“Lawsuit claims ads on parked domains are low quality and unlikely to convert.”
San Jose, Calif., — A legal attorney has sued Google alleging that none of his ads on parked domain names yielded any fruitful results, and that Google did not provide an easy way to opt out of domain parking, quoted Information Week.
“The suit was first reported by InformationWeek.”
Google was sued for deception, business code violations, and unjust enrichment, claims arising by company’s alleged selling of low-quality ads that were unlikely to generate conversions.
The class-action lawsuit was lodged before the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., by lawyers from San Francisco-based Schubert Jonckheer Kolbe & Kralowec. The complainant is attorney Hal K. Levitte, who advertised his legal services though Google AdWords pay-per-click campaign last year.
According to the charges, the “Levitte International” online ad campaign was displayed from June 1, 2007, through August 18, 2007 on parked domains through Google for Domains.
During that period, Google placed 202,528 “Levitte International” ads publicized in relation to parked domain pages — Internet addresses that have been registered but that have no Web pages — and 1,009 ads on error pages that can be displayed when people type invalid URLs into their browsers, according to the report of the suit.
“The attorney spent $136.11 for ads on parked domains and error pages, which sums up to 15.3% of his $887.67 ad campaign.”
Despite this many number of clicks, Levitte asserted that his site only got 668 impressions and worst than that none of those clicks were converted to any action by users who visited Levitte’s site.
Apart from this, Levitte’s ads also appeared on error pages, through Google’s AdSense for Errors program. With 1,009 impressions, only 25 clicks with no conversions, he had little to show for it.
“Domain and error page ads count-up for approximately 16.2% of all clicks on plaintiff’s ads during his campaign, yet did not result in a single person completing the online form on the site, or contacting the plaintiff by phone or e-mail,” the complaint states.
According to the article, the lawsuit alleges that “Google includes millions of parked domains and error pages that have little or no content, and that result in practically zero conversions, in both its Content Network and its Search Network. Given the low quality of these parked domain and error pages, advertisers would not want to spend their advertising budgets on these distribution networks. However, Google designed its network in such a way that it was virtually impossible to opt out of the AdSense for Domains and/or AdSense for Errors programs.”
“Google’s conduct is unjust because Google fails to reveal that customers’ ads are placed on parked domains and error page sites, and Google does not provide a reliable means for customers to prevent those ads from appearing on these sites. In fact, until March 2008, Google offered no means at all for customers to exclude their ads from appearing on these sites,” the complaint said.
In seeking class certification for the lawsuit, Levitte’s attorneys look forward to represent other aggrieved Google advertisers. “We believe it is a problem that affects all Google’s advertisers equally,” said Kimberly Kralowec, partner at the law firm representing Levitte.
In the phraseology of online marketing, “low-quality ads” refers not to sharp infomercials but to ads that generate a poor response or show a poor conversion rate due to problems with placement, audience targeting, or related factors.
Legal keywords like “mesothelioma lawyer” inclined to merit substantially higher prices than most biddable possibilities. It appears highly unlikely a court will judge for this plaintiff for failing to be competitive in the market, but sometimes judges make odd decisions.
Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said, the company had not yet seen the complaint and thus could not comment.