Gee, it was just a short time ago on another thread similar to this one that I was being maligned for suggesting that this occurs regularly. Of course, I suspect that the people disagreeing were people in the industry that prey on unsuspecting clients to sell PPC and associated applications.

Even Google has admitted that it is concerned with illegitimate click-throughs to their AdWords service. However, that doesn't stop them from selling it. I have yet to see a PPC scheme that worked for the actual web site being promoted and I have not seen any refunds from the service providers.

Personally, I sent one provider (Overature) absolute evidence of dishonest click-throughs by a competitor. Their response was that they did their best to dissuade such behavior, but could not control it and wouldn't issue a refund unless they themselves detected the fraud. Talk about the proverbial fox watching the henhouse...

PPC guarantees one thing...fraud. It's an application by the search engines that has no way of protecting you against such fraud. If your client simply wants to see their web site on the first page of results for their desired keyword, then by all means use it. However, caution your client that it will result in no significant ROI, if any. Explain that their unscrupulous competitors can and will click away at their account.

Notice how Google has recently changed the appearance of their AdWords. They no longer use the colored background. They use faint font reading, "Sponsored Links." Obviously, Google realizes that people avoid ads or anything that looks like an ad. This is a blatant attempt to confuse the actual results with the sponsored results. My question to Google is, "Why do you spend so much time, money and secrecy on your algorithms, if you're simply going to accept money for a top listing?"

Others, such as Yahoo! use bold font, but align the sponsored results the same as the actual results. They then place these sponsored results above and below the actual results. At least they are up front using the bold font announcing the sponsored links.

However, nothing made to fool the average searcher will prevent the dishonest click-through from competitors and/or pranksters. PPC is a waste of money.

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DrTandem's San Diego Web Page Design, drtandem.com