Google Mounts PR Campaign for Click Fraud Practices

There's no doubt that some percentage of clicks are fraudulent, yes. But search is still the most effective form of advertising and study after study confirms that fact.

While I won't dismiss the value in blog advertising, it's absolutely no substitute for search. How many businesses have been built exclusively on the strength of a blog ad campaign?

You are going to see more and more business built on blog advertising.

I personally have used blog ads to drive one million uniques to a site in 4 weeks; to achieve clickthru rates as high as 2.3% at less than 50 cents a click; and to create buzz around blog ad campaigns.

This hits on a few different important issues. The need for third-party independent click fraud audits is important for both advertisers and bloggers.

Bloggers need to be able to verify that Google is properly tracking clicks and filtering out the fraudulent ones. Without that verification, I've moved away from Google Ads to other advertising services.

The discussion in the comments is also very important. Making sure that your site shows up well in searches should be an important part of ones marketing strategy, as should being sure that you make smart use of blog ads to drive traffic and buzz at appropriate times. It shouldn't be either/or, it should be both/and

If you're a publisher that's simply looking for traffic (i.e. clicks) to a website, then sure, blog advertising can be an effective marketing channel. Maybe even on par with search.

But if you're an e-tailer looking to generate sales (e.g. your "vacuum" example from another post), there's absolutely no way you'd be able to meet your volume goals by advertising on blogs alone.

Finding qualified traffic isn't very difficult to do, unless of course, you're trying to do it at scale. And that seems to be the challenge for nearly every marketer I know. There's no way any one of them could substitute blog advertising for search marketing and continue to meet their volume goals (i.e. stay in business) on an ongoing basis.

Peter: Wanna bet on that?
B.L.

First, let me make sure you're clear on my position. As previously mentioned, I am not dismissing the value in blog advertising. In fact, my company buys a significant amount of it through programs like Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, and other blog networks. We've run any number of campaigns where "contextual" has worked on it's own. We've also seen how it can improve the performance of a "search" campaign when the two channels are integrated together.

With all that said, there's no doubt in my mind -- and more importantly, in my database -- that search is more effective than blog advertising. I have millions of data points that confirm my position.

So, yeah, I'm happy to take you up on that bet :)