Follow Me on Twitter
Add to Technorati Favorites
Friend Me on Facebook
Add me on SphinnAlright, I just have to post about this guy. If you’re involved in PPC search arbitrage at all, you most likely know the guy who is gaming Adwords. If you don’t know about him, basically here’s what happens : he has 20 ads running along the sidebar in Google. It looks like this when you type “ringtones” into Google :
Now recently, he’s taken over the dating space as well :
I’ve also seen him dabble around in other niches as well, and I’m sure he certainly feels proud of all the attention he’s getting. But in the midst of his glory, he’s killing many affiliates campaigns. Every affiliate in positions 3 and below are being pushed out of ad impressions, which can very easily kill a campaign. He originally using Azoogle to do this, but now looks like he’s using Copeac and possibly CPA Empire.
Now let’s try and think of how he could be doing this. One possible way is through some source of a massive amount of vouchers. He obtains vouchers in high volume for a low cost, then starts up hundreds of accounts with the vouchers. Let’s say they’re $50 vouchers…he makes 10 accounts and bids $5.00/click with all of them. We’ll estimate he pays around $3/click, which gives each account a life of 17 clicks. So 170 clicks he has before his burst of accounts dies. These are all just guesses, he may use $250 vouchers – who knows. The accounts all go up, vouchers are depleted, and then the ads go away. This would explain the how sporadic the displaying is. One minute the domination is up, the next down.
The other possible way he could be doing this is just with expired credit cards or something like that, but I don’t think that would be how it’s done. Pre-paid gift cards are another option, but I think Google has ways of preventing that from happening.
The one thing that I never got was how he gets all of his ads approved when the titles are ALL IN CAPS. I test with just making 1 word in the description in caps and the ad always gets disapproved (well 95% of the time). So not only are his ads all in caps which isn’t allowed, but they all have what Google would classify as “inaccurate display URLs”. How this is all getting by is beyond me…perhaps it’s some major conspiracy and it’s actually someone internally from Google gaming the system using vouchers and offshore accounts! Bwahaha.
Really though, I’m not sure exactly how this guy is doing it. He’s clearly breaking the rules, clearly screwing a lot of affiliates, and clearly is making some decent profit.
Shady bastard.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’ve seen him before … hopefully Google will lay the smacketh down
February 4th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Yeah, its been around on and off for at least a few months now. It’s pretty bad when people have to stoop so low to screw people over.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:49 am
I love how its ‘evil’ and ‘clever’ when you find a sneaky way to do affiliate deals but the second someone elses sneaky deal starts affecting yours people grass him up in the hope the big boys stop him.
Adsense and affiliate deals have been plagued with the bottom feeders and rip off artists on the internet ever since they were created.
And no matter how much they police it, there will always be someone trying to break the rules.
(My 2 cents – looks like some SQL bashing has got this guy to over ride some of the google inbuilt verification – each account will get shut down but since he’s using vouchers it will be a bit hard to stop them all. CPA is the shadiest affiliate marketing ive ever worked with – every offer seems to come packed with pop ups and spammy sites so was a good choice to run these ads, CPA wont care.)
February 4th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I’ve been trying to figure this guy out for months. Cant seem to wrap my finger around it though I might be getting closer. :)
February 4th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Wow! Thats incredible. I wonder if Google is aware of this? And why don’t they have something to stop it!
No wonder I can’t get anywhere with PPC. (kidding)
February 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Looks like maybe that found him. I don’t see his listings.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Na, his listings sometimes disappear but will be up again. This has been going on since before december
February 4th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
So two things:
1) @Jason. That is the nature of this beast. His ads appear for a time. Then the batch of accounts die. He usually targets the weekend when googlers are home with their family/playing guitar hero/contemplating quantum physics/buying ferraris. Then his batch of accounts run out.
2) My CTR for Free Ringtones has gone to hell. Everyone is now typing in Free Ringtones to check out the SERPS :)
February 4th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
i just want to see the scripts he is running.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I’m afraid that once google figures out how to stop this kind of thing they will go overboard preventing it and we are all going to be “punished”.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Good point. There could be some collateral damage. Some people really don’t get the big picture. They just try to make a quick buck with no thought about consequences. Pisses me off.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Whoever this person is has to be making a boatload of dough. If this person has figured out a way to game Google, then perhaps the risk is worth the reward. What we all want to know is – how exactly is this being done? Now that’s one eBook I’d dish out some money for – How I Gamed Google Adwords for $10k a day …
February 5th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Thats why the ebook will NEVER come out.
If you’re making $10k a day why would you sell the idea for $50 a pop making a couple of hundred a day.
This guy will be retired on some island and would be foolish to ever release how he has done it – Google would probably come chasing with a team of lawyers!
(I bet he’s reading this right now – props to you fella, anyone that can make Google look stupid has a thumbs up from me.)
February 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I know the guy doing that. He brags about it on the Warrior Forum.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
yeah right… and you think a guy that smart hangs out on the warrior forum? Maybe it’s all a ploy for his next warrior-forum-style ebook. ;)
November 21st, 2008 at 7:29 am
I’ve never seen anyone even talk about this before on the Warrior Forum.
Not saying he hasn’t, but if he has, it’s been quiet and under the radar.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Jealous?…. Don’t you know the saying if you can’t beat them join them? So stfu stop crying and game adwords your own way… No one brought it up when you pwned facebook, so stop your bitching…. You and Shoemoney with your mirror post should go sit in a corner and cry into each other shoulders about someone pwning adwords and your to stupid to figure out how to do it. Lost a reader here.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’m crying :(.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Wow! What crawled up your ass?
February 5th, 2008 at 2:58 am
I was with you til ‘lost a reader here’ – it was worth a rant, but didnt need the RSS -1 threat at the end.
Dominating and killing a niche is only fun for the people doing the dominating – being on the other side sucks ass.
I almost have a feeling this guy is doing this knowing the big affiliates are all going to start crying when they see their impressions dwindle and profits crash – id bet that he may not be even making any money of this, just doing it to piss a few people off.
Quality.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I wonder if he’s using ASCII characters to enter the ad titles? I’m new at this and never tried it, but it is it possible that the big G doesn’t pay attention to ALT+### characters?
February 5th, 2008 at 6:25 am
woah… that’s an idea. I would like to hear some feed back from someone who has tried this method… If I had some time I would try it myself.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Johnathan,
Yea Jeremy did a post the other day on his blog about this guy. I think the guy is generating fake bank accounts through Swedish its a good possibility thats where all that CC fraud stuff goes on at and dump accounts if you know what I’m talking about.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I feel like running through a mainstream CPA program would be a HUGE risk for someone who was in that business. Those guys are generally very paranoid…he would have to be too big of an idiot to do that(and he’s obviously not an idiot)
February 4th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
It’s actually very easy to get around the filters.
@Nick: You’re getting warmer.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Care to elaborate?
On a side note, SUP3RNOVA, if you’re looking for an apprentice, I can hustle like no other! :)
February 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Anyone else sick of hearing about ringtones?
February 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Nope
February 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Yeah, I even made a Youtube video about this guy awhile back.. Video has gotten about 150 views so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUEOLlYTd-k
February 4th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I KNOW THIS GUY!
He almost got me deaf becuase everytime he talks, he screams at the top of his lungs.
And he has this tendancy of saying everything four or five times in a row. Freakin’ annoying.
But if you talk to him for 17 mintues, he burns out.
And damn, if I ever hear him talk about ringtones… one .. more .. .time…
February 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Wow, that is some crazy shit. He is droping alot of money into that to dominate those keywords. Ofcourse, I’m sure he is banking big time off of it.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
with great power comes great responsibility. Have you ever thought guys that this might be more than one person probably an group of people who know this adword technique and hit up different key words. Imagine an organization double in amount of funds ever month to completely reinvest their profits is this black hat propaganda. That would be cool not for the affiliates but cool for everyone who is watching
February 4th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
What’s a ringtone?
February 5th, 2008 at 2:56 am
omg.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:26 am
srsly?
February 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
omgwtfbbq. :P
February 4th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Looks like they are down tonight. But he is still a shady bastard for doing that. Smart, but shady.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Damm bastard, I don’t know if this directly affect my offers but this bastard has something to do with it. My CTR is very poor and my conversions dropped the hell down.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Although I’m still a newb at affiliate marketing (hell, I’ve barely begun…), I’ve seen this dude. Was trying to think of a niche and ringtones came to my mind. Wondered the same thing.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Seriously, dont start on ringtones right now.
Go for diet pills and viagra like everyone else, y’know, really add something to this world.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Sammy, do like Lynx does, get in the poker niche and really add something to this world like he does…
February 6th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Play money poker fella, play money.
No-one loses their life savings on my site.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I saw that shady F***er’s ads all over the past week. Good thing my ringtones campaigns are on Yahoo and MSN at the moment as i revamp my landing page. But i was wondering all the same things you are…
February 4th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Could be money laundering.
He’s in mortgage as well.
I’m surprised that no one at google has addressed it. Would be interesting to do a PR stunt to try an get in a major newpaper. As google and search advertising is big news in the investment community.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:02 am
No one in the real world would care.
Just the affiliates that aren’t scamming the young kids off their phone credit anymore.
Just this guy.
Shame.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
money laundering?
are you serious.
its freaking internet advertising.
gsus! If I’m money laundering, AT LEAST go for a ferrarri all in cash.
Woweeee, google ads! SWEET!
February 5th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I guess he is making campaigns faster than Google is disapproving them.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Wow! Thats Uber-cool!
Exactly how does he do this?. Man, i would love to be in his shoes right now. . .
February 5th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Imagine his CTR? WOW.
I think he was able to get capitalized title by entering the keywords in all caps, and then just doing the dynamic keyword insert. I haven’t tested this out, so please dont murder me if this is not true. Actually blaze me if you want, more entertainment.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Hey that basterd pissed me off like hell
so… i click on his ads like crazy
most of it might be classifyed as fraud but what
if we spread aword to click on those ads?
February 5th, 2008 at 9:48 am
They’ll all be considered as fraud. And it’s not likely that he’ll care, as he’s using virtually ‘free’ money with vouchers.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Definitely the wrong way to go. We should learn from him, and more importantly this loophole in the Adwords system.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Why are you advertising ClickBooth?
February 5th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
If your getting hurt by this chump then why don’t you just stealthly buy some adsense botnet from the Russians and kill his ass..
February 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
As annoying as this person is; he/she is probably a freakin’ genius! Google will catch on…eventually. However, people like this will ALWAYS have another one up their sleeves.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
probably doing something like
February 6th, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] about this shady character using black hat techniques to game Google Adwords. You can read them HERE and [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I saw this as well. He seems to be doing with some health niches as well. I’m curious as to how much cash he was able to swing?
February 6th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I’ve know you used to be able to buy activated adwords accounts by the barrel load on DP, before they changed the rules…Sigh
February 6th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I know how to do it :), I know the person that does it. It’s easier than what you most think :).
February 6th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Paul, I figured out the all caps trick. :D
http://www.jonathanvolk.com/ppc/quick-update-gaming-google-adwords.html
~Jonathan. Hehehehe…
February 6th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Did you just plagiarize the last two posts from Shoemoney. I hate that guy and thought you were better and had unique content? Stick to the awesome posts about making money. discussing the industry should be left to duschebags. Not you.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I think the caps are just a COPY & PASTE type thing. Not sure though, plus how much more is this going to increase CTR?
February 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Maybe this will convince everyone that Google is hardly invincible. With some many engineers, you’d think they’d figure out ASCII, HTML entities, or whatever. This is a failure in design.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Respect is still due to this guy for gaming the AdWords system so well. He must make quite a bit each month!
-Dave
February 19th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Hey guys, clicking the video from Josh led to this video which talked about getting free google ads – does anyone know if this is any good?
http://www.getgoogleadsfree.com/
February 26th, 2008 at 8:28 am
The guys is using virtual creditcards with adwords vouchers to make throwaway accounts.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:12 am
[...] TOS this is forbidden, and usually the ad isn’t accepted. Paul Bourque (our Uberaffiliate) wrote a post about a guy who did this in combination with total Google ad domination (this advertiser [...]
June 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
OK,
I admit!
I am that underground villain….
I made all my secrets public at an underground BH forum..
For all you losers complaining how you lose your shirt on Google adwords while I can FCUK it,
there will be a time I’ll tell you guys!
hmm… But I want some serious ASS kissing rather than bashings….and some of you may come to know the secrets!
For those Idiots among you who think I am just faking it up and not tha real man behind it, ha ha ha
Idc wtf u think…
Ok, I want at least 10 damn good ass kissings and I’ll choose best 3 and will reveal my secrets to them. Why? Simply, cuz I am in good mood, I just purchased a Lamborghini and a Mercedes Benz and gonna settle in my 1.8 crore (Indian Ruppes) mansion here in India…
January 26th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
[...] buried in archives. Today’s post on how much to spend is a good place to start, then here’s something for those who are interested in blackhat PPC, how to contact human support at AdWords is another [...]
February 5th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Is he really the adwords villain?