Advertisers should raise their voices against arrogant Google
In this guest post, Harvard Business School’s Benjamin Edelman argues that Google’s dominance of the online ad ecosystem leads to a bad deal for advertisers and arrogance from the web giant.
When it comes to web search, Google dominates. The crux of an online advertising service is the place where ads are shown. Historically, Google has offered highly-desired placements, namely ads adjacent to users’ search results. But these days, search pages are just one of many places showing Google ads. And that’s where problems creep in.
For example, if a user searches for or enters “www.qnatas.com” (s.i.c.), a slight misspelling of the airline’s domain name, the user receives a page of Google pay-per-click advertisements — most prominent, a link to the genuine Qantas site. To any reasonable user, that link is incredibly tempting, providing quick access to the site the user intended to reach. But down that road lies peril for the advertiser: Measuring apparent advertisement performance, the advertiser will conclude that such clicks often yield sales – grounds for raising its bids when purchasing advertisements from Google. In fact it’s all a ruse: Had a Google partner not registered the typosquatting domain, the user’s browser would have presented a suggestion that led the user to the desired site without Qantas incurring any advertising expense. Far from offering a good deal, these typosquatting domains can be the worst deal. So too for various toolbars, spyware/adware popups, click fraud, and other scams that trick advertisers into overpaying.
Concerned advertisers could reject all traffic from Google’s “Search Network” – instead, buying placements only on Google’s own properties. But then advertisers lose access to Google’s best partners – sites like the Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald. By bundling the bad with the good, Google makes it hard for advertisers to escape Google’s bogus placements.
Sic is not an acronym. It’s Latin for “as it was” or something. Or perhaps our esteemed professor is using “American” English, for which there are no rules.
Could Google ‘Frankenstein out’?!
Has a monster been created?
Relevance is key for me as a Google search user. If I feel that results are biased and skewed towards Google’s own assets then I will hop over to Bing or an equivalent.
Having said that; if Google’s assets are total quality then I might not care at all. Quality and relevance is what I want to see in SERP’s.
YouTube vid’s certainly seem to dominate the vid’s in Google search results and I click on them…
If the Groupon deal goes through and the offers are the best, then I might not care if Groupon dominates…
Travel deals etc
It will be very hard for all the sites who have built their businesses with Google seriously factored in, if they start losing their SOV because Google owns their competitor…
@Anonymous I think you will find that SIC is a modern hardcore/thrash metal band from Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands!
I’ve run Google campaigns for a while and this just didn’t read right. A quick look at Ben’s bio on his own website and surprise: he consults to Microsoft.
As to his arguments, they aren’t even logical:
1. It’s not Google who registers typosquatting websites – it’s opportunistic small companies or individuals, and they can use whatever ad publisher they want to get those links on the page.
2. If Ben had ever run a Google campaign, he’d know that you can exclude these types of sites as well as any specific site you want in the settings.
Qantas could have registered or bought the domain, as they’ve done with the far more typo’d quantas.com.
Atleast with google ads on this sqatting domain the user can potentially get where they want to go, instead of some dodgy phising or porn site.
Why should an advertiser expect to get free traffic from a piece of media they do not own? If Qantas think their trademark has been infringed then they should initiate legal proceedings and get the domain.
mmm… these grapes are sour
Hi, folks. Ben Edelman here. Sorry for not responding faster — on a flight.
Ian: You’re right that Google does not itself register typsoquatting domains. Then again, Google is the sole source of funding of most typosquatting domains. See http://www.benedelman.org/typo.....atting.pdf . Were it not for Google’s payments, typosquatters wouldn’t have economic incentive to register infringing domains. Google’s role as funder puts this scheme in motion
Ian, you’re right also that advertisers can now exclude domain parking sites from their Google campaigns. (That option hasn’t always been available, but it is now.) That said, I don’t think the opt-out offers a real solution to this problem. If Google is liable for its role in funding typosquatting domains (as one US court has said it is — see Vulcan Golf v. Google, in which, full dislcosure, I served as cocounsel), it’s no defense that advertisers can decline to participate. And continuing with the example in my piece: If Qnatas refuses to pay Google to place Qantas ads on Qnatas dot com (sic), then Google will send that traffic to competitors. It looks a lot like a shakedown: Pay us, or we’ll send traffic to competitors. When that demand is predicated on an infringement of a company’s trademark, it has quite a negative feel.
Charlie: Nothing guarantees an advertiser free traffic. But in many countries, certain uses of a company’s trademark — e.g. to promote competitors — are unlawful. In the US, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) is exactly on point. Qantas may not have any guarantee that Qnatas.com will like to Qantas at no cost. But it’s entirely possible under many countries’ laws — and the standard result under US ACPA — that no other company may permissibly register or use that domain name.
Ben, if Google didn’t supply the ads to the typosquatting domains, someone else would. There are plenty of options out there for someone wanting to put advertising on their sites. Google just happens to be the easiest.
You seem to be over-eager to blame Google for the advent of typosquatting, when as far as I can see it it’s the opposite. As anyone involved in marketing web sites will tell you, very few people actually enter domain names into their browser, far more predominantly they search for a term and use the first link. In this example you’re pushing of ‘qnatas’, any search of that term will point the user towards the Qantas site. In this, Google are helping Qantas to address any issues of typos by customers.
The only real solution is for domain names to be blocked if they bare a similarity to brand names, but there is huge overhead here for administering disputes (and a huge potential market for court cases – did you say you were a lawyer?). Your use case of qantas / qnatas is cut-and-dry but what about, say, qantas/quants? Quants is currently typosquatting, but why couldn’t it be a site for Quantitative Analysts?
There are too many variables in what you’re suggesting, and Google are providing a service in this situation that many others would be happy to replace.
Ben, I totally disagree. You’re saying that these guys aren’t smart enough to find another way to monetise their domains? People were buying typo domains For potential gain long before there was a business model o support them.
Legislative protection is a valid point, but if this was a balanced article it would have included discussion of all the ways typosquatters exploit trademarks, instead it’s just Google-bashing by a Microsoft shill.
Do better, Mumbrella.
And Ben, can you please answer the “he consults to microsoft” comment? If that is correct, then your comments are biased (and seem to be incorrect).
Ben I see you were also behind the misguided ‘Hard-Coding Bias in Google “Algorithmic” Search Results’ article that completely failed to understand the difference between Google’s organic search results and their embedded widgets. I highly recommend you do a bit more research into your subject matter before continuing to make a fool out of yourself to the technical-savvy internet public.
That was quite a prompt and thorough response from Google…
Snap.
Fantastic!
I love how the google person says “fact”.
I would have preferred “scientific fact”.
No substantiation of facts just re-iteration that they are facts.
Fact: Google releases Jetpack for all people. Only $500 a pop.
Yay
Tom, You’re right that others might supply ads to typosquatting domains if Google didn’t. But Google has a unique ability to build advertiser relationships: Advertisers systematically come to Google to buy ads. If Google rejected typosquatting placements, typosquatters would receive far less payment; no other ad service could offer the high payments Google provides. Indeed, the scope of typosquatting grew dramatically as Google entered this arena.
As to the scope of typosquatting, Tom, available evidence is inconsistent with your suggestion that “very few people actually enter domain names into their browser.” If that were the case, why would domain parkers find it profitable to register literally millions of domains? Domain parker Frank Schilling bought a jet with a portion of his profits from domain parking. “Very few” indeed!
Tom, you also mentioned my Hard-Coding piece. I stand by that piece as written. As I quote and cite in that article, Google has offered firm and unqualified claims that its listings “are solely determined by computer algorithms”, “fully automated”, and “unbiased.” Google specifically indicates that these promises apply to the breadth of its services: Google offers claims like “no manual intervention” without limiting that promise to only a portion of Google’s search results. And Google says it is “the answers” — not just a portion of the answers — that enjoy the lack of bias the quotes promise. Fact is, there’s no plausible legitimate explanation for the patterns I presented in my hard-coding article; the best interpretation of available evidence is that Google has intentionally adjusted and overridden its standard systems so that, for certain predetermined searches, certain Google results appear first.
Finally, as to a few of Courtney’s replies: I don’t agree that advertisers have “complete control” over where their ads appear. The controls Google provides 1) haven’t always been available, 2) don’t always work, 3) are less than forthright. Even then, of course, those are advertiser-focused controls — offering no defense to Google’s liability (ACPA and otherwise) for impermissible use of others’ trademarks.
Furthermore, as to data portability, see http://www.benedelman.org/news/062708-1.html — still as timely today as it was 2.5 years ago when I posted it. If Google is so committed to letting advertisers control their own data, Google should immediately remove these improper restrictions on where and how advertisers copy the campaigns, keywords, and other account details that advertisers themselves created. Note the European Commission’s recent interest (announced just this week) in exactly this area.
Typosquatters provide a service for fat fihgered typists.
It seems obvious that the writer of this knows very little about Google AdWords.
‘Concerned advertisers could reject all traffic from Google’s “Search Network” – instead, buying placements only on Google’s own properties.’
Actually, what you mean in ‘Display Network’. AdSense for domains falls under the display, not search network.
And, if this was a concern of any advertiser they could:
1. Exclude this particular site from their display campaign.
2. Launch a dispute against the owner of the domain.
Morris claims that all Google typosquatting domains are in display network. I emphatically disagree. Google’s own statements are consistent with my view, and not Morris’s. See http://adwords.google.com/supp.....swer=50002 : “Depending on the design of the site, a parked domain site will be classified as either a Search Network site or a Display Network site.”
Morris, your two proposals also miss the point entirely. If an advertiser excludes a given site from its campaign, users who stumble into that site are referred to the advertiser’s competitors — hardly a satisfactory option. And the dispute you propose costs US$1000+ per domain. Neither is satisfactory.
This problem is substantially of Google’s creation: Google put in place the economic incentives that give rise to the problem, and applicable law in many countries (e.g. US ACPA) says Google is liable. Hence my strong and continued view that Google ought rightly be criticized for its role in these typosquatting practices.
I don’t see that your link confirms that it is either the display or search network – it actually says that it can be either.
Qantas, and any advertiser, should protect themselves from these instances by buying the domains, firstly, or disputing them if they’ve missed it already.
Sure the domain dispute process is not smooth, and is expensive, and I don’t nearly agree with domain squatters – particularly those that focus on misspellings. The process is in place for companies to protect themselves – it’s not up to Google.
I also found this page, from the link you posted. http://adwords.google.com/supp.....swer=50003 – It indicates that there actually is a no-cost avenue for advertisers such as Qantas to dispute something like this.
As an AdWords advertiser, I do see your point, to some degree, but I still don’t feel it’s the full responsibility of Google AdWords.