1. I’m not sure, Shoe. However, it isn’t happening for me. Maybe Google noticed already?

2. These things come and go. But they do it very often lately. Google seems to be getting old

3. Well…they are not being very smart about it.

   All you need is three accounts and three domains, keep one in the top tier, the next in the second tier and the third in the third tier.

4. Shoe, I bet you are actually somehow involved in this, am I right?

5. As long as it’s not breaking google’s TOS they shouldn’t care if someone is dominating.

6. Yeah we’re really big on outing our own extremely profitable exploits. Idiot.

7. Going to be banned… I actually noticed the same shit the other day. It’s total crap and the way adwords has been cracking down… it won’t be too long now.

8. I’m not sure. How often does Google examine their own search results for instances like these?

9. I think they’ve already changed it, I went there and started going through the links and they weren’t 301 directing. Is it doing the same for anyone?

10. I’ve come to learn that Google doesn’t have enough bandwidth to find all the shady activities . . . . those who can stay just ahead of Google are the ones that are going to make big bucks . . . but once they get caught . . they’re screwed cuz Google not only goes after you, but your whole family!

11. Why ban some fool who is competing against himself? Money in the coffers! oh wait, Shoemoney is onto the scam… they’ll ban the guy. Nice find!

12. I think you made a mistake. Your Google link is to REAL tones, not ring tones.

13. thats nothing new….. he just has multiple accounts and is stupid enough to run the same affiliate offer for each one…

14. He’s gone. The ad box doesn’t appear on the right side (search term: “ring tones” per your graphic). It’s not a good idea to mess with Google this pass few months: first, John Chow, then Text Link Ads, then Pay Per Post, now (apparently) Review Me and other sites. Google’s on the warpath. I assume this would also apply to its advertisers (remember arbitrage?)

15. Ringtones, realtones I’m seeing it

16. Same thing happes with ring tones as well…
    http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=ring+tones

17. How stupid is this guy to make all the adwords URLs obviously related. Who would have noticed if it all the adwords ads went to separate, distinct domain names, perhaps with different aff ids for additional safety, they’d have been bulletproof.

    I would have registered 10 (or however many) completely different urls, with different TLDs and raped the SERPs for as long as my credit limit held out, then cashed in the commission checks, and started over again.

    What a lazy ass this guy must be. He must have been on his eight redbull when he cooked up this scheme.

    Remember kids, the best weapon Google has against spammers are the webmasters whose toes you step on when you spam their “pet” keyword.

18. lol its still working, i explained how you can get away with this in my ebook i wrote, by the time he gets slapped he will already be starting over again with his next campaign lol.

19. What are the advantages? Bigger CTR ?

20. the advantage is his only competitor is himself…. he is monopolizing on his keywords. If he doesn’t make a conversion, nobody does

21. Ban the bitch!

22. Wow. Well I would think that Google will boot them off soon and then all the extra work was for nothing (depending how long they will take).

    I think it is the same effect if you encounter multiple ads on ONE news paper page: it looks rather like “desperation” than “social proof” (pretending others advertise for the original company).

    After all I am not sure it the extra work is worth it.

    But after all we are lazy bastards

23. Uhhh. yes.

24. This makes me smile. 🙂

25. Ahhhh… I see the secret too…

26. before this post, that affiliate probably happily converting
    after shoe posted this, google will probably fix it.

27. i dont mind competing with myself if the target audience is going to click either of the ads.

28. This will most likely come under scrutiny by Google.

29. Well, he is doing a re-direct to a different URL than he is displaying in the ad which Google does not like…. i’m surprised all his ads are still displaying.

30. heh I don’t think the question is really “Good Technique, or about to be banned?”
    I think the question is “Do we think the person who did this can replicate it, and hence not care about being banned?”
    It seems like a pretty solidly blackhat job, which means most of the process was probably automated.
    He’ll definitely eventually get banned. But I’m not so sure he cares that much.

31. This probably cost the guy a fortune-all of Shoemoney’s thousands of readers clicking on his ads to check this out. Talk about conversion drop.
    As far as the technique this is a good example of how not to compete with yourself.

32. if he knew what he was doing and used the right method i highly doubt he even paid for his adwords or spent pennies on the dollar for them : )

33. Yep, he is still advertising. I’m surprised Google hasn’t cracked down yet as he is redirecting from a different display url.

34. this is another kind of business structure I guess. these people opens account and get banned allways somehow they r still in the market. it means they earn from this flow nice job 🙂

35. @SonicReducer: I disagree a bit with your point about not competing with yourself. If it’s a profitable market, and you’re making more than you’re spending, sometimes it’s nice to completely 100% dominate a niche. For something like ringtones, each site there is worth a LOT of money. Well worth it. Although if I were him, I would’ve used different affiliate programs at least, so it wasn’t completely obvious, and wouldn’t garner attention like this.

36. I wonder if its our boy uber who owned facebook 🙂

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=560765&highlight=wtb

    He seems to be want some massive vouchers, Hmmmmmmm I wonder why……lol

37. Seems like someone is going to get banned 🙂

    Anyways, Jeremy, I think you meant to say “REAL” Tones at your beginning message of this post. I’m just assuming that since your Google Search Page brings the search to “REAL” tones 🙂

    -Mike

38. hehehe good stuff

39. Smart and stupid at the same time. According to Google’s terms you are not allowed to have 2 ads pointing to the same site bidding on the same keyword.

40. I don’t think Google will have a problem with it because it is boosting the bid prices and increasing their revenue. If it was the same phenomena in the organic results it would be corrected in hours.

41. when it’s so obvioius, i wonder if it works

42. Nah, Google is more concerned about user experience here. Just think how many people would quit using their search engine if every SERP looked this way. The result would be a huge decrease in revenue.

    btw, I see them owning sponsored links down through 2 1/2 pages.

43. Those jerks – you’re supposed to be a bit more subtle than that or else they screw it up for everybody else 🙁

44. […] Free Ringtones wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Reader sent me a email saying if you searched Google for Ring Tones you would see all the same domain. You can see it here (for now) and screenshot: [IMG] I am thinking its got to be all separate accounts but you think google would be smart enough to see they all 301 to the same flycell landing page: [IMG] Good technique or about to be banned? What do you think? [IMG] […]

45. “This will most likely come under scrutiny by Google.”

    Agreed.

46. Is this guy/girl simply paying more than everyone else? Or is their quality score so high that they get top placement without paying top dollar?

47. Yea thats go a little over board with things. Whats funny is every one from this page is probably going to go search for real tones and then go clicking on the ads lol.

48. Well once they ban your accounts then you are screwed

49. hahaha,
    I think just rained on this guys ringtone parade.

50. I don’t think this will last but it is a good idea.

    If they had mixed the landing page style up, and used display URLs that were more varied it would have been a lot longer before they were caught.

51. Lol 🙂

52. Just a matter of time… This will be a rather expensive lesson.

53. Hard not to, but if it’s all within the TOS why would google care?

54. Man shoe you beat me to it i was going to post about this :)… but i would have to say at some point google willt ake notice but as far as how soon… who knows…

55. how about outing one of your competitors exploits

56. a great demonstration of how to subtly screw your competition in a crowded market.

57. Ya, I wasn’t saying its not a profitable technique, I’m saying this isn’t a good example of how to do it. If you have different ads, domains, affiliate offers etc. it works much better.

58. You would figure they’d at least use different looking domain names and ad text to make it look like different websites, rather than all of them using a domain that looks very similiar with almost identical ad text.

59. I didnt see it in time.

60. maybe he cracked google’s quality score.

61. Good technique, even just for a while !

62. These results are showing up in my google searh results, maybe it depends on the region.

63. how much is the ring-tone market worth?

64. About 5 Billion dollars a year (in 2005)

65. I think Shoemoney did a pretty good job of doing that himself. 😉

66. It’s a bit difficult when you have millions of advertisements… Posts like this should be able to pwn this method.

67. Anyone know how much it costs to be in the top spots like this? I bet his profit margins are tight.

68. try it again…it’s still there

69. they’re redirecting through azoogle

70. Um… I was joking, maybe it didn’t come across that way, my fault. Real classy calling me an idiot though.

71. if you look at the display URLs carefully they are all slightly different, and redirecting through different aff links. the TOS state there can only be one display URL. this way you don’t see 10 different ads all with the display URL as “www.Amazon.com” if you go around it, you could create the same ads with diff display URLs like am-azon.com, ama-zon.com and amaz-on.com…as an example

72. amen. idiots that take it to the extreme make it stricter for the rest of us

73. hahahahaha!! 😀

74. I’d say its a big banning for sure.

    Especially such a competitive market, with so many people watching it. Guys would be complaining right away.

    Regards
    Marc

75. I am sure that their ROI is all out of whack after everyone clicked to see the redirects.

76. Looks like $2.50 per click will get you on the top and FlyCell pays out about $11.50 so his conversion ratio would have to be 1:4 in order to make $0.60.

77. Why would he posts it if he is involved ?

78. They are sending it through azoogle to flycell. Kinda sucks they support this crap but oh well. Everyone search and click his ads, he has been doing this for about a month now. Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

79. Very sneaky, and kind of brilliant. But I’m sure Google will catch on to this pretty quickly.

80. I posted about this guy at WF two weeks ago..and several users reported to Azoogle but he/she still up & running..just amazing.

81. It should be banned. It’s hard enough trying to get good SERPS without others trying to screw up the rankings.

82. Just FYI, I posted a short screen capture clip of the sponsored link spam on my blog:

    http://www.scrappybusiness.com/google-sponsored-link-spam.htm

83. FYI, I just posted a short screen capture of this sponsored links spam on my blog.

84. Yea, that will get you banned quick

85. Been going on for a long time, there’s an old thread on WF about this, lots of speculation about how this person is getting away with this… prepaid credit cards, etc. Surprising that Azoogle hasn’t sent hitmen to his house, considering all the flack they’re taking over ringtone offers.

86. If he masks the 301 redirect, he’ll be banned for sure. Otherwise it is fine for the most part as long as they are setup by different users.

87. Is he doing some really effective cloaking to the quality score bot? Seems pretty ingenious to me…

88. Amazing that Google Adwords, didn’t check this out in the first place and let everyone else find about about it ;).

    Either way I’m suprised Azoogle are still continuing to run his account, after their recent “donation”.

89. Why wouldn’t they continue his account? He’s effectively promoting the product, bringing the buyer and seller together and bringing sales…

90. Is anyone here running PPC for ringtone offers? If so, has your traffic gone to zero (assuming that you are bidding on some of the same terms as the Ringtone Dominatrix)?

91. very smart yes, it is amazing the ways people come up with to beat the system

92. No wonder I was never able to make any money in ringtones:(

93. Nice! Reading Shoe’s blog can keep you busy.

94. Tough way to get some scratch. Ringtones seem so related to spam these days that it just isn’t worth messing with them. I don’t know i guess it works for some people…obviously.

95. […] incredible examples of people playing these games.  Here’s a post from ShoeMoney about a guy who bid up all 10 spots on Google’s sponsored listings for ringtones.  Here’s another one of how ShoeMoney made his ads standout on Google with the arrow […]

96. the ringtones adwords market is pretty damn saturated, and this shows it!

97. […] Die Arbitrage Königsklasse – krasse Aktion! […]

98. I think that’s effin’ brilliant. I had thought of doing that the other time, by competing with myself. But somehow I never got around to doing this.

    What’s amazing is how he manages to get past the Google’s QS issue without facing atrocious min. bids. THATS what I really want to know.

99. If he/she is using tons of Adwords vouchers, I think the QS would be a non-issue, high bids or not.

    I wonder is this will be the end for PPC vouchers from Google/Yahoo…

100. Good or bad? Why even ask, it got your attention, it got us visiting the site so…good 🙂
     Oh, unless they get banned. Then it’s bad. But then, still, they will be a site to remember so maybe it’s good. Anyway, porn rulez.

101. He will get banned for sure….

102. Haha, they owned google 🙂

103. Google got pwn3d < did that make any sense?

104. I think its in TOS, I dont see how its not

105. Banned in at most a month.

106. When Google “bans” these kinds of advertisers, they’re just playing whack-a-mole… the advertisers know how to pop right back up and do it all over again.

     It’s three weeks after Jeremy first pointed out the problem, and take a look at the search ads for “ring tones” or “real tones” — exact same thing as on Nov 17.

107. […] while back I showed a example of people gaming adwords. I got a lot of emails from people asking how 1 person can have so many Adwords accounts and how […]

108. Ooh Google

109. Just for the record, it’s December 23 and this ad still running strong. Let’s see, a month and a half of complete keyword domination…

110. its bad:S

111. You should all check out the “ripoffreport.com” and read about all the customers that have been scammed by this guy. He has a scheme to trick people into signing up for his ring tone subscription service! the guy apparently lives in NYC and is from italy, his name is Alberto Montesi, he publishes obviously fake or overinflated news stories about his company all over the internet. He is a brazen scam artist and has gotten away with this for years.

112. I think that they are banned. None of the results shows me at the moment one of their google adwords advertisement. Google is smart!

113. […] 4 months ago I talked about how ringtone people were dominating Google Adwords and its amazing that it is still going on. To the point where it really makes you […]

114. It must be very smart people doing that.

115. I cannot agree much more with what you wrote you and I appreciate the same thinghs as you ! Please write much more and I bookmarked you !

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