it seems like a common business model.
  - Nitramp 7y ago
    It's Google's job to make sure their customers (people using the search engine) have a good time. If they're getting scammed after clicking an ad, people will learn not to click ad links and/or migrate to a different search engine, which will hurt Google's business. Disclaimer: I work for G, but not in search or ads. Opinions are mine.
135792468 7y ago
FWIW it’s worth, have tested most of these companies and the only one who backs their promise is PPCProtect. But like any good soldier, talk to these companies and you’ll find out who is legit and who isn’t
- notyourwork 7y ago
  FWIW the “it’s worth” in “FWIW it’s worth” is redundant.

by jraby3 7y ago

Clickcease.com is an Israeli company that helps prevent this. It’s a common tactic in high cost keyword industries like lock smiths. Sorry to hear about your experience. That sucks.

jussij 7y ago

So if Clickcease.com can help prevent this, why on earth can't Google itself help prevent this?

hydrox24 7y ago
Google almost certainly can, but probably has no incentive to do it for whatever reason.
- macNchz 7y ago
  > Google almost certainly can, but probably has no incentive to do it for whatever reason. This has been my conclusion several times after digging deep into some weird data and discovering one of these...'grey areas' where it seems like if they cared about their customers they'd be doing something about it, but presumably they prefer having revenue from unsophisticated ad buyers. Some of the things they turn on by default are straight up rackets, "Search Partners" for example. Companies like ask.com are arbitraging keyword traffic by buying ads to their own search results pages. These are "Search Partners" that show the ads you're paying Google for, but they're full of dark patterns to make you click the ads, and cost the same as a click directly from the Google results!
  - pier25 7y ago
    > Some of the things they turn on by default are straight up rackets, "Search Partners" for example. Could you elaborate?
    - macNchz 7y ago
      I realized I should have elaborated and edited the post with more information.
teddyfrozevelt 7y ago
Clickcease has an incentive to prevent this, as it's their entire business model. Google has an incentive to let it happen, because it makes them more money by forcing people to keep outbidding each other. As long as Google ads are so ubiquitous that it isn't very feasible to just stop using them, then Google has no reason to stop this abuse.
- halflings 7y ago
  Google has a very strong incentive to stop fraud and has entire departments dedicated to fighting ad fraud. Rampant fraud = lack of trust in your product/service, which can destroy your whole business. The internet fraud you hear about is only the tip of the iceberg, and there's much more of it that is prevented by various companies (either Google, Cloudflare, etc.)
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    The problem is that they don't have time or will to help the small guys.
  - mceachen 7y ago
    I think you're overselling how much Google cares (or needs to care) about trust. They dominate search traffic (in the markets/countries they exist for). Businesses don't use AdWords because they "trust" Google. They suffer through using AdWords because it's the only game in town.
    - halflings 7y ago
      This article is from 2015: https://adage.com/article/digital/inside-google-s-secret-war-ad-fraud/298652 https://adage.com/article/digital/inside-google-s-secret-war... "If advertisers believed the company's operation were fraud-filled, they could take their money elsewhere and the business would falter." That's it, in a nutshell. (and if they had 100 people working on this in 2015; you better believe that number is much higher now)
pier25 7y ago
According to ClickCease: > Doesn't Google prevent click fraud? > Google does detect click fraud, but does not prevent it. Instead, Google will give back credit to your account days after the fraud took place and only after you claim it. The immediate result would be that your ad budget would be exhausted and your ad will not be online for hours or even days. In addition, Google's click fraud characteristics are identical for all advertisers. While 10 clicks from the same IP address in a period of a day is completely normal for one advertiser, another might see this as nothing but click fraud. ClickCease will keep your ad online and will configure the service to best suit your business needs. http://docs.clickcease.com/en/articles/101633-doesn-t-google-prevent-click-fraud http://docs.clickcease.com/en/articles/101633-doesn-t-google...
- stevenicr 7y ago
  While this might be true a percentage even maybe a majority of the time, in my experience they don't just send money back to you. I had google's adwords people tell me it's not certainly click fraud, there are all kinds of possibilities where actually different people are clicking on the ad like if an article goes viral lots of people could be clicking over from there.. These were clicks I knew well, as we ran groups of ads from several businesses in the areas that all did the same thing. I knew by the pattern, there was no way 200 people from 8a -9a clicked over to this business's ad, and could also tell by the lack of calls / appointments. The real kicker was these ads are limited to only show basically along a 5 mile path of highway, very few rooftops in that area - as to get mobile searchers on that side of town - so they were convinced hundreds of people driving down the highway had all clicked over for info and no appointments while driving. They said no proof, no refund, have a nice day.

jaaames 7y ago

https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7520318?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7520318?hl=en Locksmiths are now a restricted business as grey hat marketers figured it was an industry with a high ticket price and autonomous demand, and the search term was always "locksmith <city>" - so they set up sites that would flood the results, demand payment upfront for a call out, and then have a virtual assistant forward the business on to an actual locksmith in the city - essentially scooping hundreds of dollars for doing nothing but obfuscating who the real locksmiths are and forwarding the leads on them.

donmcronald 7y ago
Even the real locksmith businesses are pretty shady. CBC Marketplace recently had a story about fake locksmiths in the GTA. Flowers are the same as you describe. It's depressing to see how easy it is to make money if you're a total scumbag.
kortilla 7y ago
So I get that this is sleazy, but why is it google’s job to stop this? How is this different from any other type of middleman living on referral fees?
- mitchdoogle 7y ago
  Is it really that sleazy? Any service-based company is built on charging their customers more than what it costs to actually do the service. In this case, the service is finding a locksmith and directing them to your location. If someone can find a way to get in front of customers for that, then more power to them - that's the business model for any directory. Google itself is doing much the same thing and profiting from it. They have become the go-to source for many people looking for a locksmith, when there are other ways to find them. Maybe there's more to this than has been described, but on the surface, it seems like a common business model.
- Nitramp 7y ago
  It's Google's job to make sure their customers (people using the search engine) have a good time. If they're getting scammed after clicking an ad, people will learn not to click ad links and/or migrate to a different search engine, which will hurt Google's business. Disclaimer: I work for G, but not in search or ads. Opinions are mine.

135792468 7y ago

FWIW it’s worth, have tested most of these companies and the only one who backs their promise is PPCProtect. But like any good soldier, talk to these companies and you’ll find out who is legit and who isn’t

notyourwork 7y ago
FWIW the “it’s worth” in “FWIW it’s worth” is redundant.