Pay Per Click Search Engines Update #009
January 31, 2001.
INDEX
1. Check your clicks from FindWhat
2. Tracking visitors from GoTo
3. GoTo signs with another partner
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1. Check your clicks from FindWhat
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As you may already know, last year Advertising.com and FindWhat.com signed an affiliate agreement. Many are concerned that Advertising.com appears to have been generating bogus clicks at FindWhat and costing advertisers money.
Consider yourself warned. You should watch your logs and keep track of what traffic you are receiving from all pay per click search engines, especially FindWhat.
Advertising.com is alleged to have been using a proxy server to simulate click-throughs which in turn has been quickly using up funds in FindWhat advertisers' accounts. Of course this traffic is irrelevant and unwanted.
John Ferber of Advertising.com explained the problems as a simple case of misunderstanding. He says that Advertising.com has web servers preloaded with FindWhat.com's ad-listings links. When the Java script is executed, a click is simulated and a jump page comes up with a referring URL and this makes it look bogus.
Allan Gardyne reports that his http://www.LifetimeCustomers.com received more than 5,000 apparently bogus clicks from FindWhat. At the same time, his logs showed more than 5,270 visitors from http://127.0.0.1/, an IP address known as a "loop back address".
As Isobel Phillips http://www.tet.co.uk/ explains, that address "doesn't exist on the Internet. It's actually what the IP address of your own machine would be if you were running it as a web server and wanted to access it internally. That's why, when you try to visit that address, you get an error message; you're calling your own PC!"
More info:
http://www.siliconalleydaily.com/issues/sar01082001.html [UPDATE: This link is obsolete.]
http://AssociatePrograms.com/search/newsletter144.shtml
Message boards:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum33/108.htm/forum.cgi?forum=33
http://searchengineforums.com/Forum34/HTML/000011.html
2. Tracking Visitors from GoTo
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This is an interesting article about an email that Neil Shearing of ScamFreeZone.com sent to GoTo.com.
It was published in the January 25 edition of I-Sales Digest. You can subscribe by sending a blank email to: i-sales-join-request@list.audettemedia.com
TOPIC: TRACKING VISITORS FROM GOTO
From: Neil Shearing <shearing@scamfreezone.com>
Hi I-Salers,
I recently (11th Jan) requested that GoTo change my "enforced static" URL to a "dynamic refresh" URL so that I could get better tracking data.
I simply used this email...
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Hi,
I have a request.
To improve my tracking, I would like to use a redirect URL for all of my listings.
If I can better quantify the sales coming from Goto.com, I will be in a better position to increase my advertising spend. I have a long-standing Goto account and have never had any problems.
Please change all of my current URLs to:
http://scamfreezone.com/t.cgi/100594
Account number: *****
Name: Scamfree LLC
Thanks.
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And it worked.
I received a reply yesterday saying that all my URLs had been updated!
They have been, I paid $0.08 to check ;-)
I guess if you have a GoTo account in good standing, and are spending a few dollars per month, they see bending the rules as worthwhile.
Hope that helps....it will certainly help my GoTo campaign :-)
Best Regards,
Neil Shearing
See This Salescopy.. As High As 1 in 8 Buys!
http://ScamFreeZone.com/bizop/
3. GoTo signs with another partner
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GoTo just signed yet another agreement, this time with DirectHit.com. More traffic for GoTo.com advertisers?
Starting on January 22, 2001, if your site is listed in the top three on GoTo people who conduct searches on DirectHit will see your listings.
They will appear in a section labeled "Partner Search Listings." DirectHit.com searchers will also have the option of seeing 10 additional GoTo results by clicking "See More Partner Results."
Nathan Power
http://PayPerClickSearchEngines.com
Highly cost-effective, targeted advertising
