Is Google pulling the wool over everyones eyes?
We have conducted many test recently and found that Google AdWords may be charging you for ghost clicks. We created complex phrases (made up words) that are very unlikely to appear in any Google search. The ad was set to run on the Google Search network only. We then Goggled every combination of search using these phrases and the ad did no appear a single time in the 1.5 hours we spent trying to get it to appear. We left the campaign active over night and to our surprise we received 8 clicks. Surprising since we could never get the ad to appear no matter how we formed our search phrase.
If anyone could get the ad to show up it should be us since we made up the search phrases. We won't share the phrases used because we don't want Google to fix it then deny the charges are in fact just made up.
We have found many unexplained charges during our test and find that Google AdWords in our opinion is ripping its users off. Here is one of our many test conducted in the month of March 2010.
Here is a simple test you can perform for yourself.
Open any browser. Search for Google Scholar. Notice no ads will appear.
Create a new campaign. Add the key word Google Scholar to your campaign. Set networks to Google Search only. This will limit your ad to only Google searches. Leave it overnight.
Your account will show thousands of impressions which is expected but how can you have clicks if no ads were ever displayed? Here is the result of the exact same test performed on April 15th 2010. This time just 2 clicks but still no ad is ever displayed.
Don't complain though, as noted in their Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate advertisements for any reason.
I use Google everyday but you have to be a fool to not wonder if Google isn't taking advantage.