Click Fraud
Pay Per Clicks and Click Fraud
Pay Per Click advertising is used widely for all areas of advertising.
This includes those in the marketing business selling their wares to those selling property. One can use the services of Google,
Yahoo, or other companies for placement.
How the process works is that the keywords of the business and the advertisements are developed. The vendor is paid when a searcher clicks on an advertiser's ad that has been place.
However there is fraud occurring in the Pay Per Click advertising.
According to the Click Fraud Index, this type of fraud has risen every quarter in the last year.
The overall click fraud rate per quarter:
In the first quarter of 2007: 14.6%
In the second quarter of 2007: 15.8%
In the third quarter: 16.2%
In the fourth quarter: 16.6%
Fraud can be committed in several ways. Remember that the advertisement is displayed on pages where its keywords are relevant to the topic. The person that owns the website receives a portion of the revenue, from the click. This increases their income will driving up the costs of the advertiser.
Another way is for a competitor in your field using your ad and clicking on it numerous times, to also increase your costs.
Clickbots are robot programs that are programmed to actually click on the ads. This robot goes through the web clicking on advertisements and making the programmer money. This robot can be inserted as a virus in a complex manner spreading
widely, causing a multitude of clicks.
There is also a group of people who actually do this for a living.
They are known as those that are part of a Clickfarm. Most of those who perform these clicks live in other countries, mostly depressed ones. They are paid a very small sum of money for a click.
The threat level of Click Fraud is higher in Mexico, SouthernSouth America, Northern Europe, and India.
What Is Being Done About It?
Google uses four layers of click fraud detection. The first one being automatic and filters click frames from both search and Adsense partners contextual ads.
The second is a flagging system that is also automatic that removes invalid clicks from the Adwords systems. This is aimed at Adsense clicks.
The third is a manual review that is preformed by Google employees who filter Adsense clicks; they review, and remove any suspicious clicks.
The fourth is also manual and that is requested investigations.
According to Ghosemajumder, a representative for Google:
The click fraud rate filtering system dramatically decreases the fraud through the four layers layers of detection.
What Can You Do?
Keep a daily track of your clicks. Read the reports.
Set a budget on a monthly or weekly schedule. When the funds are exhausted for the weeks, have the ads turn off.
Have your advertisement placed on search engine result pages only. This means not on site pages.
Term your keywords carefully and have them where they must come up in a specific sequence.
Use a service to track your clicks. They do however cost but their fee is usually very small.
Don't let fraud stop you from using this great tool.
Author:
Sandi Baker
http://letusgetitdone.info/
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