When it comes to getting your webpage out to Internet users, the more money you pay, the better. What is a better way to get people to see you webpage, than by having it appear at the top of the list on a search engine result page. In order to be at the top of the list, advertisers will buy positioning on specific keywords or phrases, enabling them to guarantee visibility of their site, and increase the chances of users clicking on their site. There are three major different pricing models that an advertiser can choose between when deciding how to advertise the site, and these are: impressions, pay per click, and pay per action. Impressions are generally used for banner ads on websites; pay per click is very common, and the pricing is based on how many consumers actually click on the link; pay per action is a new model.
The most common model is the pay per click. However, there is a major problem with this model, as 10%-15% of the clicks are fraudulent. Fraudulent clicksare often performed by human beings, or automated programs. These click frauds are done with the purpose of increasing the costs of competitors, or to increase the profit from the adclick companies. Recently, search firms have created devices that detect and prevent click fraud, but this still has not stopped all of the fraud. This issue has to led to many lawsuits between the advertising company and the website advertisers, as they are paying for more than what they are receiving.
In my opinion, there is nothing more annoying than looking something up on the Internet and having to search through pages and pages of websites in order to find something relevant. Since a lot of these sites are only listed in the search results page due to the amount of money they have paid for keywords and phrases, it seems unfair to the user. This may be an excellent way for websites to advertise their site, but it ultimately discourages the user.
