Seth Godin Wants to Cheat Advertisers with Fake Clicks
Posted on August 22nd, 2008by Michael Gray in Advertising
Seth Godin has an article today called ads are the new tip jar, where he advocates clicking on webmaster welfare Google adsense or other contextual ads to help bloggers get paid for their work. He of course completely ignores that advertisers will be paying for clicks from people who had absolutely no intention of using or buying the service advertised. If you click on an ad and your purpose is to make sure the site owner or blogger gets money from the click, and you had no intent to buy or research, that is click fraud.
That kind of behavior comes from some belief that bloggers are entitled to get paid for their work wheter it’s valuable or not (see Adsense: Why Bloggers Don’t Get It). Bloggers need to realize just because a handful of lifestyle mommy bloggers are able to make a living blogging, there isn’t an unlimited market for that type of content, and unless you are the best of the bunch, you will probably make more money working the drive thru window at McDonalds.
Want to make money blogging … write blogs that are commercially viable and attractive to advertisers. Be willing to give up some prime real estate to advertising.
For other opinions see Is Seth Godin encouraging click fraud and Seth Godin Advocates Click Fraud. This is the kind of subject I wish Techcrunch would talk about or would make its way onto techmeme. Not enough bloggers understand the full circle of advertising and buying on the web.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Sphere: Related Content
.gif)
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Ugh! I really don’t want ad clicks to become the new “tip jar”. Advertisers struggle enough with poor conversions on content networks. The worse you make it, the fewer advertisers will be willing to use it, and the less they’ll pay.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I agree with you that it’s problematic to encourage people to click on ads that they have absolutely no interest in. However, isn’t it going a little far to call it click fraud? Isn’t it only fraud when the person clicking stands to gain something from it? (Such as when the publisher clicks adsense on their own site?)
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I thought that post by Seth was entirely misguided. Clicking ads just to generate profit for the blog/blogger? Talk about unqualified traffic. Instantly devalues the ad space.
I hate the phrase “click fraud” applied to this, though. Makes it sound like something illegal. Hey Mike, I’m about to click the Text Link Ads banner on your page and I have no intention of buying! Makes me a fraud? Ouch.
The ads are there - click them if you want. If you want to spend your day clicking ads with no intention of buying, congratulations - you’ve got a lot of free time on your hands. And you’re spending it by helping no one - not the bloggers, not the advertisers, not humanity as a whole and certainly not yourself.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
This is click fraud. Plain and simple…
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
this was such a good post i just clicked a few of your ads.
/sarcasm
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Well it would certainly mean more AdSense clicks on Squidoo, now, wouldn’t it?
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I didn’t read click fraud into what he was saying, but he did leave it wide open to interpretation as such. When I enjoy a blog post, I’ve spent more time on the page just reading it. That alone is enough to draw my eyes to the ads that I usually gloss over. If I liked a post enough that I think twice about the ads, I don’t see anything wrong with looking for one that interests me. Having a look at your blog ads, well, you’re not getting any “tips” from me today because I think all of your ads currently suck. But if you had an intriguing ad, I’d totally click it.
I think Seth needed to clarify what I think he was trying to say. The “tip” is the fact that you look at the ads in the first place, to see if there’s something worth clicking on. Most of us ignore them automatically. You only click if there’s something that interests you, that you would consider clicking on anyways, if you ever bothered to notice it before. This is not a bad thing for advertisers.
But yeah, if you read his article and think that an appropriate “tip” for you would be to click on your ads concerning jumbo mortgage loans and automated money making systems even though you have no interest in them - then yeah, that would be click fraud, and that would suck.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
The title is baity and I’m not sure if Seth is talking specifically about Adsense, but Google isn’t gun shy about disabling accounts for invalid clicks, so the right advice is not to click on Adsense unless you’re looking to buy.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I couldn’t believe what I was reading today on Seth Godin’s blog. I read it once and thought, “he didn’t just suggest that we click ads to tip a blogger.” So, I was astounded when I read it a second time and confirmed that is exactly what he was promoting. I am really shocked that he would encourage that type of behavior.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
This does seem to be very poorly thought out advice from Seth Godin - it’s effectively saying that advertisers should have to subsidise bloggers
I was going to say that Seth must have written this post without fully thinking it through but I’ve just read his reply which says that people would learn to convert ‘happy clickers’ - not too sure I agree with that.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Yes, this is terrible advice! I hope people continue to discuss this online and especially hope none of those readers visit my blog and click on my links. That would be terrible. I wish I could figure out who they are so I could slap their wrists. Please DON’T do this on my blog. Please. I’m begging.
Doug
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:25 am
“If you click on an ad and your purpose is to make sure the site owner or blogger gets money from the click, and you had no intent to buy or research, that is click fraud.”
Are you sure about that?
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Seth must be going for linkbait, because he’s too bright a guy to really think this (I think).
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
It could be considered a form of click fraud if a popular website has it’s readers click on the google ads as a way to “tip” the website owner. Personally I think that is a load of shit because you are taking money from an advertiser. It’s not like you are clicking on an ad to read more about it, you click on it then either close the window or hit your back button just to make the website owner some pocket change each time. I wonder why Seth would promote such a tactic, linkbait for him maybe?
Steve
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
If you leave a tip, you use your own money.
If you ‘tip’ by clicking on an ad, it’s not your money, it’s the advertisers money, and they don’t advertise in order to make the blogger feel wanted.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
As an advertiser: I’m real fucking sure about that Josh.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I don’t get any single person in this thread that either said it wasn’t click fraud or that was too harsh. This is pretty black and white. It is without any doubt 100% CLICK FRAUD to ask people to click on ads to “TIP” the blogger. It’s against google Adsense TOS and Squidoo should be banned from Adsense completely until they retract this statement.
Do you think for one second that if a blogger posted telling his readers to occasionally click his ads for a “tip jar” that google wouldn’t shut down his account for fraudulent activity?
This one statement makes me lose all the respect I ever had for Seth Godin - I’m sorry, this is just wrong (as as an online marketer) a bit warped to even say (for someone as successful as him).
August 24th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Putting ads in the hot map areas should qualify as “cheating advertisers” too. Webmasters, encouraged by Google, put ads in such places as they know the readers focus on them first and many of them click on the ad then. If that isn’t encouraging clicking then I don’t know what it is.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Seth should rename the post “How to make Google’s stock price go to Zero.”
August 25th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Indeed a Easy way to bring down the mighty Google beast. Maybe we all should give it a try.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I was completely stunned when I read what he was suggesting. Maybe he wasn’t serious, and it was just linkbait? Well if that was the case you would think by now he would’ve addressed it…
August 25th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Sounds like you guys did not finish your drink together at the SES San Jose. lol Seth should not worry too much for his blogging buddies…the whole thing evens out when companies pay people to click on ads and vote on articles.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I am not sure if Seth has any Adsense ads on his site, i have not been there in a long time. However, his influence is enough to put this practice into affect for a long time. Even if he retracts the post or says it was all a joke, he basically put forth a notion he believes to be true and fair for bloggers everywhere. It’s dumb stuff like this that eventually makes changes, some for the better and I am sure some for the worse.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:58 am
That is so funny…webmaster welfare! :o)
I agree with your post 100%! If a blogger can’t make money by providing value, selling ads or selling relevant products on their blogs (enough to cover their time) then begging for visitors to conduct click fraud then they should blog less, spend less time and concentrate doing other things (for marketing blogs…ummmm help your clients!)
August 26th, 2008 at 8:05 am
You pointed out something very important. Someone has to pay for that click, the more fraud, the less each click will be paid for.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] Bloggers deserve real tips not stolen goods! Written by: Joe Hall On August 26, 2008 Categories: ppc Tags: Click fruad , CTR , ppc submit_url = “http://www.jozsoft.com/blog/?p=14″; Allen Stern just wrote a post in response to a post that Seth Godin wrote. Both of these men are exploring ways to compensate content creators, such as bloggers. They both are recommending that users click on the ads that bloggers display. Godin calls this a form of tipping. As you can assume there are quite a few that aren’t very happy about this. [...]
August 26th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
It apparently smells a linkbait for inexperienced bloggers. That’s it. Everyone knows that clicking ads in such way is harmful to all in the long run.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:31 am
As an advertiser I don’t even run ads on the content networks anymore. Conversions are poor and now with the ads becoming the “tip” for a blogger… why would I?
August 27th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Come on everyone - Seth is not supporting click fraud neither he is promoting it. He is talking about the common psyche.
He is talking about the changes in the online economics.
And if these are not enough for you to understand think in this line - Google shows ads related to the post you are reading. and thus the link you are clicking is somewhat related to your need.
Think twice before calling him an idiot or stupid - read between the lines
August 27th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Muy interesante este post, lo añadire a mis marcadores.Salu2
August 27th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Seth posted a follow-up today that backpedals from his rather incendiary “tip jar” comment. His notion that clickthroughs would become a conversion tool seems improbable, because it still comes back to promising people something they value enough to pay for it. If you can do that on the landing page, why didn’t you do it on the original page? Enticing people to click through is what online marketing is all about.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Fraud to the Max! How can a webmaster suggest such a thing.
I agree with one of the other readers, could be linkbait.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Authors that feel like Seth should place a donate button on the web properties. Clicking ads is a no win.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
LOL! That’s an idea someone should try, Kyle!
August 29th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“His influence is enough to put this practice into affect for a long time.”
Terry, I don’t know about that. If that’s true, then maybe he’s trying to help Squidoo out…by having it get smart-priced. Good idea, Seth! It’s already been slapped, now make it get smart-priced too…..He’s killing his Frankenstein.
Kyle, even better than a donate button is a tip jar, like the Jim Kukral created scratchback. http://www.scratchback.com/
There’s also “buy me a beer.” If I ran buy me a beer I would go to beer companies and see if I can get them into a bidding war about what the beer should be. Then it would be re-branded to “Buy me a Heineken” or what have you.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 am
Disappointing indeed, I like what you write so I’m going to make Charlie pay you for it. Wrong, very wrong Seth must have been having an out of brain experience when he suggested that. Gad I’m getting hives just thinking about it.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Having clients with adword accounts and having an adword account myself, I was very disappointed to read Seth’s take on “tipping bloggers.” I think Kyle has it right. Put a donate button on the site and click it if you want to support the blogger. It is fraud to click on the ad when you have no interest in the company or the product being advertised.