[ianharper]

Guys

Just wanted to say what a great job google does on this issue. I have someone in colchester (and some other areas) clicking on my advert each day. and google is picking them up and not charging me for the clicks. WELL DONE google.

AS some know i have a third party program that also tracks clicks this is working well and i have banded IP's that where searching for my URL and then clicking on my advert.

also someone thinks that they can have what is called a dynamic IP and get away with it as well. What they forget is that if you advert is targeted at an area if you getting clicks from ips outside, and these type ip's use ones from all around the globe they also dont get charged.

So all in all you can protect yourself from Fraudsters.

Respect

Ian Harper

[Linds Russell]

I got a £72 bill credit for Adwords in November as someone had been doing the same to me.

Swines!

[Matt Seymour]

This is the problem with both adwords and place pages. They are so easily open to abuse.

A guy on another forum has had someone leaving a load of negative reviews on his places page.

Google need to sort this out.

[wynne jones]

I reported a firm who has blatantly given themselves a 5 star review and then gone round all their competitors and slated them with1 star. I reported this to Google a month ago and nothing has been done. Ironically this was around the time Radio2 did a big piece on Google Fraud and a spokesman was saying they were on top of it.

This is why you NEED to be on the ball with Places because you need to manage your reputation. This will become more and more important as people get used to reviewing services other than restaurants and holiday homes.

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

I have the same problem. I received 109 pound for fraud clicks in Nov. Do these people think that we don't know who they are. IP addresses are amazing things and so easy to track.

[John Milnes]

I'm concerned that my adwords are being compromised by fraud clicks.
How then, do you guys find out what is happening?

I'm a bit dumb on this.

[Emil Dinev]

I had the same issue back in July last year. £314 bill from AdWords - £285 worth of fake clicks. That put me off AdWords, never used it since and never will.
Real problem is when you get your daily budget drained by competitors at say 1pm you become invisible for the audience and have to either top up or wait for same thing to happen on the next day. Absolutely misery.
 

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

I suppose the best way to combat it is rather than pay for wasted google adds... pay to have you website professionally optimised and pay for constant optimising and get it to the top of organic listings. A good way for you to help get your site higher is get links from other topic related sites. This will increase your page ranking thus get your site higher in the listings. A good tip is get your other pages linked to aswell. These are called deep links and will all add to your overall website ranking.

[Matt Seymour]

I think the google places is kind of unfair anyway. A spot right at the top of page one purely based on your location with barely any effort.

Seems a bit harsh on those who are slightly further from the centre of town but serving the area and are having to spend a lot of time and effort on SEO and taking the gamble that is adwords.

[wynne jones]

I think the google places is kind of unfair anyway. A spot right at the top of page one purely based on your location with barely any effort.

Seems a bit harsh on those who are slightly further from the centre of town but serving the area and are having to spend a lot of time and effort on SEO and taking the gamble that is adwords.

Matt

Although there is a weighting for being slap bang in the middle of an area other factors will easily make up for this. Also not all types of company have the same algorithm applied. Testing by some boffins showed that certain trades/services had very little weighting on location.

Most people haven't scratch the surface with their places entry yet.

[JandS]

Pay per click is a stupid idea anyway, open to abuse.
They could ask all there mates to click on you as well.
I don't even understand how they rank it, is the more
you pay going to get you higher up the rankings?

John

[Matt Seymour]

You can't deny that your location give you a headstart on everyone else.

When I first started I created a google map and went straight to page one for some areas with no effort at all.

I personally think that google should charge for places pages, but only if they sort out the issues discussed on this thread.

[wynne jones]

Matt

They may well start charging for the map entry in the future.

All I can say about PPC is I know companies (not in CC) that spend over £300k a year on adwords. They would laugh at these posts about fraud. If there is fraud on PPC you will get your money back. There wouldn't be a system still running if everyone lost their money if the competitors did this.

The truth is... and I'm not trying to be funny, but the reason it is losing you money is you simply don't know what you are doing. If you are not prepared to learn it or get someone to do it for you then yes leave well alone, but don't blame Google or your carpet cleaning enemies down the road.

   

[Matt Seymour]

I've not personally had much problem with adwords. I did one short campaign which brought in nothing whatsoever, so gave it a miss after.

Someone else with a similar opinion to you regarding how to use adwords was so confident that he could get me business using it that he did me a campaign for free.

The end result?

Nothing.

[wynne jones]

Well at least it didn't cost you anything. 

Here's another way to look at it. How many times has someone rang you up about advertising and siad we do this local mag/paper/whatever and you can advertise in ther for only £50 and you think well go on worth a try. You do that and you get ....... nothing, but you gave it a try.

Now do the same with Adwords and you get ....... nothing or do you? Even if you get no calls you have collected data. It is this data that is the starting point to creating a return on investment.

Who is succesful with Adwords? The person who is prepared to pick over the results. Do you know what split testing is? Have you heard of peel and stick? These are the things you need to spend time on to really find out if it's a goer or not.

[Matt Seymour]

I agree Wynne.

It's a handy tool if you are prepared to spend a few quid and some time on it. Like any kind of marketing it's a case of trial and error and finding what works best for your business in your location. I don't think there is any one particular of guaranteeing success.

I used to get a lot of work just by posting my details on Facebook trade groups, but others get nothing at all from Facebook.

[ianharper]

Guys

Just like any program most users only use a small percentage of that program. well its the same with adwords.

take this site below for example its a target market and as you will see it has a panel with google adwords on the right. well in adwords you can get you adverts to show just on this site in this panel.

http://womensnet.net/default.aspx

now the site could be a local school or shop or any other type of business that monetizes itself. its an opportunity.

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/ways-to-make-money-online-with-website/

So are all your competitors going to search every site on the net to just click on your advert?

its when we all start marketing with great USP's at this level that the market will start to change from price to value

Respect

Ian Harper

[wynne jones]

That's a great point Ian and it all comes back again to knowing your customer really well (and a few techie tricks too  )

[ianharper]

Guys

another tip

don't put the town name in any keywords. break down into areas and set mileage limit then cleaners from outside will not see your adverts and this should cut down the clicks from them.

you only need to put the town because in the seo listings you got all the heavy weights or national listings, with adwords you don't need to do this.

If you have one campaign covering a large area every cleaner in that area will see you advert. keep it local for each area. Plus it will leave you more room for other words as space is limited.

I think it might help with the cost as well. not sure about this one yet.

Hope this helps

Respect

Ian Harper

[wynne jones]

Ian

Just being nosey, whats your spend on Adwords a month?