As you might expect, when it comes to internet advertising, PPC (Pay Per Click) agencies know all the dirty tricks. Corners can be cut, rules can be bent and grey areas can be wholeheartedly exploited … it all depends on how ethical the agency is and whether or not they want to play fair. As more and more companies take their advertising budgets online and away from traditional media, such as TV and print, the desperate scramble for PPC dollars has become increasingly ugly.

One such corner-cutting, rule-bending, grey-area-exploiting trick of the trade is when maverick agencies set up two or more websites for the same PPC service. The agency buys two or more similar domain names, creates two or more slightly different PPC websites, and then sets up two or more AdWords campaigns for these websites. So when Joe Bloggs types “Pay Per Click” into the Google search bar and scans the sponsored links in the search results, they see two or more sponsored link ads for the same agency.

Now everyone hates a monopoly, don’t they? It could be your corner shop or petrol station who ramp up their prices for people in the local vicinity that find it inconvenient to go elsewhere. It could be that service station, theme park or cinema that charges £5.00 for a hot dog once you’re trapped in their establishment. Or it could be Microsoft and their Windows operating system that is hated and frequently targeted by hackers all over the world. Not only are monopolies free to charge consumers whatever they like (there is no alternative), but they kill the competition and market forces that make companies and industries efficient and profitable.

I would never name-and-shame a fellow PPC agency for attempting to monopolise Google search results, but … **cough!** nudge-nudge, wink-wink … you may want to Google “Pay Per Click” and see whose doubling or even tripling up on their sponsored link ads!

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