Clicking every competitor ad you can find??

This is a very interesting point - are there any you'd recommend specifically geared towards AdWords? I run a fairly intensive tracking setup at the moment but don't have anything that'll effectively notify me if too many clicks from the same IP occur.

 

whats wrong in this ?

 

This sort of situation is what makes me reluctant to advertise using Google.

Google wins - making money from the advertising.
The site owner wins - making money from the click revenue.
The clicker wins - depleting his competitors advertising budget
The advertiser loses.

Where's the protection for the advertiser? The only one in all of this providing the opportunity for the other 3 groups to gain...

 

Excuse me?

 

If you want Adsense to end, click on your competitor's ads.

But i wouldn't want to do any business with someone like you.
However it's your life and your choice.

 

Competitor sabotage has been going on as long as people have been in business, offline or online doesn't matter. Google just gives them new options. Yes, it's unethical. But people are going to do it anyway. That's certainly sad. Look at it this way though... the time he's wasting doing that is probably giving him personally less business than if he were actually working. Maybe if he was any good at what he does, he'd be too busy working with actual clients to even think about his competitors in that way. That's the real way to sabotage them.

Jenn

 

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1157719&postcount=5
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1157617&postcount=141

 

I guess you just gotta do good and hope that good comes back in return.

I am about to start another Google campaign and I sooo hope all of my money isn't wasted away on this sort of bs.

 

what a jerk, he cant handle some comp

 

Yep.

If I was to suddenly stop writing content all day, and instead switch to clicking competitor ads all day, I would very quickly find myself out of business and tap dancing on the street for nickels, no doubt.

Most people get it eventually; some take longer than others...

 

I've recently been researching click fraud and it's effect, estimates vary wildly as to how prevelant it is and no distinction is made between competitor fraud and publisher fraud. Anyone car to speculate which is higher??

 

Hah! I suppose we shouldn't feed the trolls then Nice observation

 

Umm I was thinking about clicking my OWN ads to increase CTR's lol

(not sure if that'd work though & equally as dodgy)

 

The problem google have is that they seem to audit the clicks on a daily basis rather than straight away.

Its quite possible for you to click on a competitors adverts 20 times first thing in the morning and use up their daily budget so their advert stops showing. Google will detect the invalid clicks and they won't get charged but they still miss out on the money they would have made if the ad was showing.

 

You know how dumb this is? Besides getting in trouble for doing it, he is raising the CTR rate of his competition meaning they can get a lower rate for the same ads which means they will save money in the long-run. It also means if he is advertising on the same pages his bid price will rise because his links are the ones with the worst ctr.

It is an incredibly dumb thing to be doing on pretty much every level.

 

what comes around goes around...

aka, 'Live by the sword and you will die by the sword'

 

Your "friend" huh?

I think we've all done it time to time, you know.. you have to stay up to date on the competition, ya know?

 

How will google always know it's a competitor? You got to loose money at least a few times...And google makes it...
They can even use proxy or rotating IP's, making it even more difficult to track and block...

 

Or use an script. Anyway, how many ppl do this? Not many I presume.

 

They can't always, but technology exisits simply to track if anyone is accessing an Adwords/Adsense account from the same IP as someone who clicks on ads. All that needs to be done would be to compare the keywords between the acounts of the competitors being clicked on, and the accounts this peerson controls.

As for the person who said nothing can be done, well that is not true. It is theft in the eyes of the law, it is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. The crux of the brief would be that they knowingly cost their competitors money, by pretending to be an interested customer, .

I doubt a case would ever come to court though as the chances of a conviction are so slim due to the complexity of what should (on the face of it), be a simple case.