Clearinghouse voor gemiste kliks bij search engines

Adverteerders kunnen nu op een centraal punt op het internet het laatste nieuws volgen Er loopt een zaak tegen de grootste zoekmachines van deze wereld over 'verdwenen' kliks. Sommige adverteerders hebben het idee dat de Googles en Yahoo's van deze wereld het volume van kliks lopen op te pompen om zo meer geld te verdienen. Hoe zal dit aflopen...? Bron: lostclicks.com Click Fraud: Why we are suing the major search engines On-line pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is being touted as the definitive way for advertisers to spend their ad dollars on customers who want to see their message. Unlike advertising in traditional media such as radio, TV or print, PPC Internet ads appear in response to a specific request from the potential customer, in the form of keywords entered into an Internet search engine. The revenue generated by such advertising continues to grow at a rapid pace: from $2.5 billion in 2003, to $3.2 billion in 2004 – to what’s expected to be an estimated $5 billion in 2005. And, as more advertisers compete for desirable keywords in their respective industries, the cost for clicks has risen too. Advertisers are reportedly paying an average of 45 cents per click this year, up from 40 cents last year. In certain industries, the costs are even higher. Unfortunately, these online advertisers aren’t always getting what they are paying for. Through our investigation and in depth analysis of web server logs, we have identified that in many cases advertisers are being billed for clicks which are not made or generated by bona fide consumers. As a result, the major search engines, such as GOOGLE, YAHOO!, ASK JEEVES, AMERICA ONLINE, LYCOS, LOOKSMART and FINDWHAT are billing and collecting fees for PPC advertising which is not being provided to the advertisers. This type of fraud affects big and small business alike, but disproportionately harms small businesses with limited advertising dollars, by making the market too expensive, or by wasting precious capital on illegitimate advertising costs. We believe that the major search engines are seeking to conceal this problem and have not done enough to make their bills transparent and collect only for bona fide advertising. Clearly, the search engines have an economic disincentive to eliminating click fraud as it increases the revenue they collect.