Chitika filters out "curiosity clicks"
Haven't seen much talk about this one yet, but the posting What happened to the product links? on the official Chitika blog shows that Chitika is going through some growing pains. They've had to update their eMiniMalls units to filter out what it calls “curiosity clicks”, which is a polite term for what we AdSense publishers call “click fraud”.
I can't say I'm surprised, really, what with all the fuss about Chitika among bloggers looking for alternative ways to monetize their content. (If you want to join, use my affiliate link, if you don't mind. Thanks!) Anyone who thinks that these other pay-per-click systems won't eventually end up with payout rates similar to AdSense are just deluding themselves. Once the novelty wears off, you'll see things level off on a general basis, and it will be up to each individual site owner to figure out which program works best for them, because it certainly won't be the same for everyone. Remember Asimov's psychohistory? A lot of parallels there.
Your best strategy is to think long term, not short term. Work on your sites to drive more traffic to them and to make that traffic more appealing (and convertable) to advertisers. Experiment. Investigate other ad programs, sure, but don't forget the big picture.
Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book. Or add it directly to your Amazon shopping cart!
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