Pay-Per-Click Speculation Market Soaring

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that the number of web sites being opened purely to publish pay-per-click advertising links from the likes of Google and Yahoo is rocketing, according to VeriSign, which runs the .com and .net domain names." From the article: "Sclavos said that the company will change the way it reports the size of its domain name business, in terms of active registrations, because of the amount of speculation going on. It will reduce the size of the reported registrations by about 2%, he said. 'Names are being bought and then tested against traffic analyzers...The ones that can generate more than the $6 or $7 [registration] fee per year are kept, the other ones are returned within the five day grace period.'"

Comments

Re:Taking market share from legitimate sites?

[Eric Giguere]

my guess is that Google will ban sites not having any content /other/ than their ads

That's already the case -- you can't normally display AdSense ads on a site if the site doesn't have any content. If Google notices this or if someone reports it, they'll ask you to take off the ads or lose your AdSense account.

That said, Google and other third parties do offer domain parking facilities that explicitly allow you to show ads. But you have to explicitly sign up for that kind of program.

I don't know how any of this would be considered "illegitimate" use of domain names, though. It's the price you pay with an open market.

Eric

Re:I tried this...

[Eric Giguere]

Click fraud is a big problem and legitimate sites are running into it more and more often. Recently someone was targeting pay-per-click related ads on my sites (a lot of my content is related to that topic) and causing my earnings to skyrocket. But it was obviously illegitimate income. What you do is report your suspicions to Google and let them figure it out. I've always done this and kept on good terms with them.

Let's face it, no one forced you to sign up with Google's AdSense program. If you can't abide by the rules that they impose, you always have the option of finding another ad program to suit your needs.

Eric
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Re:Yahoo Search Marketing for Publishers?

[Dun Malg]

I have several cigar related sites and Google as pretty much shunned the entire tobacco industry. I would openly welcome a competitor to AdSense by Yahoo/Overture.

I typed in "cigar' in the google search box, and sure enough, there was not a single ad, just search results. Did they ever exprese any reasoning behind this, or is it just explained away as "policy"? I tried a few other similar searches and found that "guns" is verboten, while "rifle" and "shotgun" are fine. Also "cigarettes" are out, but strangely not "cigarette". "Beer" and "whiskey" are apparently right out, but not "wine"-- because we all know wine drinkers are sophisticated bluebloods and whiskey and beer drinkers like in a trailer park and shoot each other with "guns" while smoking a "cigar", right? "Murder", "pedophelia", and "strangler" are apparently okey dokey as ad words though, with "strangler" even encouraging us to look for one on eBay.