Software to avoid click fraud to publishers - pls write one

It's not really possible to stop people from clicking ur account. I've written a script which checks a session variable flag (bit). It goes through the database and checks the remote_host IP to see if he/she has clicked more than 5 times today, if so - don't dislpay ads. The only problem is the browser back button and getting the page not to cache in all browsers (which is nearly impossible). Even with no-cahe headers added it doesn't work 100%.

There is no failsafe solution - my script only provides a basic check. But I'd rather be safe than sorry. There is no way to check if someone else has added your adsense code to their page as far as I know - except by checking your adsense account clicks and verifying against your site stats.

 

i dont think sessions is the best way to do it. just simple php to check against a db....

check db to see if ip has clicked x times today
if < x then echo adsense ads
else
echo nowt

.....ah i re-read the post again.... hmmmmm - you are correct about the back button thingy.

 

back button and someone opening your site in 20 windows, then clicking on ads in each window

 

Just a bit session set to either 1 or 0. Otherwise you would have to run a SQL query every time someone loads every page. Might slow things down a bit. Rather just check if the session var exists - then only do the DB check if u need to. BTW - This method will catch the 20 windows problem.

 

Ahh... I didn't realize that you were talking about people who copied your sites.

If someone is copying your site though - in order for that code to work, they will need to have copied your php files, which means that they would have had access to your server, which would mean you have bigger problems to deal with.

 

Yep - there is no way to know besides cross referencing between ur adsense account and your own click stats. :|

 

I think it's very hard to detect this, specially if someone copies your adsense code and go click crazy on another website. I can't think of a way to detect this. What is even worse is that we dont know if google have a way of detecting it either

 

But isnt a validation system better........like if u click on an ad u need 2 verify on the advertisers site rather then Ip address thingys and the likes........

 

I don't understand, could you elaborate on this idea?

 

Something like if i click on this ad and there has a words to be clicked to verify that its not a bot doing all this ........something like when u sign up and u have 2 validate ur a human and not a compter contrlled is doing it

 

That would never happen as it would cost Google 99% of their business overnight.

People aren't going to do that for the "privelage" of viewing an ad.

 

It was just a passing thought.....everyone is entitled to an opinion

 

I didn't mean that to come across bad. Sorry if it did.

I was just remarking that people will not use on of those crypt boxes to view an ad

 

I got a bit tied up with other things but I'm still checking into this.
With the caching/back button problems, you need the checking to be initiated from the client machine (not the server).
This requires javascript to call a remote script, you use this script to check the ip address for x number of clicks, script returns true/false (for accept/deny). If accept then you use javascript to write the adsense code to the screen, if deny, then you write something else .
This should take care of the back button and cache problems I think. It also isn't alterring the adsense code in anyway so shouldn't violate any TOS.
Ofcourse it relies on being able to call a remote script from within javascript and have the return put in a variable - which should be possible.

 

That would get round the back button, but not opening the site in many windows before you click the ad.

 

The only way I think you could defeat that would be to check the number of impressions per IP address in a given time. And only allow a certain number - this could be done server side.
The odds are that if someone is going to do that, then they're probably going to be opening 10+ windows in quick succession - there may be a valid reason for 10 or so page views in a specific time frame from the same IP address (eg from a cache) which would be that you would be loosing potentially good clicks.
That's the only way around that I can think of, and it's not a great idea imho.
But then, if someone is opening multiple windows before clicking one of your ads, then you've got serious problems. Doing that sort of thing would imply a lot of fore thought.

 

Is there a way to perform a function on a web page something like "OnPageClose do this" type of thing? If so, you can add a routine at the beginning to write IP and open status to a table, and then when the page is closed or user goes to another page, have it write back to that table with a closed status. Then as part of the check routing check to see how many windows they have open? Not sure if this is possible, and also not sure what effect the "Back" function would have on this.

At least we are getting some good brainstorming here. Bringing all the possibilities out onto the table.

 

The major problem I am finding here is the adsense tracking script does not log any Mozilla clicks, therefore there is no database entry to do a lookup for if the person is not using I.E.

Has anyone got a Mozilla workaround for the adsense javascript tracker to make it mozilla compliant? Apparently mozilla does not recognise "onfocus". Any workaround or link to a multibrowser non commercial tracker script will be appreciated.

Otherwise it's pretty pointless checking a database for clicks that will never be registered :-(

 

The thing is that all they need is to see your ads once. Once they have that they can go into adsense and generate the code needed to display your ads wherever they want. There is nothing you can do to protect from this since you need to send out the info in order to display your ads.

I have to imagine anybody that's willing to go through the trouble of sabotaging your site will be willing to go the extra 30 seconds to obtain your publisher id if you are blocking them.

I had to be negative nellie here, but without google's cooperation on this issue, this is largely an uneffective effort.

 

Totally agree, this is the part that seems harder to do. The mozilla clicks can be detected using other events instead of onfocus but I have no idea of what can be done if someone copies your adsense code on another domain and began to click.