Chitika’s most recent blog statement:
The daily reports only summarize the data from the raw click logs. On a monthly basis we run our audited process to remove and discount potentially fradulent clicks (i.e., clicks generated by bots, automated scripts etc) and clicks from countries currently not supported.
This confirms that they are claiming that the ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH number of discounted clicks we are seeing are being caused by bots, automated scripts, and foreign countries.
To this I say - Chitika, you’re statistical software is not working properly. Without moving on to personal attacks at your company, you should seriously consider having this looked into - as I assure you that your statistics are skewed by a vast margin.
If you insist on being vague in your explanations of what is “fraud” then you are insisting on the depth of your own grave to be 6 feet - this is absurd.
There is no possible way in hell that over 30% of the clicks that I sent to your advertisers were:
A: From foreign visitors
B: From bots/scripts/etc
I take offense to you claiming that nearly 1 in 3 clicks on your ads from my sites are mustered in a fraudulent manner, and regret making a hasty decision to do business with your organization.
I’m sure I speak for many - this is not “normal” business practice, but I do hold myself accountable for doing business with your company.
Thanks for the lesson in business - you’ve educated me for the future… which incidentally will not include anything “Chitika” - at least on my websites.
The catch in the chitika quote you posted is the ETC. That means that what they decide is fraudulent isn’t necessarily restricted to the specific things mentioned. And of course, there’s no criteria stated that they use (and no company I know of releases that information.)
As an example, they could discount, or not count clicks where a “clicker” spends less than x seconds on the advertiser’s site. Nobody knows. We aren’t likely to know.
Revenue reverses aren’t new, and it’s simply a basic fact that publishers don’t have a lot of rights, and give away most of them by signing up.
The moral of the story is jumping in because something has a buzz, and doesn’t have any real long term track record, where the supplied information is virtually zero is at the webmaster’s almost total risk.
It’s rough learning this the hard way - but better now than later (when it could be a greater $$ loss)
You are right - the etc basically says “Eh, we will cut clicks for any reason we want, and can change our reasons on the fly without telling you… deal with it”
I’ll consider myself lucky that it wasn’t a larger percentage, as some have encountered.
I think most of the anger towards Chitika comes from the fact that it takes over a month to see how much the discount is. At the end of the day no one cares what discount is because all programs have that built in… they just don’t disclose the specific numbers (like Adsense). Mine wasn’t a horror story, but it is quite discomforting that I don’t know what 1st’s real earnings are for *sixty* days.
>> but it is quite discomforting that I don’t know what 1st’s real earnings are for *sixty* days.
It is. Very discomforting. And I now note I can’t even sort earnings by month…it’s just one long list.
I’m still not going to quit using Chitika but I AM going to reduce the amount of space I give them even more than I reduced it last week. I knew Chitika was a beta program when I signed up about a month ago. However, that doesn’t mean I have to sit around for two months for a perplexing audit, during peak season for my site, wondering if I’ll take a loss because I replaced AdSense with Chitika code.
Beta for them is to work out problems. Beta participation for me is to see if a product works and if I feel comfortable with it.
AdSense has served me well. I know every day where I stand with them. When Chitika gets things worked out, I’ll consider increasing their presence again at my site. I do hope they succeed and mature because I like their product.
Just looked at yesterday’s numbers.
I’m removing Chitika from my site. Revenue has dropped to such a low level that it isn’t worth drawing attention away from the YPN or Adsense ads.
Too much real estate taken up for what I thought would be $100 per day from early results and is now <$10 per day.
And now to hear that I’m likely to lose 10-40% during the audit makes it clear Chitika won’t work for a lot of sites.
I’ll save the space for the next entry in the PPC field.
Source: webmasterworld.com
