What's this google adverts scam about?

Factual Questions
1

Almost all the adverts I see on this site - and I appreciate that they are not under the control of the site administrators - are for some bizzaro scheme where you ‘make money posting links on google’.

Now, obviously this is a load of crap. But as for some reason I don’t feel like paying $1.95 to find out what this marvellous scheme is, I’m wondering if anyone has any ideas :slight_smile:

An example of the kind of site (and there are loads of them) that these ads link to can be found at http://www.marylifeblog.com/

2

I think it is Google AdWords.

Yes you can make money doing it…in theory.

Someone has Product-X and wants to advertise it.

You try and think up some keywords that are relevant to that ad such that if someone searches Google for “Cat Food” an ad (on the right side in a Google screen) for “cat food” appears. The cat food company will post how much they will pay for each click-through (or purchase achieved on that click through). Some companies offer a lot of money if a purchase is made (because purchases are infrequent for expensive items). Something like cat food might pay very little.

Thing is you “bid” on the words you use. Someone else is advertising their cat food and they want it at the top of the ad list. So, choosing “cat” and “food” will likely be an expensive bid. So you try and get creative and think of search terms that will place an ad someone will want not using the obvious words.

When people click on the link you make money so the more ads you get displayed the more money you make.

As you might imagine it is not as easy to make money like this as it sounds and can be a full-time job if you want to make a living doing it.

3

So in effect it’s a secondary market for google adverts?

4

It’s very simple:

They will “for free” or “for $1.95” send you some CD (or a website link) with hypotheticals about how to use AdWords to make money. As alreadly noted below, it is very much caveat emptor whether your attempts to make money with AdWords will work very well, and it’s also an open question whether the tips that the “successful Google millionaire” is offering will change your odds of success.

But . . . lost in the bloviation and (fake–they often explicitly admit in the fine print that “results reported are atypical and composite spokespersons have been used for purposes of an example”) is that when you provide your credit card information to pay your “$1.95 postage fee” for the CD, you are also clicking a box that (if you don’t read some very, very dense disclaimer language at the bottom of the T&C) authorizes them to bill you say $89 a month on a recurring basis for “access to our value packed AdWords PowerTips Page.”

When you realize this and try to opt back out, it shockingly may take a few months for them to process that request, or you may not notice until six months have gone by.

A safe assumption is that anything on a web ad offering a “free or low cost trial” is bait for a recurrent-billing scheme. Certainly it is the business model of all the Google Ad things, the wrinkle cream, the “tooth whitener secret,” and the “acai berry cleanse.” I suspect it’s the same handful of scumbags behind all of these “blogs.” Read the comments section on the “blogs” – surprising how all of them are positive (really? no flaming at all, on an open Internet comment board?) and all tout the “freeness” of the trials, and there are no complaints. In fact, try to post your own skeptical comment. Hey, I’m beginning to suspect those comments may not be real.

5

No. It’s an ad to “sell you advice” about AdWords and then trick you into authorizing recurrent payments for, essentially, nothing, till you wake up.

If you click through on the “blog” you link to, it requests your credit card information for your “$1 biz kits” – there’s an asterisk that “after trial expires monthly fees apply.”

6

Yo dawg I herd you like Google adverts so we put a Google advert about Google adverts in your Google advert so you can get scammed clicking on links about scamming other people by clicking on links!

7

First of all it’s incorrect to say they can’t control what appears. The person who owns the website simply goes under his control panel and can say what and what isn’t to appear on his website. After all if you run a pro-Nazi website you wouldn’t want ads for your local temple on it. :slight_smile:

But you can control it.

You CAN make money, but few people do. You are lucky if you can make enough in a year to recoup the cost of your website hosting fee.

You can get the same information in the “Google Ads for Dummies” book. Other search engines work similar but not the exact same.

I’ll oversimplify it a bit to explain.

You have a website, you sign up to put ads on your site. Google has a list of rules you MUST obey. (Like you can’t direct people to click on your ads. They have to do it 'cause they see the ad, not because you wrote “Please click on my ad.”

The people taking the ad out bid on “keywords.” The second bidder sets the price.

Let’s say the key word is “Cecil”

John bids $1.00
Joe bids $0.20

Because this is the SD the word “Cecil” appears and the John’s ad appears on TOP and Joe’s ad appears 2nd. John pays like $0.21, NOT $1.00. John is only charged if the person clicks on his ad.

Now most people click the top ad first, but as you can see, if you’re second from top, you may get enough clicks by bidding less and being second.

Now in the above example, Google charges John 21¢ because someone clicked on his ad. But YOU only get a small fracting, for hosting that ad. You may get say 2¢, while Google keeps 19¢ (of the total 21¢)

Google never tells you the exact way it calculates what you get. This is often critisized. But Google say, “Don’t like it, use another service”

They way to make big bucks is find a word that is holds a big bid. Obscure words are usually worth nothing, 'cause no one bids on them. Remember even if you bid $100 a word it’s the SECOND bidder that sets the price. If you bid $100 and the second bidder bids 2¢. You’ll only be charged 3¢, despite bidding $100

So if you find a word like “Computer Fix” (words can also be phrases) that may command bids in the hundreds of dollars and a click on a phrase like that may pay $100.00 a click, of which Google may give you $2.00 for hosting the ad. As you can see if you get 10,000 readers of your, say blog, that $2.00 ads up fast

Now I’ve oversimplified this a bit, as there are many other rules and scenerios to deal with, but BASICALLY, that is the idea. Other serach engines, like Yahoo, ASK and the like have their own rules.

You don’t need to pay to figure this out. Go to Google Adwords and look at their rules. Figure out which word will command a lot of money, if people click on it. Then find a way to create a website about that word, that will cause an ad with that keyword to appear on it. Then figure out a way to get tens of thousands of visitors a day to your site.

See it’s easy huh?

:slight_smile:

8

We had this thread a couple weeks ago

9

One common method is to buy low-cost high-value keywords related to a particular search term that is in very high demand (i.e. anything mortgage or foreclosure related, mesothelioma is another one) that direct to a page you’ve written with generic information about that topic. Then you have adsense on your own page, and the idea is someone will then click one of your links. It’s kind of like arbitrage