Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

Michael Hiltzik

The Los Angeles Times has taken down the blog of a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who posed as an Internet reader to defend his own column and attack his conservative foes.

This article calls this "the latest salvo in the David vs. Goliath battle between bloggers and the "mainstream media" they accuse of arrogance and bias under the guise of objectivity."

"Hiltzik admitted Thursday that he posted items on the paper's Web site, and on other Web sites, under names other than his own," the Times said in a statement.

"That is a violation of The Times ethics guidelines, which requires editors and reporters to identify themselves in dealing with the public."

One of the areas that will determine your online success is the way your web site is designed. There have been times that I have searched sites that were of genuine interest to me, that I quickly gave up on because every time I would click on a link going to a new part of the site, it would change the look and I would have to relearn how to navigate the page. This will kill your online business.

People want consistency across your entire site whether they understand it in those terms or not. They do not want learning curves navigationally; they want to be able to look at something, know what to do and where it will go. Anything that doesn't meet these expectations will result in a lost viewer and potentially, customer.

If you're thinking that your site needs an overhaul in its look, that doesn't mean that it will kill your business if you do it. Just make sure that when you change it that everything is changed completely. Don't get tempted to keep something the way it was, and then include a whole new look on another part of your site that makes your visitor have to learn how to navigate it.

This is another side of the story that nobody want to talk about in reference to click fraud.

Here is an article that is more accurate and understandable from a business standpoint than any other I have read concerning this subject. Now the reason I say that is that I used to be a financial advisor and sold various products in a number of different vehicles.

The reason I mention that is that as soon as read this key point, it made total sense to me, and I hope it does to you.

Tommy Maric says:

"The key point is that click fraud is already taken into effect when advertisers select the highest amount they will bid."

If you understand anything about the stock market and company valuations, you'll recognize what this means. Simply said, it means that the market price, in the case of stocks, has already taken into consideration events, whether good or bad.

We discussing the level of concern we should have about click fraud and how we need to be careful who we listen to when it is put forth like it's an unstoppable epidemic.

Here are a few things the Mercury News reporter Mike Langberg is panicking about:

"But Google and Yahoo aren't sharing enough information to tamp down rising concerns about click fraud.

"But if it ever becomes rampant -- say, half of all pay-per-click traffic -- the business models of Google and Yahoo could collapse as advertisers walk away or spend drastically less money.

"Click fraud is to Google(GOOG) and Yahoo(YHOO) what bird flu is to world health -- a problem that's manageable today...

"...but more lawsuits against Google and other Internet companies are pending.
 
"Yahoo was accused earlier this month of failing to catch at least a few spyware companies

"Yahoo isn't willing to concede there's any broader problem with its affiliate programs.
 
"...federal prosecutors in San Francisco announced the latest in a string of click-fraud criminal indictments.

"As long as any bad clicks are getting through Google and Yahoo's filters, advertisers clearly need more information -- if only so they can direct their dollars toward companies doing the best job of detecting click fraud."

While there has been some problems with click fraud, and I'm sure that there is a small percentage happening at this time, there are those who are looking to profit from the story about click fraud, and I want to talk about that a little.

First, as Mike Langberg of the Mercury news reports:

"There's no reliable evidence suggesting click fraud is anywhere close to epidemic proportions, and Internet companies have already figured out how to block unsophisticated forms of click fraud.

"Google notes, with some justification, that many so-called experts who claim as much as 30 to 40 percent of all pay-per-click traffic is fraudulent are trying to sell consulting services or software to stop click fraud -- giving them an obvious incentive for overstatement."