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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
So a man got 668 clicks on his ads through one portion of his Google AdWords, and zero conversions. And for that, it's seen as good enough reason for a lawsuit. Ever heard of testing?
I'm no lawyer, but it looks like the complaint is shoddily written and inaccurate.
The thinking here is that the suit has limited merit because:
- There is little truth to the claim that the ads had "little or no chance of converting." Since Google made breakdowns of parked domain clicks available in a specific reporting feature, although it's certainly uneven, I've seen evidence that these channels convert about as well as other content.
- Google, unlike their competitors, reports separately on the performance of this inventory. And allows advertisers an opt-out of whole categories or channels of content.
- Google also allows you to "negative out" undesirable sites and IP addresses. It is taking what I see as reasonable measures to offer more control to advertisers.
No, the program isn't perfect. Among other things, some of the ambiguous inventory is stuck in the "search partner" network where breakdowns and opt-outs aren't readily available (but just contact your Google rep and you can work around the problem, likely). A Googler recently told me that better reporting and opt-outs for the "search partner" network is forthcoming in the next few quarters.
Further reading: Revisiting Content-Phobia in Paid SearchLabels: google adwords
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
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