Let's hear some ideas on the case we're going to present to the FTC and Calif. AG's office. Mine is below. Here's where to file your complaint with the California Attorney General's office (Google's home state): https://app.dca.ca.gov/cru/gencomplaint.htm You should file the same complaint with the Federal Trade Commission: http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm My suggestion is that you phrase your complaint as about the descriminatory practices of a publishing company: it is charging bigger advertisers less than smaller ones. Somehow, Ebay, Amazon and the other huge clients of Google are still relevant while your site is not. In addition, they are descriminating against advertisers based on what they perceive to be the quality of the user's experience...they aren't REFUSING the ad like a newspaper might refuse an ad from a porn shop, they are saying, "we'll take the ad, just pay us more." Here's my scenario...What other ways should we pose our complaints? : You want to take out an ad in your local newspaper promoting your pet supplies store. Your competitors are mainly the big chain stores. You go see them and they give you a rate card. Then you go to your graphic artist, who designs you a killer, camera-ready ad with a coupon. They start running the ad and you get a lot of business...the ad pays for itself and then some. Two weeks later, the publisher calls you and says, "Thanks for the ad, Bob. Very nicely done and professional looking. I'm glad it's working well for you. "However, I drove by your store today and saw it was in a bad neighborhood. Your door was painted red when all the others were painted earth tones. The paint on your building was faded. The sidewalk was cracked. I called the phone number and it went to voice mail. Even if they're buying from you, I think it's causing your customers to have a negative experience. Petsmart and the other big guys don't have these problems." So, I'm afraid we're going to have to raise your rates. We'll still run the ad, but you need to pay us 100 times more for it; otherwise, we won't accept it. Have a nice day." Or, it could be worse. The publisher says, "Yes, we know your store looks as nice as MegaPets. It's in a good neighborhood, too. However, for reasons we can't tell you exactly, our computer has decided your store is providing a worse user experience than MegaPets. Therefore, you will have to pay us 100 times more than MegaPets does." Of course, you ask, "Well, I note that MegaPets advertises in ALL 100 of your publishing company's newspapers...they are one of your biggest clients. Could that have something to do with it?" And they answer, "We're not willing to answer that, Bob."To which you respond, "OK. Expect to hear from my attorney, the FTC, and the state attorney general's office shortly. Have a nice day."
Nice idea and well put. My guess is that google is going to reverse course on this fairly quickly. Anyone gotten a class action attorney yet? I'm not usually a big fan of class action suits, but it seems appropriate in this case. I looked up the firm which won the $90M class action case against Google for click fraud. I sent the following letter (borrowing some of your analogies from above, MrCritic). I found your name while searching past class action suits against Google Adwords. I thought you might be interested in some recent developments with Adwords which might be right up your alley. I'm not sure if there is a case here, but I think Google is taking some serious liberties in their actions over the past 7 days or so. Here's the quick synopsis: Google has always ranked adwords ads based on two things: 1. The amount you bid per click. 2. Your historical Click Through Ratio. The rationale for this makes perfect sense: they are giving you real estate on their page - which costs them money. If you aren't writing your ads in such a way that they will get clicked, then you get penalized. However, on July 10th, Google put a new algorithm in place. A post to their own blog regarding this can be found here: [Link removed] The long and short of it is that Google is now determining the "quality" of your landing pages through a computer algorithm. Basically, their servers read your landing pages and search for text which is relevant to the keywords on which you are bidding. Here's the bad part: If they find that your landing page is not up to their standards, then they increase your minimum price per click. In my case my minimum Cost Per Click on nearly all of my keywords has gone from 0.05 to 1.00, 5.00, and in a few cases $10.00. To me they are saying: "We (our algortighm) don't like your landing pages, but if you pay us this exorbinant rate, we'll look past that and run your ads." It would be the equivalent of the Yellow Pages saying to a restaurant: "Our standard advertising rate is $5000 per year per quarter page on page 7 of the restaurant section. However, we don't like the exterior of your building and we feel you are in a bad neighborhood. So, while we charge your competitors $5000 for that 1/4 page ad on page 7, since we don't like your exterior and location, we can only accept your business if you agree to be on page 1 of the restaurant section which will cost you $50,000 per year per quarter page." I want to keep this brief as I know you are busy, but if you feel there is a case here, I would be happy to provide more information. This article will also shed some additional light on what is going on: [link removed] Thank you for your time,
Good idea... A few calls from the FTC might change Googles mind as well. I heard back from a Google rep today: "Hello XXXX, Thank you for your patience. As promised, our Site Quality Team has re-reviewed your client's landing pages. Upon further review, they determined that the Destination site (i.e. landing page) itself is not the primary reason for the increase in your client's minimum CPCs. Rather, issue is with the 'vanity' Display URL they are using – ‘WorldsBestWidgetShop.com’ on their ad text. With that said, we strongly recommend that your client uses the correct Display URL for the site – ‘www.maindomainname.com.’ This may alleviate the issue with the high minimum CPCs. Moreover, users will have an accurate representation of where they are being led from what is displayed your client's ads." First off, if this was true, then ALL of the keywords would have had their minimums raised, right? Secondly, Display URL isn't listed on the Quality Score discussion (adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10215&topic=114): How is the Quality Score calculated? We want to ensure that your keywords get a fair chance to run and that we do all we can to properly gauge their performance. We use a Quality Score to do this. Each keyword is given a Quality Score based on data specific to your keyword performance on Google, including your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR), relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, the quality of your ad's landing page, and other relevancy factors. Quality Score = keyword's CTR + ad text relevance + historical keyword performance + landing page quality + other relevancy factors Your keyword's Quality Score and maximum CPC (at the keyword or Ad Group level as seen on Google) determine your ad's rank on Google and the search network. For content sites, your content bid or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), plus the ad's performance history on the site and similar sites, are considered. (For the top positions above Google search results, however, we use your keyword's actual CPC.) Remember that improving the relevance of your ad text and keywords will increase your keyword's Quality Score and reduce the price you pay when someone clicks on your ad. BTW: I had given them 4 ad groups to investigate, and the WorldsBestWidgetShop.com was only used on two, so I asked her to find out the story on the others. One of them has a GREAT display URL...basically, "widgets.com." If they tell me that causes a negative experience for the user, I will just die. If the Display URL works and points to the correct page on the site, I don't see why it can't be used...who are they to tell me my URL is not up to snuff?
If I rated my own post, I didn't know I was doing it, dumbass. Excuse me for being new to the forum. Of course, I've been a webmaster for 11 years and a computer user for 22, but that evidently means nothing.
Oh, yeah. Also started an e'commerce company on my credit cards, got it to $2 million in sales in 3 years, then sold it before the bubble burst. But, of course, I'm an idiot, so what do I know?
Sounds like you are a great entrepreneur. I want to learn from people such as your self. But I didn't call you an idiot. I called you dumb ass. At least dumb-asses can correct themselves, an idiot is an idiot for life.
And now Richa is going to come over here and say that he rated the OP, which he very well may have. So...sorry. Go fight the good fight.=)
I love it! It doesn't matter which forum you go to, they are always there. I rated his post. I liked it. Gosh, I hope that's OK. That's a great way to start a flame war TCR, but then you knew that, right?
Dude, I did not intend to start a 'flame war'. I did not see your huge post (stupid of me), so i wrote what I wrote. Whatever. Get over it, man. I already said I was wrong.