Whilst sitting in a bar in Valencia looking into my emptying bottle of Heineken I couldn't help but notice the barmaid (btw: she was lovely and there were only three people in the whole place) as she walked over to the cash register (PC) and proceeded to bring up the google homepage. She then typed in a search and clicked on one of the links on the right hand columnn, nothing unusual there I guess (that's what the ads are there for!) after reading the subsequent site, she pressed 'back' and proceeded onto the next link down...she kept doing this until she had clicked all of them! (I would say there was 8) not satisfied, she then retyped her search and did the same thing all over again....TWO MORE TIMES!! By this time I was not only choking on my beer with my eyes hanging out on stalks but I was thinking "If she comes near my sites I'm gonna have to kill her!" It was odd but certainly proved to me that it should not be that unusual to get multiple clicks from the same IP/user. Either that or Google has to ban itself from the network. I figure the whole point of ads is to attract people to click, and if the ads are good/targeted then we should expect people to just keep clicking. I know I happily click down a whole list of standard URL's on a site and click the back button (I do this on the solicitations thread at DP all the time), why would it be unusual for someone "not in the know" to do this on your ads? James.
It happens to me from time to time... I get click bombed like that, but i don't worry much cause i'm not into any kind of fraud, i still trust the big G...
Let's not also forget their own picture of the "G" they placed next to their own advertising I agree... as a publisher... my responsibility should only be to provide the space for advertisers to sell their product. The more exposure I give them... the more I should be paid. That is the way it works with other media --- the better the picture --- the costlier the ad. And you do NOT get to choose which ads you want to view. It is not just clicks that make sales... it is also the exposure. Remember the X10 popups ? AND we all remember those superbowl commercials. The advertiser is the one that should be responsible for finding the correct channels to place his ads AND the webmaster / owner of the site being advertised is the one responsible for making the sale. That is the way I was taught. How can we be responsible for anyone such as that barmaid ? This paranoia over fraud clicks is getting to be too much. I believe this is also responsible for lost sales to Google and to the advertisers. I have gone under budget with adwords just waiting for people to click my ads and I also believe that webmasters such as I (those who would most likely purchase the products advertised on our sites... as we are both interested in the products being shown and are more trusting of buying over the internet) have avoided clicking on any ads at all due to all this paranoia. The time may just be right for another company to overtake the #1 position.
This is true. I have lost count how many times I have just moused over an ad to see where it goes, and typed it manually. I guess there are two losers in this scenario the webmaster and Google, but at least the advertiser is a winner. I don't know why I have such paranoia about clicking ads on other sites..I guess it's just to train myself to notice and avoid. I don't even click on ads on Google itself, I think I accidentally clicked one on there once whilst scrolling and felt like emailing them to say.. "please refund that advertiser it was an accidental click" James.
James, Wow, that's depressing! I think there's an explanation for this, though: Google's results, as of late, seem to have been less and less relevant, whereas the paid listings are going to always be completely relevant.
I just freed myself from Adlogger a couple days ago. Whatever happens, happens. I refuse to place any shackles on myself when it shouldn't be my responsibility to detect click fraud or not. I just got so sick of the multiple click emails.