Jamie87

Thrown in £50. Might as well. QQ: What if PIF pledge £330m?

I'm also feeling a wave of optimism alongside all these emoceans Yup, hopefully we can send Bruce back to hull It's either that or he'll go down with this ship.

I agree to a certain extent, but I also think it's worth us all putting our efforts into something meaningful. I've personally found it very cathartic replying to @premierleague posts on Twitter, but it's really just making me feel better and venting. It won't change anything. I'm afraid this letter is a bit like that. I won't say it's childish, or wrong even, but it doesn't lay down the groundwork for a meaningful legal battle with the EPL. It should mention the grounds for litigation at least, rather than just threatening it, i.e. what law has been broken? @redrosemichelle seems to have put forward something more substantive and closer to something in legalese. That said, more power to Gordon and good on him for having a go. I can completely understand anyone that's furious/depressed/despondent at the situation. I also don't want any fellow NUFC fans wasting their time screaming into the void as a lone voice, or potentially getting themselves into trouble (on grounds of liable or harassment). It's another reason that I think we need further clarity from the consortium. Ms Staveley, PCP et al have unleashed the kraken on the EPL - and we're currently fighting a fight for them - but the latest statement essentially amounted to "thanks, it means a lot". We need clarification that there is something beyond just a (hopefully) moral victory at the end of it, and that our ferocity is equalled by their own. Its another reason why the NUST are more important than ever.

Is that genuine response that someone's had? Yeah, a screenshot of the actual email has been sent to NUST on Twitter. Link?

Is that genuine response that someone's had?

People mocked the idea that this could affect people's mental health. Well I tell you what, this is pretty fucking depressing. I think I might actually be done, like properly. I don't want to just make up the numbers and turn up so other teams can have something to beat. Until Ashley leaves, dies of old age, or someone takes a drastic measure against him, we will forever be a bad joke. Fuck the Premier League and their little boys club, fuck what football has become and fuck Mike Ashley, he's done more to harm the regions well-being than anyone I can think of, and he gets to walk around breathing the same air as us. This wouldn't have just been good for NUFC, it would have been good for the North East. A massive, massive part of my life has been stolen - and its been stolen by a bunch of rich boys playing their fucking games. Fuck the lot of them. May they die a thousand deaths.

Yes, Retailers are predominantly interested in returns for sure. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS = Revenue generated/Ad spend) is the normal metric they're interested in. But let's keep it simpler with Cost Per Acquisition (CPA = Cost/Sales). I gave you an example where costs were reduced and sales not increased. That's still an improvement in average CPA. They'd be happy with that. Totally agree that I'm making assumptions. As we both are. But I would take you up on your wager. Spend limits are a naive way to control spend. Bid and CPC is a much better way. If you're capping out and losing impression share to Budget, you're leaving money on the table. You could have got the same spend away with more clicks at a lower CPC, or you've missed out on potentially profitable clicks that could have been had later in the day. The truth is though, that neither of us know for sure. Unless one of happens to work on their account?! So at absolute best, all we can say is that clicking on their ads fraudulently might make their account less efficient, and it might make it more efficient. At the moment we're sitting on the two opposite sides of the fence, based on our own vast experience. And I'd hazard you're an expert in the field. I'd consider myself one too. If we're not in agreement, then it's because it's impossible to say what the definite outcome will be. In which case I think the best course of action would be to agree it's uncertain and not do it. As an aside, I'm not trying to create confrontation or cause problems. This is just my informed opinion on the topic and I'm not trying to belittle the views of others. Maybe we even know each other IRL, PPC is an incredibly small and incestuous world afterall! Fair enough, let's call it 1-1. 69? Your place or mine?

No comment.

Yes, Retailers are predominantly interested in returns for sure. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS = Revenue generated/Ad spend) is the normal metric they're interested in. But let's keep it simpler with Cost Per Acquisition (CPA = Cost/Sales). I gave you an example where costs were reduced and sales not increased. That's still an improvement in average CPA. They'd be happy with that. Totally agree that I'm making assumptions. As we both are. But I would take you up on your wager. Spend limits are a naive way to control spend. Bid and CPC is a much better way. If you're capping out and losing impression share to Budget, you're leaving money on the table. You could have got the same spend away with more clicks at a lower CPC, or you've missed out on potentially profitable clicks that could have been had later in the day. The truth is though, that neither of us know for sure. Unless one of happens to work on their account?! So at absolute best, all we can say is that clicking on their ads fraudulently might make their account less efficient, and it might make it more efficient. At the moment we're sitting on the two opposite sides of the fence, based on our own vast experience. And I'd hazard you're an expert in the field. I'd consider myself one too. If we're not in agreement, then it's because it's impossible to say what the definite outcome will be. In which case I think the best course of action would be to agree it's uncertain and not do it. As an aside, I'm not trying to create confrontation or cause problems. This is just my informed opinion on the topic and I'm not trying to belittle the views of others. Maybe we even know each other IRL, PPC is an incredibly small and incestuous world afterall!

Only if you want to. Not because its going to have some definite negative impact on Mike Ashley. Because it won't. What you can do though is choose to shop at other Sports retailers. So if you ever need a Cricket ball, click someone else's ad and buy from them. That is the only way you can actually impact him for sure; stop spending in Sports Direct. That's why the Northumberland Street protest is important.

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing. If we inadvertently I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place. Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier. I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise. Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me? So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40. We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway. I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at OK. Last thing from me. If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more. Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball". Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword. Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient. That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains. I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha! If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple. I'm really not over complicating things. You're making some big assumptions: 1) That they have a Campaign Daily Budget or Shared Daily Budget cap which your going to be able to force them to hit prematurely. That's a massive assumption, as most large advertisers don't cap their activity in this way. 2) That they aren't getting substantial click traffic through Paid Search already. SportDirect.com, like it or not, are a massive business and will be getting huge amounts of traffic through Paid Search. The whole Google Ads set up is built to avoid exactly what you're trying to do here. If it worked the way you want it to, then any business who wanted to detrimentally impact their competitors could use this as a tactic. They can't, and they don't. If you really want to increase costs for SportsDirect.com and improve Google's revenue, then you could just create a Google Ads account for SportsRedirect.com and bid on the term "sports direct". It would cost you money, but it would be more felt. But then we're stepping into the realms of madness. I strongly suggest you find another way of protesting.

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing. If we inadvertently I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place. Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier. I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise. Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me? So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40. We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway. I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at OK. Last thing from me. If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more. Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball". Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword. Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient. That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains. I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing. If we inadvertently I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place. Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier. I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise. Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591 The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122 One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

I still think you'll get filtered out. Even with VPN and browser tricks. Google are pretty smart. If they see suspicious activity in anyway, they err on the side of caution and don't charge the Advertiser. Even assuming you don't get filtered out, 3 clicks a day is going to be costing an Advertiser not very much. Especially in the context of all the genuine traffic a big advertiser might be getting - you'll be accounting for 0.00000001% of spend. My advice would be to not waste your time.

nice Love this. Chelsea Jersey worked a treat. So if I search for Chelsea Jersey and for me on my mobile the first one is sports direct if I keep clicking on it will it charge SD loads?? https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/42995?hl=en-GB You'll get filtered out. This practice was fairly common many years ago, where companies were using "black-hat" techniques to inflate an advertiser's costs. Google are very good at filtering this sort of activity out nowadays. I'd save your time.

Anyone able to give a quick summary for those of us trapped outside the UK?

It's time to make Ashley's position at NUFC untenable. And the only way to peacefully do that is to not show up to matches, not buy shirts, not watch on TV, not go to Sports Direct. Which is simultaneously the exact opposite to what I want for NUFC under Rafa. But that's the only peaceful option we have. He's spat in the face of everyone of us with this takeover masquerade and led us all on like we're simpletons. The man has taken absolute liberties with an entire region of this country and he cannot be allowed to continue. May his remaining path through this life be laden with gross misfortune, the detestable toad.

The saying is "damp squib", not "damp squid". http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/damp_squib Thanks.

I felt sorry for Pardew today. In the same way I felt sorry for Captain Hook, when he was portrayed by Dustin Hoffman, in the Hollywood movie Hook. Exact same emotion. Just wanted to share. Thanks.

My answer is f*** off tbh Why you insult us ? show respect. If you are looking for reason and respect, you've come to the wrong place. Now kindly Foxtrot Oscar.

What a depressing state of affairs. We have to buy, or we're down. Surely Ashley has to try and protect his investment, even just from a cold business point of view. To think the positivity of two years ago has dissolved into this. Abject misery, no hope, no way out. The only way things will improve is if Ashley is bought out. We need journos, ex players, persons of interest, fans to highlight this in a mainstream way. Not boucootss, but some organised affair. The bin dippers managed to oust their undesirables, and in comparison they were a dream. Surely we have enough disgruntled people to have some sort of coherent message sent to the maniacal despot running the place. I'm tempted to start a kick starter account and see if we can't stump up the cash to buy the club.

Rob Elliott marching up the field with the ball at his feet and waving everyone to play higher up, all the way to the half way line. Was really strange. I'd have thought Anzhi would have pressed him to stop him coming further forward. He was then able to dispatch a long kick, almost like a bloody set penis. Thought it quite odd.

Just got back from the game. Was stood right next to the players tunnel. Frustrating result, but better performance at least. Davide Santon said sorry to the fans as he left the pitch, looked absolutely gutted.

There is not enough positive sentiment coming through on this.