Is Seth Godin encouraging click fraud?

Does this guy work for Google? I say this because they’re the real winners here.

No, he’s not. He is simply suggesting readers “pay with attention”. Attention to the sponsors, that is.

Seth’s writing is perhaps a bit loose but I take it to mean that instead of skimming through the page for the meat you look at the ads and every once in a while click on the ones that grabs your attention. There’s plenty of advertisement that goes “unpaid” because brands recognize that often, web users might be impressed with an ad and change their perceptions of brands or products abut don’t click to buy immediately.
Perhaps, if visitors acted that way there would be more banners around.

“As an advertiser I don’t like the idea of people who have no intention of buying a product clicking on my ads”

Many do and will, regardless of that. And a % of them don’t even pay attention to what you have to offer.

Initially I read it the same way you did, but then I realised that I was maybe missing the point.

If he’s encouraging people to click on ads, surely thats more potential customers coming to your site and assuming the ads are relevant to the target market – if you’ve got compelling content and a good landing page – surely this is exactly what we, as advertisers want…

Antonio, I don’t think he was encouraging click fraud per say, but it certainly looks like he would prefer it. Trying to come up with a new model that people take care of the blogger by clicking on ads. I think that is one of the worst ideas I have heard. That’s no different than a bank manager rewarding employees by draining a little bit from customers accounts to give them a bonus.

He paints a world where there is no interruption media at all, but the simple fact is, not everyone can be #1 and be the expert that attracts all clients. And every product cannot be a purple cow there would be no purple cows to look at, or as Seth puts it, it would become boring.

Sure I would love a world where everyone just comes walking to your front door because you have a good product, but the world does not exist and it never will.

I replied to this with a comment on Digg, but then I realized I might need to clarify when I saw the “click fraud” responses cropping up.

I have clicked on ads to “tip” bloggers in the past when I’ve really enjoyed reading something. I don’t randomly click on ads – because that would be fraudulent – but instead of tuning the ads out and ignoring them completely, I actually look at them and click on one that interests me.

I can’t say that I’ve turned around and made a purchase from one of these ad clicks – but that’s not fraud, that’s life. We all click on lots of things before finding what we were really looking for. And there will always be more people browsing than buying.

I think Seth’s comment is bad advice: he encourages ripping off the advertiser and in the long run that will hurt the publisher as well.

Adam Snider, I think Seth’s point is this doesn’t cost the visitors any money. So they get free content (the blog) and they get to tip the blogger for free by taking it out of someone else pocket that has nothing to do with any of it. In a market that is already loaded with fraud and increasing diminishing roi.

Gaurav, mildly interested would be a stretch if his theory became a reality. I highly doubt you would get more than 20% of the people who click to “TIP” the blogger would actually even look at the page they went to. I suspect 80% will immediately hit the X and not even read the headline. It’s not advertising, it is fraud.

Seth Godin. Recycled old scam. Ethics. Toilet. Flush.

Matt Wardman

Interesting debate. I don’t think Seth’s original post was encouraging click-fraud, I just don’t think he thought it through very clearly.

And his next post, in reply to the criticisms, seems even more woolly-headed. A mentor of mine used to tell me that what people do under pressure (when they don’t have time to think things through) reveals their real beliefs/attitudes. Seems to me that he’s a lot more rooted in the “old media” (print, TV) way of thinking than he likes to pretend.

Cheers, Jon

I didn’t see the post mentioned, but as both a publisher and a small time marketer (no money to waste!) I’ve been looking at both sides of the issue for a while.

My solution is simply to keep your eye out for ads, rather than allowing myself to become blinded to them. I do make an effort to click ads on helpful pages BUT I look for ads that would have interested me anyway (had I been paying attention).

Some ads do not point to anything worthwhile, but I’ve found some awesome products that way. If it’s something that i don’t end up purchasing (subscribing, what have you), I give a little back by posting or tweeting about the page/product/service.

I’m convinced that Seth wrote what he wrote for linkbait. It’s too inane to be something he actually advocates. But I don’t know, maybe his goal is to get Squidoo smart-priced.

Or maybe his goal is to hurt Google’s stock price enough that they have to cut lunch and breakfast out of their budget. Why stop with dinner, ay Seth?

http://valleywag.com/5040986/googles-food-perks-on-the-chopping-block

Encouraging users to click on the ads, Counting Time?
Hello Everybody,
My Question concerned encouraging users to click on the ads,
if i do not encourage people to click in advertising and they coincidentally open the page who does my website and clicking in the ads, how we can call this and how we can be regular to count time to not fall in this condition of encouraging users to click, i want to know the time counted before this click will considered as an encouraging, please help me,