scammy sites on google search network

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cyberworkspace

cyberworkspace

Beat Me @ MyStockBet.com
Feb 2, 2007
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now, i am browsing through the stats of a campaign i am running, as i wanted to dig deeper into click tracking (adwords ppc).

one thing that immediately came to my attention was this pattern:

99.140.57.137 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 10:56:39
99.140.57.137 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 10:56:39
70.177.246.83 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 15:24:21
70.177.246.83 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 15:24:21
66.115.119.71 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-04 16:45:30
66.115.119.71 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-04 16:45:31
66.115.119.71 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-04 16:47:27
24.91.131.81 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 07:46:32
24.91.131.81 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 07:46:41
24.91.131.81 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 07:46:53
24.91.131.81 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 07:47:01
24.91.131.81 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 07:47:16
68.43.242.199 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-05 05:13:08
68.43.242.199 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-05 05:13:09
68.43.242.199 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-05 05:13:09
68.43.242.199 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-05 05:13:09
68.219.5.20 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 06:53:34
68.219.5.20 http://searchportal.information.com/?epl=... 2008-02-02 06:53:35

now, who the heck would search for my term and subsequently click on my ad this often? twice maybe but four times in a row? this makes only sense if it is a scam from side of information.com as searchportal is getting paid for those clicks, wouldn't it?

so, my general question is: do you guys deactivate search network in general for your campaigns? is google analyzing this and not charging me for these clicks?

thanks.
 


Submit that data to Google in a support request. If it hasn't already been counted as invalid clicks, they should credit you.

Information.com is part of Oversee.net/DomainSponsor, FYI.
 
information.com and 2 or 3 others are the ones that completely ruin any chance for a positive ROI on the search network for most campaigns. If G would only allow us to block these ...
 
thanks for poitning me in the right direction guys.

and now behold: there is a way to block them but it is yet undocumented by google in their general documentation but their customer reps provide this info: Apogee Weblog: AdWords Tip: Blocking Parked Domains on the Search Network

this guy has figured it out and i will apply these tips now.

i will keep you updated if this eliminates all oversee.net traffic.

why the heck is google doing this. well, seems like they need that traffic from domainers really really much.
 
That only applies to the content network, not the search network. I think that guy misunderstood Google's response. But notice they talk about using the site exclusion tool to do it, and that only applies to the content network. I've been down this road with Google, and had to turn off the search network on every campaign I run because I can never get it to profitable at a CPC that will yield any worthwhile volume.
 
no, that is exactly what they are talking about and what is not known: the exclusion of parking sites can be done via the same tool that is used for exclusion of sites in the content network. only that this is working for exclusion of search network sites then as well.

but this is valid only for parking sites, and not for any other sites. you see, google knows about this fuck up and has a built-in filter as probably some large customers did complain. but they don't make it public too much.

update: "So, to clarify - one can exclude any site in our Content network and any parked domain in either the Search or Content network but cannot exclude other sites in the Search network." Site exclusion now available in the Search Network - Search Engine Watch Forums
 
This must be brand new because that hasn't been my experience. I've been blocking all the big parking sites, as well as information.com, via the site exclusion tool for ages and whenever I turn on my search network campaign I still get traffic from them.

A later post by ApogeeWebLLC confirms my experience:

"The site exclusion tool doesn't work for parked domain sites on the Search network. I recently saw an account that had 11% of its search traffic come from parked domains. Digging through the server logs, most of this garbage traffic came from a single domain (that appears to power a ton of these low quality sites):

searchportal.information.com

This account did not have the Content network turned on so I know all of the traffic was from the Search network. BTW, isn't that stunning? That 11% of the SEARCH traffic was from low quality, not a search engine, parked domain sites powered by a single parked domain provider. I tried both that subdomain and the top level domain, information.com, in the site exclusion tool. The garbage traffic kept coming. For some high value, exact match keywords, the garbage parked domain traffic was as high as 72% of the clicks. If that's not abnormal search click activity, I don't know what is."
 
To clarify, I've been blocking information.com, domainsponsor.com, and sedoparking.com via the site exclusion tool for ages and I continue to receive TONS of traffic from searchportal.information.com via my search network campaigns.
 
ah shit, that's frustrating to hear. i thought that this ould have been the clue.

well, i will give it a try anyways but as you already tried it, the info given by the adwords team must be wrong. so, i am probably better of by deactivating the search network at all, as this does not seem to convert too well.

thanks for your input!
 
Parked domains can actually convert pretty well, and in some cases are my best converting campaigns. It's hit or miss depending on the niche.
 
You can't block any of the search partners on the search network.

The site exclusion tool only works for the content network.

So it's all or nothing. Hell I even see refers coming from fucking Bearshare.
 
Compare you click logs to what Adwords says you were billed for. They do a pretty damn good job of not counting the bullshit clicks. Just because someone clicked 5 times in a row doesn't mean Google is charging you for it.

Information.com sends me some of my best converting traffic.. I am looking at some logs right now for a specific campaign, nearly a 3x higher conversion rate than google.com itself.
 
since i applied the lockout of those information.com sites, my log is clean for 24 hours.
i usually had a couple of those searchportal clicks a day. however, this might all just be a coincidence. i'll keep you posted.
 
as i am analysing my stats of the last week, i wanted to provide 2 updates to you, to share my findings regarding the search network

first of all, everyone stating that there is no way to exclude specific sites from appearing in the search network was right. although i saw no traffic coming from searchportal et. al. for 24 hours, this must have been just a coincidence as traffic from their side was back to normal pretty soon.

secondly, as i turned off searchnetwork at all, i experienced what some posters here said: my conversions dropped significantly. so my only conclusion is, that the serachnetwork traffic did contribute to my conversions. maybe even more, than traffic coming in directly from google itself.

as there is no way to only activate the search network, i will reactivate the search network for a week and check the timestamps of conversions with the timestamps in my tracking database.

at least i once more learned about the significance of having a fully integrated, end-to-end tracking solution including the confirmation page on side of the merchant, as i am pretty much left with guesswork here without being able to know what exact click did trigger the sale.
 
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