PPC

One would wonder when will the Beta be removed from most of Google products be it Gmail or GTalk. But then, that’s a result of continuous development and research by Google. Now, Google offers a new Beta AdWords interface which is currently limited to countries like the U.K. and Australia. The Beta Adwords interface is also available to Japanese, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian language users.

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There are numerous types of click frauds. Most common would be automated bots, click farms, pay-to-click and manual clicks. These clicks result in huge expenditures for advertisers without any results. Read the full story

MySpace has now officially launched a self-serving ad platform. With MyAds, users would be able to create their own ad banners and use demographic targeting.

MyAds claims to provide more features than its competitors. Some of its top features include:

1. Create your own ads

   Myspace provides all the necessary templates and instructions to build your own add.

2. Audience Targeting

   You can choose which audience can view your ad. For example: An advertisement on home loans can be blocked for kids or teenagers and displayed to audience above 30 years of age.

3. Choosing Budget

   You can fix your maximum budget for the day so that you will not experience unanticipated costs.

4. Performance Monitoring

   Real-time data on the performance of your ad campaigns are possible which can help you better determine the demographics and the audience your campaign reaches.

MyAds would become competitive and popular as Google Adsense if MySpace uses them on its own website alone. Currently, MySpace looks like targeting only Musicians. However, MySpace states that the service is for everybody.

With more number of players in the internet advertising market, advertisers may get the edge with lower PPCs. But this would also affect publishers to a large extent.

Google Adsense publishers would have noticed a scrollbar popup on the corners of their website ads. Clicking on the Ad Scrollbar up or down makes the ad space display a new set of advertisements.

Google Adsense has been constantly updating its marketing strategy to be beneficial for advertisers and publishers. The recent drop in Click Thru Rates, Pay Per Click and Conversion rates has forced PPC companies to try new strategies and increase the revenue on both ends.

Recently, Google had some of its Google Adsense guidelines changed and had requested publishers to differentiate between an Ad and the site content.

However, there are mixed responses from publishers and advertisers whether the new scrollbar would increase or decrease the click thru rate.

If you are finding out domain name options and suggestions using Network Solutions website, BEWARE! You would end up losing the domain to Network Solutions. They would take a Client Hold of it for the next 4 days.

Network Solutions, a ICANN accredited register has been using a mean way to force users to register domain names with them. Domain tasting, as it is called, is used by domain name registrant to test the marketability of a domain. The registrant is given a five-day “grace period” in which he can cancel the registration and avail a full refund from the domain registry.

This type of Domain Tasting has come into wide spread critizisam as registars and PPC companies use these domains to force users use their company or to make some quick money using PPC.

The ICANN Board of Directors has come up with a decision to stop the practice of domain tasting. One of the main reasons for this resolution is due to the unethical hacking of domain searches by Network Solutions.

The Board of Directors informed that the practice of domain tasting during the Add Grace Period (AGP) has become high from 2005 and that millions of domains are registered and deleted because of this Add Grace Period option. Hence, the ICANN believes that the withdrawal of refunding transaction fee would end this abuse of Add Grace Period (AGP).

This will put an end to typo-squatting and the quick money making PPC domain tasting industry. This would also mean an end to Network Solutions and other registrars using the AGP feature in an abusive way.

Click fraud is the use of illegitimate ways to make money from a Pay Per Click program. The fraudster would either click on the advertisements on their own sites themselves or use automated programs to click on the advertisement.

It is estimated that around 14.6 percent of all pay per clicks on ads are being done using fraudulent ways. This has cost $800 million in the year 2005 alone.
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A new survey based on 300 advertisers states that advertisers prefer quality of search traffic than clicks in pay-per-click search engines. Eighty-five percent of the online advertisers consider that quality of search traffic is the single and most important factor followed by bid prices and quality of search traffic.

It is interesting to note that when similar advertisers were surveyed a year ago, they voted for Bid Prices to be the most important considerations. In today’s world, an untargeted traffic would not yield results or a transaction. Targeted customers are the most important. Marketers or advertisers are not looking for a click to their website, but for real productive e-commerce traffic that would directly result in measurable returns in the investment on pay-per-click programs.
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Pay Per Click

Pay per click (PPC) can be defined in the simplest form as an advertising concept where you pay only if a person clicks on your advertisement. If a person does not click, your advertisement still stays on all websites and you do not pay a penny. Doesn’t it sound good? Yup, and that’s the reason for all this hype!

However, PPC has a lot more into it. Various advertising companies hold large networks and superior tools and features to make the advertiser get the most out of it.

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Considered one of the highest settlements ever, Yahoo Inc informed that it would refund money to thousands of advertisers as early as January 2004. However, the agreement would not limit Yahoo’s liability.

Preliminary approval was given to the agreement by the United States District Judge in Los Angles.

Due to this outcome, Yahoo has assured that it would work with others in the industry to come up with an agreement on what constitutes a click fraud. Read the full story