I do help run one of the larger Search engine marketing firms in the world http://www.pinstorm.com/ - we have offices in India and Singapore - and do a lot of work for clients around the world - including in India and China.
And this complaint comes up often here - and is not quite true.
So for an ad to be clicked on - the advertiser must ask for it to be shown in that country. i.e. You can't get Indian or Chinese clicks till you advertise there.
The sad truth is also that most advertisers are also silly enough to choose a "global" setting (check these ads appearing in India for US stock brokerages - when it is illegal for Indians to trade freely on US exchanges : http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&new window=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=stock+broker&btnG=Sea rch&gl=in There is a way around it for those ad-clickers, of course - and that is to proxy through a US IP address - in which case, the visitor will be reported as a US visitor on your weblogs.
This is not to say the problem doesn't exist. It does - and it does so where these ad-clickers (not in villages, puhleeese!) in India or China or Eastern Europe are paid by US companies and given proxying software to click on their rivals ads. But most modern clickfraud tracking software (we have our own) can detect this easily.
There is something much harder to detect - impression frauding more than click frauding - where someone first removes their ad from a search term - and then does massive multiple searches on the same term - WITHOUT clicking on ads - hence decreasing the click-through rates of those competitive ads - and then places their own ads on the term to get a higher click-through and rank higher.
But there are ways to detect that too - and we do so.
If it's any consolation- most of the click fraud we detect for our American clients emanate from the US itself. Clickfrauders are equal-opportunity employers, I guess;)
Actually this isn't as obvious a statement as it seems to be.
Overture - (now part of Yahoo and the ads on Yahoo search results) uses a different metric: how much the advertiser pays them - to place ads in a higher position and hence generate more clicks. There is a near-logarithmic curve that typically defines click-through rates by position of ad - regardless of content of ad. So more relevance does not really mean more clicks there.
Google earlier used a simpler metric - based on the Click Through Rate (CTR - a measure of the ad's relevance to consumers with 1% CTR meaning 1% of searchers who saw the ad felt it was relevant enough for them to click on). The earlier metric was CTR times what the advertiser paid (Cost Per Click) or CPC. In effect, Google rewarded the advertisers who paid them most money through the greatest value extracted from ads clicked.
Today it's more complex - and Google has weighted the algo towards advertisers who bid more instead of what the news item supposedly states - essentially a more "evil", Yahoo-like behaviour.
Plug: I help run Pinstorm http://www.pinstorm.com/ a firm where we do a lot of the nice math and creative stuff to help advertisers on Google and Yahoo not spend so much - but get much much:).
Mahesh
Diff story on Geodesic / IndiaTimes interop msngr
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I helped spec another reasonably successful interoperable messenger: IndiaTimes, downloadable at http://messenger.indiatimes.com. Some of you may find this information of value:
1. IndiaTimes Messenger (developed by Geodesic: http://www.geodesic.org, the company I'm associated with) is the product we licensed to The Times Of India, India's largest newspaper - and, if they were to be believed, the world's no.2 English daily. It allows you to communicate with your AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and IndiaTimes buddies through one small (1.5 MB) free download and simple interface. When I last checked an hour ago - AOL interconnectivity was still on.
Further, the service is difficult to block as it is not server-based, but P2P client based.
2. In the last 3 months, over 1.1 million downloads of this messenger have taken place. In effect, it has perhaps 10% to 20% of the market for messenger users in India. Yahoo and MSN are other leaders here, and AOL is nearly absent in this market.
3. What is unique about this messenger vis a vis others out there: Trillium / Odigo etc, apart from being client-based is its cross communication capabilities. i.e. If I am on IndiaTimes, 'A' is on MSN, 'B' is on Yahoo, 'C' is on AOL and 'D' on ICQ, then A, B, C and D can talk with each other. Hence, my MSN buddy can talk to my AOL buddy can talk to my ICQ buddy.
Something, that, to the best of my knowledge, no other messenger allows. Something, perhaps, of some coolness and value:)
4. As far as legal and other threats, we have reasonable research to believe that, despite all the noise, _no messenger company has ever taken an interoperable messenger company to court_. Ever. This may either be because of a desire to avoid a costly legal battle, or to avoid unfavourable publicity - or, more likely we think - because such a case would be thrown out of court.
5. There is enough precedent, we believe, to prove that your communication sent through a messenger is your property - not that of the messenger company's. So you have the right to have your property pass through whatever route you desire to reach its final destination. (The letter / post office analogy). Similarly, I, the receipient can choose to see a communication meant for me through whatever system I desire (roughly analogous to me having the freedom to read my Hotmail on any POP account).
6. Further, there are specific legal rulings specifically favouring interoperability - and even defending reverse engineering to ensure interoperability. One may not be wrong in predicting that there will be no legal cases, but further time-delaying tactics by AOL or others re-engineering their software to keep out the interoperables.
My $0.02,
Mahesh
Slashdot Mirror
I do help run one of the larger Search engine marketing firms in the world http://www.pinstorm.com/ - we have offices in India and Singapore - and do a lot of work for clients around the world - including in India and China.
w window=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=ipod&btnG=Search&gl=u s
and here's what it generates in the UK http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&new window=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=ipod&btnG=Search&gl=u k As you can see - the editorial - or organic - results are the same - but the ads / sponsored links are entirely different.
w window=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=stock+broker&btnG=Sea rch&gl=in There is a way around it for those ad-clickers, of course - and that is to proxy through a US IP address - in which case, the visitor will be reported as a US visitor on your weblogs.
And this complaint comes up often here - and is not quite true.
First - Google only shows ads to viewers from a country you've picked for your ads to be shown in. Here's an example of what a search for "iPod" will generate in the US http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ne
So for an ad to be clicked on - the advertiser must ask for it to be shown in that country. i.e. You can't get Indian or Chinese clicks till you advertise there.
The sad truth is also that most advertisers are also silly enough to choose a "global" setting (check these ads appearing in India for US stock brokerages - when it is illegal for Indians to trade freely on US exchanges : http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ne
This is not to say the problem doesn't exist. It does - and it does so where these ad-clickers (not in villages, puhleeese!) in India or China or Eastern Europe are paid by US companies and given proxying software to click on their rivals ads. But most modern clickfraud tracking software (we have our own) can detect this easily.
There is something much harder to detect - impression frauding more than click frauding - where someone first removes their ad from a search term - and then does massive multiple searches on the same term - WITHOUT clicking on ads - hence decreasing the click-through rates of those competitive ads - and then places their own ads on the term to get a higher click-through and rank higher.
But there are ways to detect that too - and we do so.
If it's any consolation- most of the click fraud we detect for our American clients emanate from the US itself. Clickfrauders are equal-opportunity employers, I guess;)
Regards
Mahesh
Actually this isn't as obvious a statement as it seems to be.
Overture - (now part of Yahoo and the ads on Yahoo search results) uses a different metric: how much the advertiser pays them - to place ads in a higher position and hence generate more clicks. There is a near-logarithmic curve that typically defines click-through rates by position of ad - regardless of content of ad. So more relevance does not really mean more clicks there.
Google earlier used a simpler metric - based on the Click Through Rate (CTR - a measure of the ad's relevance to consumers with 1% CTR meaning 1% of searchers who saw the ad felt it was relevant enough for them to click on). The earlier metric was CTR times what the advertiser paid (Cost Per Click) or CPC. In effect, Google rewarded the advertisers who paid them most money through the greatest value extracted from ads clicked.
Today it's more complex - and Google has weighted the algo towards advertisers who bid more instead of what the news item supposedly states - essentially a more "evil", Yahoo-like behaviour.
Plug: I help run Pinstorm http://www.pinstorm.com/ a firm where we do a lot of the nice math and creative stuff to help advertisers on Google and Yahoo not spend so much - but get much much:).
Mahesh
I helped spec another reasonably successful interoperable messenger: IndiaTimes, downloadable at http://messenger.indiatimes.com. Some of you may find this information of value: 1. IndiaTimes Messenger (developed by Geodesic: http://www.geodesic.org, the company I'm associated with) is the product we licensed to The Times Of India, India's largest newspaper - and, if they were to be believed, the world's no.2 English daily. It allows you to communicate with your AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and IndiaTimes buddies through one small (1.5 MB) free download and simple interface. When I last checked an hour ago - AOL interconnectivity was still on. Further, the service is difficult to block as it is not server-based, but P2P client based. 2. In the last 3 months, over 1.1 million downloads of this messenger have taken place. In effect, it has perhaps 10% to 20% of the market for messenger users in India. Yahoo and MSN are other leaders here, and AOL is nearly absent in this market. 3. What is unique about this messenger vis a vis others out there: Trillium / Odigo etc, apart from being client-based is its cross communication capabilities. i.e. If I am on IndiaTimes, 'A' is on MSN, 'B' is on Yahoo, 'C' is on AOL and 'D' on ICQ, then A, B, C and D can talk with each other. Hence, my MSN buddy can talk to my AOL buddy can talk to my ICQ buddy. Something, that, to the best of my knowledge, no other messenger allows. Something, perhaps, of some coolness and value:) 4. As far as legal and other threats, we have reasonable research to believe that, despite all the noise, _no messenger company has ever taken an interoperable messenger company to court_. Ever. This may either be because of a desire to avoid a costly legal battle, or to avoid unfavourable publicity - or, more likely we think - because such a case would be thrown out of court. 5. There is enough precedent, we believe, to prove that your communication sent through a messenger is your property - not that of the messenger company's. So you have the right to have your property pass through whatever route you desire to reach its final destination. (The letter / post office analogy). Similarly, I, the receipient can choose to see a communication meant for me through whatever system I desire (roughly analogous to me having the freedom to read my Hotmail on any POP account). 6. Further, there are specific legal rulings specifically favouring interoperability - and even defending reverse engineering to ensure interoperability. One may not be wrong in predicting that there will be no legal cases, but further time-delaying tactics by AOL or others re-engineering their software to keep out the interoperables. My $0.02, Mahesh