CogBlog
In 1997 I co-founded COGBOX in with Michelle DeCol. Since then we've offered online marketing, web development and corporate and brand identity to a wide range of clients. Here I post thoughts and comments on search marketing, recent projects, and other things I find interesting.
Recently we noticed click-throughs for one client on a small PPC provider began climbing through the roof. All the clicks were for a particularly competitive phrase. Where in the previous month we had seen only several dozen visits from this provider. In April, we saw several hundred.
At the same time, our client began receiving calls from some irate customers. They claimed that our client was hijacking their computers and forcing their start page to contain a link to our client's website.
Turns out that the PPC provider had a bad affiliate who was inserting the the top five listings for a number of terms into a nasty spyware application. The entire purpose of the application was to force deliver PPC listings.
We ultimately resolved the issue with the help of the search provider. But, it makes me wonder if this will ultimately diminish the value of the smaller players who tend to rely on the smaller affiliates?
At the same time, our client began receiving calls from some irate customers. They claimed that our client was hijacking their computers and forcing their start page to contain a link to our client's website.
Turns out that the PPC provider had a bad affiliate who was inserting the the top five listings for a number of terms into a nasty spyware application. The entire purpose of the application was to force deliver PPC listings.
We ultimately resolved the issue with the help of the search provider. But, it makes me wonder if this will ultimately diminish the value of the smaller players who tend to rely on the smaller affiliates?
Archives
- May 2004
- June 2004
- July 2004
- September 2004
- March 2005
- April 2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- October 2005
- November 2005
- December 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
- April 2006
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- December 2007
- February 2008
- April 2008
- May 2008
- July 2008
0 Responses to “Click Through Fraud Could be Trouble”
Leave a Reply