Wow … something has you riled professor !!
But … thanks for the illuminating article on this PPC stuff.
Some views from an experienced sports webmaster / surfer …
BACKGROUND
I run two sites (shown below) … the first GoonersGuide.Com is my love .. it’s sports betting run as a co-operative and is very successful in what it achieves. Sports Betting. It’s been online for 5 years – it popular and gets around 1,000,000 pages viewed a month.
The second GamblingInfoSource.Com is new … and trying to monetise the Casino / Poker trend … which is what brought me to CAP in the first place.
It’s been online for a couple of weeks.
:hithead:
MY PPC HISTORY
I’ve never advertised on any PPC system … I’ve been amazed at the potential costs involved … but then MY traffic is not that valuable on a user or visit basis.
I’ve seen the ads of course on many sites, and on google searches … and I’ve clicked on a fair few of them too … but I could count on one hand the number of times that it has resulted in a purchase.
I’d suggest my buy rate would be about 1 or 2 from maybe 500 – 600 clicks ?
Because of this I’ve never considered putting the adverts on my site.
GLOBAL ISSUES
While I understand your frustration with PPC fraud it seems to me that there must be a significant amount of revenue involved – and so it does not surprise me that people from less developed countries would try to extract the cash. As a traveller I’m sure you’ve seen the disparate wealth.
Some of it will be human fraud … and the code you’ve uncovered seems to be a technical fraud … this can’t be avoided without geographic restrictions … no matter how good the validation.
However, I wonder how much of the failure of PPC clicks to deliver is also because the system (or target site) is not set up for global traffic ?
WHY ?
My site writes about European football. We get people from around 120 different countries each day … and I’d suggest that a fair proportion only have English as a second language.
This is based on stats, posts on the forum, and many of the cryptic emails that I receive from visitors where I cannot work out the language let alone what they want.
What have I done to my site to change this?
– I’ve tried to use simplier language.
– I’ve tried to use sections to highlight final picks and good bets.
– I’ve tried to make my affiliate links just a click away.
– I’ve avoided jargon – so translations might work better.
In summary I’ve tried to make it easier for people with English as a second language to use the side.
PERSONAL EXAMPLE
As a New Zealander, I’m amazed at the number of sites that are based in America that expect US only customers. This is shown on the forms to fill in, the language used and the offerings available.
I’d be prepared to wager that with the vast number of asians and europeans online, that the percentage of surfers that are American would be between 5-8% of total surfers.
Would you agree?
IN SUMMARY
I think that PPC in cash rich segments like gambling will always be frought with hazards of poor returns.
Some of it will be fraud .. but some of it will be because we (as webmasters) are not doing enough to understand our audience correctly.
Be lucky ..
:la-de-da: