Most people who have businesses on the Internet know about Google and Yahoo / Overture PPC programs. These are considered first tier advertising programs for those who need to receive targeted traffic to their website. Google and Yahoo / Overture also have publisher programs so that web publishers can place ads on their websites and earn revenue from the clicks on the ads.
Google’s AdSense program accounted for record profits in the third quarter of 2005 ($957 million total for all programs). The Yahoo / Overture publisher program is still in beta but has been a welcomed alternative to many who would like to diversify off from Google, are disenchanted with Google or who have been dropped by Google for various reasons.
As a second tier publisher program, Miva (formerly FindWhat.com) also offers an alternative for the same reasons and there is a shorter wait in the application process than for Yahoo / Overture. Miva offers higher click rates than the third tier programs like Searchfeed or Kanoodle and features something quite unique that Google AdSense refugees will appreciate.
It’s been well circulated on the message boards that Google will ban many publishers for ‘invalid clicks’ whether they were the source for these clicks or not. This arbitrary banning of publishers have led many to look for alternatives that are much more publisher-friendly.
In Miva’s Partner Center, invalid clicks are accounted for and integrated with the click results pages. Clicks are categorized as ‘clicks’ and ‘screened’ and neither the publisher or Miva gets paid for the screened clicks. Miva will work with publishers by giving out the IP addresses of click robots that need to be banned through the Webmaster’s host. This matter-of-fact, “Yeah, we know invalid clicks happen and this is just part of business on the web” approach will be refreshing for those who cower in fear of being dropped by their current programs for clicks that they cannot control. With this publisher-friendly approach, Miva cannot help but succeed when it comes to courting publishers who want more alternatives for their web properties.
