Yodle Scam… That’s what Google Suggest shows us when you first start typing Yodle into Google.

Scam is a strong word. I wouldn’t use it lightly. But apparently enough people type that into Google to cause their Google Suggest to displayYodle Scam.

I won’t theorize as to why that is such a popular search term, but I did want to share an interesting PPC result I found today.

I did a search for Denver garage door repair. The first paid result had ad text stating “High Quality Work in Southern Cali…”. What an interesting ad for Denver CO, I thought…

So I clicked it (sorry advertiser) and was taken to a company that clearly services Southern California, despite their ad showing in Denver CO to a searcher based in the NYC Metro area.

Denver is a city in California which this company probably services, but the folks who set up their PPC campaign clearly didn’t proprely set up geo-targeting. As a result, instead of showing the ad to just people in California or Denver CA it’s showing up anyone who types in Denver Garage Door Repair. Not good.

So who was responsible for the error? I scrolled to the bottom of the page and found my answer…

Yodle.

So is Yodle a scam? To say they are purposely defrauding their customers is a serious accusation. I wouldn’t say Yodle is a scam. I would just call them incompetent. This type of bad PPC management isn’t a rarity, hence the reason for such negativity and distrust when it comes to Yodle.

How much money that garage door company will waste on worthless clicks is anyones guess… It certainly won’t be known to the SMB because Yodle is not transparent about their costs per click. All the advertiser will know is that they blew through their budget and received X number of clicks. And just how valuable are those clicks? Is that local service business really going to get any business out of a searcher in Colorado?

Perhaps this is why the term Yodle Scam is in Google Suggest. Because SMB’s come to realize Yodle has wasted their money on a number of worthless clicks. Or maybe there are other reasons… What do you think?