Adsense Buzz - Pt 2

Since Scott Boulch's promo launch about his Adsense revelation about two weeks back, he has claimed that more than 31,000 people had signed up for his affiliate program. The controversial promo ended Tuesday, Sept 26. What these people have learned is that there's a new catchphrase "Click Flipping" which is supposed to really boost your online earnings. No doubt, interested parties will be keen to know how it works. Will there be more buzz?

Adsense Buzz

In the last few weeks the Net was abuzz with Scott Boulch's latest revelation about Adsense. It was a "newsbreak" that sort of caught fire capturing everyone's attention. Definitely, it must have stirred up some controversy and caused some scrambling by some people.

Since the news broke, it has been claimed that Boulch's website announcement had prompted over 29,000 people downloading his report. And by now you can bet, some people are downloading his follow-up report.

Are Crocs Really Good For Your Feet?

They are called Crocs and these clog-like shoes are eye-catching. But do these trendy shoes have a place in good foot care?

They come in bright colors and it seems that more and more Americans are making their feet do the talking...or rather walk the talk with their Crocs.

The shoe might not match everyone's idea of fashion, but fans swear by its comfort. Croc lovers say they bring health benefits to the two extremities that carry us all the places we go.

Are Crocs really good for our feet? Or is this footwear phenom just a passing fad?

Crocs have the official seal of approval from the APMA, meaning the shoes have been found to be beneficial in promoting good foot and ankle care. But not all doctors have signed on to the medical value of the shoes.

> Some feedback from doctors, consumers, and the shoe's creators.

> Professional skepticism and what Croc fans are saying

Weeding Out Cancer Cells

The battle against cancer continues. And here's heartening news from a National Cancer Institute study.

Genetic engineers now can arm normal white blood cells with tools that let them weed out cancer cells and shrink large tumors.

Researchers in a National Cancer Institute study had success using the technique to treat skin cancer in two men.

"These results represent the first time gene therapy has been used successfully to treat cancer," said NIH director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD, in a news release.

"We hope it will be applicable not only to melanoma, but also for a broad range of common cancers." [Read more..]

Bob Dylan Returns With "Modern Times"

Bob Dylan is far from over the hill. At 65, the veteran singer has become
the oldest living person to top the US album charts with his latest
release, Modern Times.

Since the album's release, it has sold over 192,000 copies in its first
week, according to music tracking service Nielsen Soundscan.

Modern Times has also gone to number one in Australia, Canada,
Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, according to
Columbia.

The bloghound had a hard time finding a copy of the album after raiding
some of the record stores in town. He was told to come back later for
new shipments...but when? Maybe he should try Amazon.com.

Modern Times is Dylan's first US number one album since Desire in 1976,
which topped the charts for five weeks. That was 30 years ago.

The living legend's 44th album, Modern Times, earned five-star reviews
in Uncut and Rolling Stone magazines, with the latter calling it a "
masterwork".

USA Today praised the album for his "pointed political commentary" and
also Dylan's wit and imagery.

"This music is relaxed; it has nothing to prove," Rolling Stone magazine
said of the 10 songs on Modern Times.

His new release features 10 original tracks recorded by the musician and
his touring band last winter. Dylan plays keyboard, guitar and harmonica
as well as singing on the record.

The BBC News website asked six Dylan fans to explain their enduring
fascination with the man and his music [Read more...]

Modern Times: Track Listing
Disc 1: Thunder On The Mountain / Spirit On The Water / Rollin' and Tumblin' /
When The Deal Goes Down / Someday Baby / Workingman's Blues #2 /
Beyond The Horizon / Nettie Moore / The Levee's Gonna Break / Ain't
Talkin'

Disc 2: Cold Irons Bound (Unreleased live version from Masked & Anonymous) /
Blood In My Eyes / Things Have Changed / Love Sick (From The Grammy
Awards)

> Critics shower praise

> Dylan's album tops charts

> Articles about Bob Dylan

HK Banker Wins Salsa Case

Prominent Hong Kong banker Monica Wong, who has a passion for salsa dancing, has won back millions of dollars paid in advance for private lessions
.
She had engaged and agreed to pay Italian Mirko Saccani and his world champion wife Gaynor Fairweather HK$120m (US$15.4m, £8.2m) for eight years of unlimited lessons.

But the relationship quickly broke down after Mr Saccani called her a "lazy cow" at a public practice session.

A judge has ordered the pair to return HK$62m Ms Wong had already paid, plus interest.

Ms Wong, daughter of a shipping tycoon and head of HSBC's private banking business in Asia, told reporters she was pleased with the outcome. [Read more...]

Click Fraud: Who's To Blame?

Click fraud has become the greatest threat to the rapid growth of the paid search marketing sector. Many search engines are seeking a solution to this problem. But who's to blame for all this shenanigans?


Do You Pay Per Click Fraud?

The world of pay-per-click marketing started in 1997 with GoTo.com. Today they are known as Yahoo Search Marketing. What started in 1997 as a way to quickly get listed in the top of the search engines has turned into a 5.6 billion dollar industry in 2005. In fact, about 99% of Google's revenue comes from advertising.

However, this multi-billion dollar search industry is under attack and has been for quite a while. Click fraud has become the greatest threat to the rapid growth of the paid search marketing sector. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that 20 to 35 percent of ad clicks are fraudulent.

Who's to blame? Click fraud can come from a variety of sources, including competitors, bots that simulate the human behavior of clicking on ads in web pages, or even friends of the publisher who want to "help" the publisher gain some additional click revenue.

However, the major search engines have received the majority of the blame, even though they are not necessarily responsible.

Yahoo has recently settled a class-action click fraud settlement. Under the settlement, Yahoo advertisers will be allowed to submit click fraud claims dating back to January 2004. Yahoo will reimburse any confirmed fraudulent clicks in cash, with no set limit on the amount of claims it will cover.

This year, Google has been burdened with its own click fraud case to the tune of 90 million dollars. Currently, the court is deciding whether to accept the search giant's proposed $90 million settlement while roughly 50 plaintiffs are voicing their dissatisfaction with it.

Click fraud is certainly no small matter. It has become larger than the total magnitude of credit card fraud in the U.S.

So far, these law suits have spawned more questions than answers for the ultimate solution to click fraud. Click fraud threatens an entire business model; one that is generating billions of dollars every year.

At this point, it's hard to tell whether pay-per-click advertising will stand the test of time, or line up for the chopping block.

Many of the search engines are already looking for solutions.

Pay-Per Percentage

Microsoft is currently engaging in research to develop new, click fraud resistant advertising models. Joshua Goodman, a Principal Researcher at Microsoft has published a white paper on pay-per-percentage as a solution to click-fraud.

Pay-per-percentage is an advanced form of pay-per-impression. Within this system, someone can bid for a percentage of all impressions for certain keywords or keyword phrases over a specified period of time. In the pay-per-percentage model, click fraud is avoided because the advertiser is not charged any additional amount for clicks. The business model is based upon a percentage of ad impressions.

Microsoft research describes it as:

"A simple method for selling advertising, pay-per-percentage of impressions, that is immune to both click fraud and impression fraud... ads must be shown in a truly random way, across the percentage of impressions purchased..Pre-fix match: a system that is similar to broad-match, but more compatible with pay-per-percentage... auction pay-per-percentage matches, including prefix matches in a revenue maximizing way...make it easier to sell to advertisers."

The Google Adwords system itself was initially based on a cost-per-view model. Unfortunately, there was a lack of enthusiasm for the cost-per-impression services and they switched over to the pay-per-click model.

For the pay-per-percentage model to succeed, Microsoft will certainly have to do some things different. Their solution is outlined in the paper, "Pay-Per Percentage of Impressions: An Advertising Method that is Highly Robust to Fraud" (http://research.microsoft.com/~joshuago/percentageworkshop- final.pdf)

Another possible solution being explored is Pay Per Action.

Under this model, advertisers do not pay every time a user clicks on an ad. Instead, payment is only made when a click through leads to a desired action. This could be a purchase, filling out a form, downloading trial software, or even making a call.

This model takes much of the risk out of advertising.

In fact, Google Adsense is currently beta testing a compensation system based on CPA. If you are an adsense pubisher, this would mean that instead of getting paid for clicks or impressions, you would get paid a commission for a sale or other desired action. These ads won't compete with the regular pay-per-click ads and will be on a separate network. However, they may be beneficial for advertisers looking to avoid click fraud.

Paid Inclusion

Another possible solution to pay-per-click is known as paid-inclusion. Although many of the paid inclusion companies have come and gone over the years, there is a new organization that is offering a very optimistic solution to the many pay-per-click problems we are facing today.

This organization is giving smaller search engines and directories the ability to compete with the big guns (Google, Yahoo, and MSN.) The smaller search players can attain this status by becoming part of a mass community that delivers quality advertising at a fraction of PPC costs.

The paid inclusion program offered by this community of search providers, known as the ISEDN (http://www.isedn.com), is a cross between the older paid inclusion models and the reigning PPC model. Purchased ads are displayed in a similar manner to the PPC ads shown by Google, but advertisers are charged on a flat fee basis, not on a per click basis.

The ISEDN program makes click fraud irrelevant because ads are displayed for a certain period of time, regardless of the number of clicks or impressions received.

Through the power of the collective community (the ISEDN currently has more than 230+ members), ISEDN paid inclusion ads are displayed over 150 million times per month. This equates to 150 million potential advertising opportunities.

Within this model, you can buy top 10 exposure across a rapidly growing network of search providers for $3 to $4 per month. If you choose to buy in volume, you can expect some significant discounts.
The ISEDN advertising model limits the sale of the same keywords or phrases to 30 advertisers. If a keyword term is sold more than 10 times, then those paid listings begin to rotate between the SERPs. So, for the worst case scenario, a listing would appear on the first page of results approximately once out of every 3 searches on most engines in the network.

This program gives advertisers the benefit of advertising with smaller search engines on a massive scale without the fear of click fraud. For more information on this advertising model visit ISEDN founding member ExactSeek.com (http://new.exactseek.com/featured_listings.html).

As for Google, Yahoo, and MSN, you can definitely expect to see some changes being made with their paid search programs in the near future. The pay-per-click model is inherently flawed and must be altered to survive. Google and the other major search engines know that their business will be crippled if they do not adapt. In the meantime, there are a number of alternatives for advertisers looking for a safer solution to advertising.

About the author: Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com) & SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com) newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim@seo-news.com

> Google Ban You...But You're Innocent