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Google Goes Ctrl - Alt - Delete
By Jim Hedger (c) 2007

Three major events took place on, at, or around Google last week
any one of which could radically change the company and its
relationships with its users, advertisers, and ad delivery
partners. Two of the events will have long lasting effects -
the first being Google's look and operation and the second
directly affecting the public's perception of Google as a
trustworthy company.

Chronologically, the events started last Monday with the
introduction of the new-look and feel of Google Universal. The
same day, Google began the process of cleaning up its paid
advertising program AdWords by terminating thousands of poorly
performing "Made For AdSense" sites, a process that seemed to
pick up speed as the week progressed. The week closed with the
premature leak of information from the Fair Isaac Corporation's
ongoing study of billable click-fraud rates.

The last event, the leak of preliminary information from Fair
Isaac, is likely the best place to begin an explanation because
it (the tone of the report) is arguably the primary causal
reason for the other two. It is as if Google suddenly
understands the depth of the public relations problems it is
going to be facing going into the second half of 2007 and is
making very public moves to deal with the root causes of those
problems.

Google's Greatest Problem

Early last Friday morning a press release left the offices of
the Fair Isaac Corporation. The press release stated that Fair
Isaac had been conducting a study on billable click fraud rates
at Google and had found 10 – 15 % of all billed clicks to a
small sampling of accounts had stemmed from invalid activity.
Naturally both the tech and mainstream media made an enormous
issue of the news with virtually every important business or
tech section mentioning the story.

By Saturday, the dust had settled and writers began taking a
second, less euphoric look at the story. As Kevin Newcomb in
Search Engine Watch wrote,

"Media reports (including Search Engine Watch's) saying Fair
Isaac Corp. (FIC) reported industry-wide click fraud at 10 to 15
percent are not accurate. FIC decided to put out a press release
and speak at its user conference about data that was extremely
preliminary, based on a small sample size, and not statistically
significant."

What happened and why was it an important event?

The significance of the media's reaction to the Fair Isaac
report is the media's reaction itself. Within minutes of the
release being issued, stories began appearing in Associated
Press, Information Week, the Wall St. Journal and in other major
publications. Though Kevin is correct in chastising himself and
his colleagues (including me) for jumping the gun on the story,
that so many of us feel there is a story about click fraud is in
itself the story.

Readers have to understand how difficult it is for reporters to
write about click fraud as there is very little corroborating
evidence outside the information we ferret out of advertisers
who complain to us about their experiences. Google and Yahoo are
not known to be forthcoming with information surrounding their
pay-per-click programs. Journalists rely on third-parties such
as Click Forensics, ClickFacts  other analytic companies (in
this case, Fair Isaac) to supply us with information which in
turn we supply to you the readers.

The numbers that came out of the Fair Isaac press release
generally jive with those of Click Forensics and the index
maintained by the Click Fraud Network which estimated a 14.8%
click fraud rate at the end of the first quarter of 2007.
Hundreds of other writers simultaneously experienced the same
low-watt, light-bulb moment I did, hoping that Fair Isaac had
provided a solid set of numbers to speculate from.

Unfortunately, as Kevin wrote, it was simply speculation but,
the event did point out a gaping hole in Google's corporate
awning. The press is clearly prepared to expect a 10 – 15% click
fraud rate, as evidenced by the breakneck speed the story made
from wire to writing to print. Perhaps that is the biggest
reason for the second important event from last week.

Google to Close Low-Yield MFA Accounts

Google is sending closure notices to owners of low conversion
"Made For AdSense" (MFA) sites. On Friday afternoon, reports
that Google issued polite emails informing several owners of MFA
type sites that their AdSense accounts are going to be
terminated on June 1 began surfacing at WebmasterWorld.

Google is targeting a large group of people who use the AdSense
system to scam money from advertisers. Some reports have
suggested Google is going after the paid-search arbitrage
community though others point out that though many (if not most)
arbitragers are going to be affected they themselves were not
the actual issue Google is dealing with.

Google is moving to close what are called "MFA" sites. Examples
of MFA sites include parked domains, misspellings and
faux-search engines, all of which tend to have AdSense
advertising on them. When users go to or are somehow driven to
those sites, those who click on the ads make the site owner (and
Google) a little money. Though clicks on these sites might only
be worth 5 – 10 cents, the Internet allows MFA site owners to
run businesses based on huge volumes of purchased and
misdirected visitors. On average, MFA site owners make a few
hundred per month on their sites though in some cases, site
owners can be making tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Obviously, this use of the AdWords and AdSense programs were far
healthier for the MFA site owners (and Google's bottom line),
than they were for advertisers or Internet users. For most, the
halcyon days of MFA are over and those webmasters will have to
adapt to the new rules surrounding ad distribution through the
AdSense program.

As for Google, if cleaning up the system makes advertisers more
comfortable over the long-run, it makes far more sense for
Google to forgo what is to them a relatively minor revenue
source in order to create a more stable advertising environment.
Assuming Google successfully removes MFA sites from its system,
it will have moved a long way towards cleaning up a highly
lucrative arena for click fraud.

Google Universal

The third and perhaps most interesting thing Google did last
week was the introduction of the Google Universal results. In a
nutshell, Google Universal is about tying many of the multiple
search indexes Google maintains into one coherent set of
results.

Google literally has over a dozen types of search result
available, depending on the type of search each user conducts.
Google Universal is their first major attempt to bind all search
types into an overarching set of results.

A good contemporary example might be the recent recall of pet
foods across North America . This is a topic of extreme interest
to pet owners, one that has received a high level of attention
from news, governmental and consumer organizations.  A search
conducted for "pet food recall" might bring up results from
general search, news, YouTube videos, radio reports, shopping
search results, etc... Under Google's old system, a user would
have to perform specialty searches to find information kept
outside of Google's general search results. Google Universal
should change that by bringing other file formats into what the
user will perceive as the general search results.

Google Universal is probably the biggest change made to Google
results since the introduction of paid advertising five years
ago. The move was made by Google to present a wider array of
file types to users. It is a logical change that will have
sweeping effects throughout the search marketing industry.
SiteProNews will carry fuller coverage of Google Universal later
this week.

Last week was one of the most significant and startling weeks in
Google's history. From an outsider's perspective, it appears
Google is taking serious action to improve its services on
several fronts. Its greatest weakness is the specter of click
fraud, as evidenced by the speed at which the media bit the hook
dangled by the Fair Isaac press release. It is prepared to forgo
revenues in order to clean up its system and is working to
integrate richer media into its general search results. Any one
of the three stories could have provided months worth of
material for writers in the search marketing space. Together,
they provide a clearer indication of Google's greatest fears and
best intentions. This is likely to be another interesting week
watching Google.
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Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific
writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous
search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews,
Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.

He is currently Executive Editor for the Jayde Online news
sources SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com) and SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com). You can also find additional tips
and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Jim at the SiteProNews
blog (http://blog.sitepronews.com/).
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