SEOByLOG

T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Announces New York City Show for Domain Name Owners

The World Association of Domain Name Developers Inc has announced it's first T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show in New York City, a new sponsor and live domain name auction.

(PRWeb) December 15, 2006 -- The World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. has announced it's first T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show in New York City starting June 19th and running until the 22nd. The "by invitation only" domain conference and trade show includes such giants as Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and over 300 other companies.

Rick Schwartz, CEO and Co-founder, has also announced that TrafficZ.com will be the overall sponsor of all 3 shows in 2007 that include Las Vegas in March at the Venetian Hotel & Casino and in South Florida in October at the famous Westin Diplomat Resort. This is the 7th T.R.A.F.F.I.C. event and by all accounts one of the most important. T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2007 will focus on development of domain names, Madison Avenue participation and Wall Street investment opportunities. Attendees of each T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conference have combined domain assets in excess of 10 million domain names and provide the major search engines with 10%-15% of their overall traffic.

Moniker.com will again be sponsoring the 3 live domain auctions held exclusively at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. - the largest such auctions in the world. The last auction held at the Westin Diplomat Resort in Hollywood, Florida, in October, saw over $5 million in domains change hands in just 4 hours. Cameras.com sold for $1.5 million and the new Tld (top level domain) extension for mobile phones, .mobi, sold flowers.mobi for $200,000. More info can be found on their website at http://www.targetedtraffic.com or by contacting Rick Schwartz at email protected from spam bots

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Press Contact: RICK SCHWARTZ
Company Name: World Association of Domain Nme Developers Inc.
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: 561-997-6286
Website: http://www.targetedtraffic.com

The Elusive Click Fraud Issue: Google's Side Of The Story

by Gord Hotchkiss, Thursday, December 14, 2006
THERE ARE FEW ISSUES IN search marketing more thorny and convoluted than click fraud. It's the elusive problem, the industry scourge that seems to defy definition. Everyone wants to know the extent of click fraud, but to date, there seems to be no credible numbers to attach to the problem. A recent BusinessWeek "investigation" called it the "dark underground" of the Internet, "a dizzying collection of scams and deceptions that inflate advertising bills for thousands of companies of all sizes." The article pegged the occurrence of click fraud at "10% to 15% of ad clicks... representing roughly $1 billion in annual billings." Unfortunately, the reporter used some questionable sources and math to come up with this number.

Even experienced search marketers can sometimes jump to wrong conclusions. Noted search marketer Andy Beal thought he had a scoop earlier this week when he did a little rough calculation on a presentation made by Google click fraud point person Shuman Ghosemajumder and pegged the actual occurrence of click fraud at 2% on Google. There was actually a little miscommunication between Beal and Ghosemajumder (since corrected on Andy's blog). I chatted with Ghosemajumder this week and here's Google's side of the story, largely ignored by the mainstream press.

Where Do These Numbers Come From?

BusinessWeek's article said "most academics and consultants who study online advertising" agree with the 10% to 15% number. Yet there has been no independent study done with reliable methodology to accurately scope the size of the issue. The study most often cited is a particularly damning one done by Outsell in May of 2006. In the study, 407 companies were asked what percentage of their search buy they believed to be fraudulent. They then averaged the responses and extrapolated it across the industry. Many of these advertisers weren't even tracking ROI, definitely a prerequisite for accurate identification of actual fraudulent behavior. As Ghosemajumder pointed out, "it's like asking a random group of people what they estimate the average salary in the U.S. to be, when they have no numbers to judge it on, and they don't even know what their own salary is." Yet, this is the number that seems to be accepted as fact by reporters determined to blow the issue into cover story status.

What's Fraud, and What's Attempted Fraud?

One fact that seems to be easily overlooked is what actually qualifies as click fraud. Fraud is only perpetrated when damage is done--in this case, if money passes hands. If no money changes hands, it's attempted fraud. Yet this simple distinction seems to be overlooked by many "investigators" into the question of click fraud. Everything tends to be included in the same bucket, usually accompanied by a whopping percentage designed to scare the hell out of online advertisers.

The 2% number quoted on marketingpilgrim.com came from Andy Beal, not from Google. It was computed by looking at the relative size of some graphics on a slide deck that was prepared to show Google's click fraud filtering systems.

Google has coined the term "invalid clicks" to refer to all those that advertisers are not charged for. This category also includes more benign examples, such as multiple clicks on the same ad that can happen when a visitor "pogo sticks," or clicks on an ad, hits the back button, and then clicks through on the ad again. Ghosemajumder does confirm that the number of invalid clicks represents a "single digit" percentage of all clicks across the network,

The "vast majority" of these clicks are proactively filtered out by Google in real time before any money passes hands, he says. It's as if the clicks didn't happen. The advertisers don't pay, and the publisher where the click originated doesn't get paid. The invalid clicks that slip through the real time filter then go for offline analysis, primarily focused on the AdSense network. Advertisers here are affected, but get refunds from Google without their having to take any action. In this case, Google does have a procedure for going back to the sites where the clicks originated. If anyone is out of pocket for these clicks, it's Google, not the advertiser.

Now we get to the 2% number. It refers to the clicks that make it through the proactive filters that the advertiser has to bring to Google's attention. The official word from Google is that this number is a "negligible percentage" of the total number of invalid clicks. My sense is that it's probably much less than 2%. Remember, this isn't a negligible percentage of all clicks, but a negligible percentage of "invalid" clicks, which in turn is less than 10% of all the clicks happening on Google.

The Impact in Dollars and Cents

So, let's talk about actual fraud, where the advertiser is the one out of pocket. Let's assume there is an advertiser with a $100,000-per- month budget. Let's further assume that the clicks this advertiser receives are representative of the total Google network.

Using the assumed 9% number as the number of invalid clicks, this means about $9000 of the budget falls into this category. From this, the "vast majority" are filtered out in real time, so there is no impact to the advertiser. A smaller percentage is refunded to the client without its having to take any action. Finally, there's the percentage that slips through the proactive filters. Even if we go with 2%, that would make the amount that would impact the advertiser $180. If you're doing your math, that's 0.18% of the total monthly spend, a far cry from 10% to 15%.

But It's Not that Simple

These are the estimates from Google, which has invested heavily in fighting click fraud. The same diligence in policing click fraud is probably not present in all advertising networks. Click fraud is definitely more prevalent in some sectors and on some networks than others. Finally, everyone acknowledges that we don't know what we don't know. If click fraud goes undetected through Google's filters and the advertiser never challenges it, it won't be identified. Google uses the ROI and conversion data that some of its advertisers share with it as an overall indicator of click fraud activity throughout its network. Its executives feel confident that there's very little slipping through all of these cracks.

Yes, this is Google's side of the story, but as the mainstream press seems to be more interested in focusing on a couple of egregious cases rather than providing a realistic picture of the issue across the entire network, I think it's important to pass it along. In the absence of real numbers for the short term, shouldn't you at least balance the numbers being touted by the press with those coming from the people fighting click fraud on a daily basis?

Gord Hotchkiss is the president of Enquiro, a search engine marketing firm. He loves to explore the strategic side of search and is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies and Ad:Tech. Check out his blog at http://www.outofmygord.com

Search Insider for Thursday, December 14, 2006: http://publications.mediapost.com/

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SEO Company Targets Blogs with Unique Optimization Package

Web design and SEO company Acclvity Inc. announces one of first available blog optimization packages.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWeb) November 28, 2006 -- Web design and SEO company Acclivity Inc has released a unique new blog optimization package. Services included in the package include installing plug-ins, modifying the blog's code to target better keywords, setting up accounts on various web-based service sites, and automatic and manual submission to search engines and directories.

This new service is aimed at everyone from blog owners to those without blogs. Acclivity's blog optimization package is unique because no one offers an identical service. While other SEO companies may offer some type of blog optimization, this is the first comprehensive package that is targeted specifically at blogs.

Acclivity Inc. also offers blog installation services for an additional fee for those who are interested in their blog optimization package, but don't yet have a blog. They also offer a monthly blog optimization service and blog writing services for those who don't have the time to keep their blog updated, but want to take advantage of its potential traffic-driving power.

"How do you get your blog noticed?" says Acclivity's president, Geoff Simon. "With more blogs popping up each day, that is the question people are asking. How do you make it stand out? We've created this package to be the best thing you can do for your blog at this price level. We're providing a targeted service that effectively promotes, submits and optimizes your blog to blast it out to the web. All the customer has to do is keep posting to their blog-we take care of the rest."

For more information, please see Acclivity's website at http://www.acclivitymarketing.com or contact them directly at 800-673-0192.

About Acclivity Inc.
Acclivity Inc. is a small company of Web Designers, SEO Consultants, Search Engine Marketers and Writers based out of Los Angeles, California. They provide a full spectrum of web services, from website and graphic design to content creation and SEO services. Acclivity works with you to build the best possible online presence: targeted and effective, with powerful rankings online and a website that converts visitors to clients.

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Press Contact: Aurora Brown
Company Name: Acclivity Inc.
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: 213-785-4744
Website: http://www.acclivitymarketing.com