• Click fraud rates went down last quarter (16.0 percent) compared to the previous quarter (16.2 percent).

Other than that, that is about all the good news for PPC advertisers and click fraud.  Here is the bad news:

• Most click fraud happens on Search Engine content networks (Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher Network, for example).  On those networks, the fraud rate was 27.1 percent last quarter.
• 27.6 percent of click fraud traffic came from botnets, which is up more than 2 percent from last quarter (25.2 percent).  Another reason for users to protect their computers from hackers.
• Russia (4.9 percent), France (4.8 percent) and the U.K. (3.5 percent) are the coutries most responsible for click fraud traffic outside the U.S.

The sad thing about this is that, according to Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics, a primary reason for the slight decline in click fraud from last quarter is because of the efforts of the ADVERTISERS, not necessarily the Ad networks.  According to Click Forensics, the advertisers have spent more time checking their clicks and filtering out the fraudulent ones before their campaigns were affected.  The Ad Networks have made better strides in doing that automatically, but it is still not enough.  In the end, it is still up to the people who pay to double-check their accounts, which is unfortunate that it has to be left up to them.

With the PPC click fraud rate being 16 percent industry wide, that loosely translates into $16.00 out of every $100 you spend is lining the pockets of some person who is not the least bit interested in your product or service.  If your monthly budget is $100, you are paying a lot per year for fraudulent clicks.  Pretty steep to me.

If you only advertise on Google and Yahoo, that number could climb to $27 out of $100, loosly figured.

This indicates that one should not just jump into Internet Advertising without examining all the angles.  It can certainly provide great benefits, but also presents risks that one should measure first.

It should also be noted about Click Forensics that their data are gathered from their own network called the Click Fraud Network.  That network is made up of more than 4,500 online advertisers and agencies, but it does not include everyone.  So, if you are weighing the pros and cons of PPC advertising, you should review data from multiple sources including the actual Ad Network you are considering joining.

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According to the Associated Press, Embarq conducted the test in the Gardner, Kansas, USA area on a group of 26,000 subscribers.  Did the company give those subscribers the opportunity to opt-out of this program?  Evidently yes.  Their online privacy policy contained a general notification of the program.  But no customers were directly informed.  Embarq said that 15 people did opt out, but unless you read the online privacy policy, you had no idea that you were being monitored and targeted.

It is this method of announcement that has caused a stir.  Visit the Embarq home page and see how long it takes you to find the privacy policy link.  Maybe that is why only 15 people opted out and why Embarq faced congressional questioning  to explain its notification process.

Embarq is the DSL provider of choice in our area, the North Carolina coast, so its subscribers would do well to monitor this story and to review the online privacy policy to make sure they are ok with everything.

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I visited Guinness World Records to try to find out the current record holder, but couldn’t find anything on record. If memory serves, I think it was the Netscape Browser when it was originally released and going head-to-head with Internet Explorer.

Anyway, I signed up with Mozilla and the numbers are quickly approaching a million.

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• http://therapistfinder.com/ – This site is designed to find Therapists in California. However, the domain name suggests something different… Boy, a dash sure would help out followed by a 301 Redirect…
• http://penisland.net/ – This site was so determined to grab that particular domain name that they settled for the .net version. Yikes.
• http://www.whorepresents.com/ – The place to go to find a gift for that special girl that has everything…
• http://www.speedofart.com/ – I guess it is like a shot of Nitrous for swimmers or something…

These are just a few examples illustrating the importance of carefully selecting your domain name. And you should certainly make absolutely sure it is what you want before you actually put up a site.

I remember the first domain name that I registered.  I was so proud of myself for taking the first step and I was well on my way to putting up a web site.  Then I received the “congratulations on registering your new domain name” email from the registrar.  It was then that I realized that I had left out a letter in the domain name.  Instead of crystalCOASTtech, I was the proud owner of crystalCOSTtech.  Taking a little more time to check everything would have been a good idea for me.

Thanks to Steven for posting these and lots more. Cracked me up!

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