Where are Your Ads Being Placed?
This is a question that should be asked if you are spending any money with Google and specifically with AdWords. Quietly, last week Google was sued by a Boston attorney who purchased search ads and alleges that they yielded clicks, but no clients. The attorney complains that his pay-per-click search ads were placed on parked domains and “error” sites. He believes that Google is misleading advertisers by including these sites, since no actual searches occur on these pages. The clicks generated from these sites accounted for 15% of his budget and resulted in no conversions.
The attorney is seeking a refund (so far denied by Google) for the clicks from the parked domains program and the “AdSense for errors” program. He is also asking for Google to make it easier to opt out of the parked domains and error programs. The attorney is being represented by a firm that believes an entire class of Google’s advertisers are similarly being defrauded, thus a class-action lawsuit has been filed.
Google is no stranger to lawsuits, but this one may have some teeth. In the least, companies should now pay more attention to where their ads are being placed. Wouldn’t leads coming from a proven marketplace and exchange make more sense? Leadpile does not use parked domains, nor do we capitalize on errors made by consumers.
UPDATE – Google has had a second fraud lawsuit filed regarding their parked domain program. This time an online retailer complains that they purchased ads without realizing that the ads would appear on parked domains. The company said in it’s lawsuit that it had been charged for clicks from parked domains “that had little relation to its business.”
It will be interesting to see if Google aggressively fights these lawsuits, or if they quietly settle the cases. Of course, that will add to the “legal fees” when future quarterly reports are released.