Suppose I were to see a google ad with a link to a website with which I am likely to disagree (such as the “shocking secret about coffee!” link). Were I to click on it, would price that the website pays for the click offset their benefits from getting increased traffic?
It obviously depends on whether they benefit just based on you visiting their site. If you think their site is bunk and you click on the link just to cost them a nickel (or whatever), and then you scoff at their site and close the window, how did they benefit? On the other hand, if you click on the link just to cost them a nickel, then while you’re scoffing at their site, you go, “hey, they’ve got a real point there and I’d like to [buy / donate / tell all my friends / join this cult],” then they’d probably say the nickel was worth it.
Right. But in terms of revenue from banner ads on their site, and generally slightly increased importance based on increased traffic, is it a net gain or loss?
A basic differental between overture, which powers many paid searches and google which is the other big provider is that Google ads are based on the price + the click thru rate
So in Overture the highest bidder will come first.
In Google, the highest bidder is only one factor. Someone may bid lower but if the click thru rate is higher, they may be able to appear above the site that paid more money.
So at least in Google a click thru does help a site that way.
Google apparently says it has a program that can tell phony click throughs. Apparently there are companies in India which pay people to click on ads all day long using different IP addresses. Google claims it has a new factor in its algorthim to eliminate this.
Don’t know if Overture does it.
Are you asking whether your visit will result in additional revenue for them via paid advertisements on their own page? If so… there’s no real way to tell beforehand. They could have any combination of these:
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Banners that pay whenever people visit. If so, the question becomes whether their total income per visit is greater than what they have to pay Google for your click. Different advertisers offer different rates, so there’s no blanket answer to this.
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Banner ads that only pay for click-throughs. If you don’t click on any ads on their page, they may not get any money.
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Banner ads that only pay for completed purchases. If you don’t purchase a product from one of their ads, they may not get any money.
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No ads. Some stores/sites make money from other means and don’t need ads; in this case, assuming you don’t buy anything from them, your visit would indeed hurt a bit since they still have to pay Google.
But there’s no way to tell which method(s) they’re using until you actually visit the page and see which advertisers they use.