Angry in the Great White North

From Search Engine Journal:

At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, Webmaster Radio’s Jim Hedger is currently holding a press conference which is making public the investigative report that Google is serving Adwords and Adsense advertisements on Google properties and the sites of Google AdSense members who are connected with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups which are benefitting from revenue which is originated by Google advertisers.

The specific Google properties which are serving these ads are housed on the Google Orkut social network. Orkut groups which were serving these Google Ads were set up by Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgent and other terror oriented groups.

The way it works is this. An advertiser bids for keywords. For instance, Ford might bid $2 for "Mustang". If it is the highest bid, then the Ford advertisement created by Ford for that keyword will appear at the top of the Google search engine results page under the heading "Sponsored Links". Note that this will happen whether you type "Mustang" on Google's home page or on a Google search box on a website, just the like the Google box on the right side of this website.

That's called a precision match, since Google is determining the user's interests based on his selected keywords.

If my webpage is about the Ford Mustang, and I'm running Google ads on the page, then Google will also serve up the Ford advertisement (because it is the highest bid) inside that advertisement space.

That's called a content match, since Google is inferring the users interest based on his reading choice.

Precision matches pay better than content matches, but with enough volume, you can make money from either.

So if you click on Ford's advertisement from either a precision match you got using my Google search box on the right side of my page, or via a content match (I'm not running those), Ford is charged $2 (the bid price) for the click (hence, pay-per-click advertising). Google in turn tosses a percentage to me.

Of course, since it cost the advertiser money for each click, I am not allowed to encourage clicks just to generate revenue. Indeed, the system only works if Ford believes that it is getting quality clicks.

Of course, those niceties don't matter to terrorists:

Furthermore, Jim Hedger of Webmaster Radio has spoken with a contact who was behind the lines in Fallujah working with the Iraqi insurgency, who was setting up blog networks which serve Google AdSense advertisements, and incentivize their readers to click on the ads.

Not only, however, are users clicking on the ads, but these insurgent based networks are using clickbots, automated programs which click on Google advertisements, to click on these advertisements.

So if I was fronting for terrorists, I would create a webpage that had content associated to high paying keywords (there are online services that provide information on bid rates for any keywords you would care to check for). It doesn't even have to be political. I just want Google AdWords to serve up high bid rate links. Then I get my minions or my click bots to load the page and click the links, forcing the advertiser to pay Google, who in turn pays me, who in turns sends a cheque to al Qaeda.

Google makes it easy to create a webpage with their orkut service, which apparently is where the terrorists are hanging out:

Sure the argument can be put together that Google is not responsible for the content which is created by members of their Orkut community, which lets registered users set up their own forums, blogs, and groups to connect different users over the Google network.

Is it really that easy?

Well, Google looks for suspicious patterns -- rapid clicks, clicks from the same IP, and so on -- that would suggest someone is playing the AdWords program. An operation like this requires some finesse.

But these guys are motivated, and the money is so enticing. With enough websites and clever selection of keywords with good bid rates, you could make some very good money for some very bad people.