Google just announced that they’ve started testing a new advertising option called pay-per-action (PPA). With click fraud eroding confidence in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Google’s new offering ensures that advertisers pay only when a customer takes a specific action, such as filling out a form or purchasing an item.

With pay-per-click (or cost-per-click) advertisers pay each time an advertisement is clicked. PPC ads are extremely vulnerable to fraudulent clicks which inflate the total bill for the advertiser. PPA ads help combat this by making sure the advertiser receives something of value (a customer’s information, a sale, etc.) in exchange for their advertising fees.

Other companies are already doing this (also called CPA or cost-per-acquisition) but Google is just now entering the game. This should be great news to smaller companies who are more price-sensitive and concerned about the cost of click fraud.

More on the subject:

Google’s announcement
TechCrunch Summary

OK, I’m finally back in Salt Lake and able to take a few minutes to post about my recent trip to Milwaukee to present to the Milwaukee Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA).

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If you attended my presentation yesterday at the Milwaukee Interactive Marketing Association meeting, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t yet posted to my blog to include additional information as promised. Blame it on the rain…

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SEO is a hot topic. Everyone wants to achieve top rankings in the search engines. I’m no different. We’re all obsessed with getting to the top of the list, but the following article points out that there are reasons that it might be OK to be ranked lower than first (not that first isn’t still the best).

This link is to a brief summary of an article originally written by Melissa Burdon at grokdotcom. Mike’s summary is pretty insightful and thought-provoking. I think it’s a must-read for anyone interested in SEO.

http://www.mikemoran.com/biznology/archives/2007/03/whats_the_real.html

Seems like web standards and accessibility are continuing to attract attention. Here are a few recent articles I’ve stumbled upon relating to web standards.

Accessibility matters to… — a good overview of who benefits from standards

Web Standards: it’s about quality, not compliance — a passionate, if not somewhat overboard, post about what web standards really means

Web Standards Project Street Team — announcement about a new grassroots program from WaSP