The Click Fraud Problem
Click fraud has become a major problem for online marketers. If
you participate on Google adwords campaigns or Overture, you
must already pay a lot for your campaigns.
What is click fraud?
Click fraud is the deliberate clicks to PPC search engine ads
for completely other reasons than expressing interest for buying
the related products or services. Overture defines click fraud
as clicks arising for reasons other than the good-faith
intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase
goods or services or to obtain information. Google defines click
fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially
and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions. In
simple words, Click fraud means that someone is cheating you and
that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns. Who is
doing that? Three main groups click on pay per click ads,
without real interest in the offered goods: People who joined
Google AdSense or other per click affiliate programs click on
the ads on their own web site to make a little income. Often,
these people cooperate with other webmasters to click on each
other's ads. Some unethical companies click on the pay per click
ads of competitors to drive up their advertising costs.
Companies (often in India, Russia and China) hire people who are
paid to click on ads. Google and other search networks provide
refunds to advertisers when click fraud has been discovered.
Google and Overture employ "fraud squads," or teams of people
dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing
executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent
clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent
of advertising fees paid to all search networks. This is a huge
problem. There is no