Lowell Deeds

Internet giant Google generates its revenue from a process called “pay per click”. Here’s how it works… Companies buy advertisements from Google using “key words” as the payment trigger. Here’s an example…Let’s say you are interested in taking a trip to Florida…you google the word “hotel”…you get the usual search results but you also get a few paid advertising boxes on the side of the page… let’s say one of these paid advertisers is SunBurn Hotel. You are interested so you click on SunBurn Hotel’s Ad… SunBurn pays a fee to Google…It’s an hour later. I click on SunBurn Hotel, again Google gets paid…It’s called “pay per click” and it has made Google a fortune. The average cost per click is $.50 but it can go as high as $100.00 per click. Google’s “pay per click” business model is under attack and has been for a while…Let me explain how…Here’s another example…let’s say Bill owns a Hotel in Florida also. His is named “SunBlock Hotel spf45”. As you might expect, SunBurn Hotel and SunBlock Hotel are in competition for your business. Bill, who is not the most scrupulous business man, has an idea he thinks will give him and advantage over his competitor. He will go to SunBurn Hotel’s Google Ad and click on it… and click on it… and keep clicking on it. SunBurn Hotel gets no business from the clicks and their advertising budget is being used up…The practice is called “click fraud”…it is threatening the credibility of Google’s revenue model. As you would expect, the bad guys have automated fake clicking so thousands are sent out at a time. It is estimated that 20% of all advertising clicks are fraudulent. Google says it is doing everything possible to eliminate fraud, but some businesses don’t agree.