Google Committs Click Fraud Themselves on National TV????

On a segment of 60 minutes, Lesley Stahl is talking to Google executive Marissa Mayer about how Google makes money.
"People always ask us how Google makes money," Mayer says, as she does a Google search for flowers. The left side of the screen displays the top 10 Web sites Google found related to flowers. Appearing on the right side are what Google calls sponsored links. This, she explains, is where the money comes from. When someone clicks on a sponsored link, say in this case it's an ad for FTD flowers, the company pays Google.

It shows Marissa clicking on the FTD ad and other ads as she explains that "this is the way Google makes money".

Now true, FTD probably paid Google a whopping 50 cents for that click, and they got some national publicity out of the deal, but still... You know those two weren't really looking for flowers.

Link to summary of the story, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063.shtml

 

the publicity is probably worth 1,000 times more than a click so I doubt they'd sue them for 20c or so

 

You're absolutely correct. I saw her do that and thought the same thing. But do you really think she did this without a prior arrangement with FTD?

 

It's CBS, I bet the held a gun to the google rep's head til they aggreed to create a forged document claiming they had permission

 

I very well may be wrong, but I would think/expect google would eliminate requests from their own ip's from being charged ppc. Afterall, they must test and review sites regularly.

//this would fit with their 'do no evil' philosophy - which we all buy into... right?

 

Nice...this is currently my favorite SEO board quote for all of the year 2005.

 

That is probably exactly the case. We have the metrics on our servers setup so that they don't count click or visits from our internal network.

Now as to the "do no evil" philosophy, I'd like you to tell that to the webmaster whose entire business success depends on his placement in the top ten after Google has one of their hiccups and for no know reason knocks his/her site right into oblivion.

 

"Do no intentional evil" instead? lol

 

click fraud stinks...

 

LOL. That is hilarious. Just think, now that you have seen a Google employee do this, imagine now that Google has gone public how many shareholders are out ther doing the same thing so that they can boost their own earnings!

 

Yes, like shareholders are really interested in do that... They already have a lot of Adsense publishers clicking on their own ads... LOL!

 

She probably called up right away and said "discredit that click from cbs.com"

That click is truly irrelevant. Companies like FTD make a lot more on real clicks than false ones and so they will continue to pay for that spot. Google is pretty much invincible at this point, save for maybe their Google Desktop security issues....

 

LOL. They may not as stupid as you think, ofcoz publicity like that do have prior arrangement

 

Stop this and help adword advertisers!

Arun
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"Now as to the "do no evil" philosophy, I'd like you to tell that to the webmaster whose entire business success depends on his placement in the top ten after Google has one of their hiccups and for no know reason knocks his/her site right into oblivion."
I'm not a Google fanboy, but if a company entirely depends on free results from Google, they don't have a very good business plan.

 

Heck, as much of a rollercoaster ride the stock has been, I think that many people would do anything they could.

 

I'd gladly pay 50 cents for a mention of my web store on 60 Minutes

 

Yes yes yes, hell, I'd pay $5,000 probably.

The point isn't that FTD didn't get their money's worth, but the implication of the action coupled with Google basically showing folks how it is that they can raise Google's income, or lower the income of sites that they do not like

 

True, but this isn't "new" news to most stock holders I would imagine. I'm not saying that they did the right thing, the right way, I just don't think it's quite as bad as some would like us to believe.

I'd be all giddy too if I was on 60 Minutes and probably do/say something stupid (as long as it wasn't one of those... "lets put the screws to this guy" pieces)

 

What exactly do you mean by this and if you are saying what I think you are saying, can you give me some pointers on how I can do the same for my LAN? Thanks