January 14, 2004

At first glance, the anomaly seems to be tolerable, much as the turbulence in Junger's North Atlantic initially appeared. However, further investigation reveals a subversive undercurrent in the form of PPC affiliates employing "pay to click" personnel to artificially bolster PPC hits, and ultimately, revenue.

Needless to say, that's certainly not the way it's supposed to work, and it appears that the latest round of search engine affiliate programs may be to blame.

Overture Services has made its living by providing the technology that underpins the PPC ads on such giant sites as parent company Yahoo, MSN Search, InfoSpace and AltaVista. Google's more recent AdSense program is designed to one-up Overture by covering a broader spectrum. AdSense affiliates the owners of high-traffic Web sites, including many that you probably have never heard of.

At first glance, everyone wins. The PPC providers get more exposure and more revenue, the Web site owners get a percentage of the cost per click, and the advertisers get more eyeballs and, presumably, more traffic.

But recently, there's been a growing crop of Web ads and low-level spam offerings targeted at recruiting people to surf the Web and click on ads, using their own computer and an Internet connection. Whenever a new medium is introduced, there are invariably people who seek to circumvent its conventions and subvert its intent for short-term gain.

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