PPC ClickFraud: Its a Bigger Problem then You Think

Pay per click search engine advertising is one of the most popular ways to promote a website. With Overture and Google leading the pack, the industry as a whole has grown immensely in the past few years. According to a report by PriceWaterHouseCoopers, they estimate that Internet Advertising brought in more than $9 billion in 2004 alone.

With PPC advertising you choose "keywords/phrases," then bid how much you'd like to pay for each click. When a searcher goes to a search engine and types in one of your keyphrases, your short text ad appears, and if they click on it your account is then charged. In a "perfect world" this is the way it would work, but thanks to unscrupulous people, there's a dirty little secret known as "click fraud."

Click fraud is simply the act of clicking on ads for the direct purpose of costing the advertiser money. It's similar to paying out cash for false leads. According to InternetWeek.com, 60% of those who responded to a survey conducted by the "Search Engine Professional Organization" had stated that fraud is a problem when it comes to PPC advertising.

So where does click fraud come from? Well, there are actually a few different sources:

1) AdSense Users: Google Adsense has a program called "Adsense" that pays website owners to run their Adwords ads and compensates them per click. Google does monitor this and it's against their terms of service to click on any of the ads on your own site. If they find a publishers doing this, they will lose their accounts, but some may still be clicking under the radar.

2) Your Competitors: Your competitors could be clicking on your ads over a period of several days in order to deplete your ad budget.

3) Software: There are those who use automated clicking tools, such as robot programs, to click on PPC listings.

In some Asian countries, people are often paid to click on PPC ads for hours. Many don't know why they do it, and don't care, only that they'll be well rewarded for their efforts. If you do a search on any search engine you'll see plenty of sites looking to hire people for just this purpose. For more on this see...http://tinyurl.com/2ka5g

Most PPC networks have measures in place to protect you against click fraud. Overture tracks more than 50 data points, including IP addresses, browser info, users' session info and what they call "pattern recognition." They have a "proprietary system" in place for detecting fraud and a specialized team that monitors things and works with the advertisers to stop it.

Google offers suggestions to avoid click thru fraud, such as "using negative keywords" to keep your ads from showing up for products and services that are unrelated. They also suggest adding tracking url's to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google. An easy way to do this is to add a ? to your links along with the identifier. For example, a tracking link to identify Google would look like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?referer-google

If you go through your log files, you'll be able to see your Google traffic at a glance.

If you suspect fraud, Google asks that you contact them right away, as they have a team of researchers that will investigate. They also take action to block future impressions from anyone they identify as committing click fraud. Like Overture, they also have "proprietary technology" that distinguishes between normal clicks and invalid ones. Google never bills you for any "bad clicks" that are caught by their system.

So what's an honest website owner to do? You need to be alert to any "suspicious activity" by researching your server logs or stats. If you're experiencing a lot of clicks and no sales you'll also want to take a closer look. You need to watch for any spikes in traffic, usually on one keyword or phrase and coming from only one PPC source. You need to measure and track all of your PPC accounts closely.

If this sounds like too much work, you may want to look at an outside service to take care of it for you. A variety of new services have opened recently to help combat the click fraud problem.

1) Keyword Max: http://www.KeyWordMax.com

Offers up a service called "Click Auditor," which monitors the activity on your PPC accounts and alerts you to any suspicious activity. You can request a free demo at the site.

2) Click Detective: http://ClickDetective.net

A website monitoring service that uses sophisticated tracking mechanisms to determine whether "visitor behavior" is normal or not. Offering a 15 day free trial. Easy to use, you just copy and paste a snippet of code on your page and add a campaign ID by logging into your account.

3) Click Assurance: http://ClickAssurance.com

An Internet Security Firm that specializes in click fraud. They will audit your PPC accounts and go after any refunds you are due because of fraud.

4) Who's Clicking Who: http://WhosClickingWho.com

An independent auditing service that tracks individual users for fraud. Can also detect abuse coming from proxy servers. A one month subscription is $79.00, which includes free installation and up to 50,000 transactions per month.

5) ClickLab: http://ClickLab.com/products/click-fraud

This service isolates bad clicks with a scorecard based detection system. Pricing starts at $50.00 per month and is based on the number of sites you need to track and their page views.

ClickLab also has a nice white paper you should download while visiting: "How to Defend Your Website Against Click Fraud."

Click fraud isn't going away anytime soon. If anything, it will probably get worse before it get's any better. It's up to you as a vigilant website owner to do what you can to keep your PPC advertising costs down. You can't stop it, but with the right tracking in place, it can be managed and controlled, and hopefully kept to a minimum.

"Must Have Marketing Resources" Ebook by Merle is loaded with VALUABLE online resources you need to know about, when it comes to running your web business. Get your copy now at ... http://mcebook.mcpromotions.com

---

When Adsense Makes No Sense: Knowing When Not To Use The Google Adsense Pay-Per-Click Program

Google's AdSense program is a proven money-maker that has enriched... Read More

Advertising Your Home Business With Pay Per Click Can Be Risky

An unfortunate byproduct of the pay per click advertising business... Read More

Profit from Adsense with Adwords

Here's a feisty trick where you can profit from Adsense... Read More

AdWords Campaign Set Up Tips

It's easy to overlook the basics of a strong AdWords... Read More

Dynamic Resource for Adsense: 3 Practical Models Quickly Earn & Maximize Google Adsense Revenue

Looking back in time, I could still remember standing in... Read More

Google Adsense - A Website Income

Many of us have websites and as a matter of... Read More

Can I Make Money Online with the Adsense Program?

Sure you can. If you will learn how many other... Read More

Click Fraud ? Threatening the Internet Economy

One of the most popular forms of Internet advertising is... Read More

Get Real-time Adsense Channel Stats And Find Out Which Ads Are Being Clicked

If you have multiple sites or multiple directories in your... Read More

Internet Advertising Options

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a... Read More

The Google Revolution

Google is probably one of the single most important revolutions... Read More

The Sensible Way To Earn Money With Google AdSense!

Dear friends,Google AdSense has rapidly gained a status of an... Read More

Pay Per Performance Web Traffic

Why should you pay to get web site traffic, isn't... Read More

Independent Search Engine & Directory Network (ISEDN) - Breaking News!

Watch out for a shift in the pay-per-click (PPC) industry,... Read More

10 Ways To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search Engines

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed... Read More

7 Explosive Strategies to Maximize Your Google AdWords Campaigns

If you ever used Google AdWords to advertise your product... Read More

Cost Per Click Bid Management

Cost per click or pay per click is a common... Read More

Adsense ? The Powerful Passive Income Generator

Webmasters have a revolutionary new method of collecting income from... Read More

Pay Per Click Advertising - How To Uncover Profit-Pulling Keywords And Make Your Sales Soar

Choosing to bid on the right keywords can be key... Read More

Irresistible Click-Me Tools for Marketing

Never mind the irritating, but effective, pop-up window. There is... Read More

Google AdWords: Like Playing The Lottery

A "dollar and a dream," is all you need said... Read More

Replacing AdSense Defaults with Paying Ads

Many online ad programs, including AdSense, will sometimes show default... Read More

How to Make Every AdSense Ad on the Google Network Pay You!

Wouldn't it be great if every keyword in Google's entire... Read More

How To Use Pay Per Click Ads Without Ruining Yourself

It may seem to be a very expensive way of... Read More

Find Powerful Keyword Phrases in Five Easy Steps!

You may not realize it, but in the next few... Read More

How to Skyrocket Your Paid Search Profits

Faced with a mediocre or worse performing paid search campaign... Read More

$1 Million in Google AdSense Earnings

They are calling him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis... Read More

Regarding the AdSense Update...

If you haven't yet got a Google AdSense account for... Read More

Choosing the Right Keywords for Your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign

Introduction:Of all the important decisions that go into a successful... Read More

Two Imperative Keys For Profitable Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay per click marketing is one of the simplest and... Read More

What is Pay-Per-Click?

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is when an advertiser pays for each... Read More

Pay Per Click Advertising Can Be Very Risky Business

Click fraud is an unfortunate byproduct of the pay per... Read More

3 Strategies to Profit When Click Prices Increase (Part 1 of 3 Series)

Although the degree of increase varies among industry resources, a... Read More